Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/215

 thin gruel, may be given, but not caring, unless he be an infant at the breast, if he take nothing but cold water. If the child be two years old and upwards, roasted apples with sugar, and grapes will be very refreshing, and will tend to cleanse both the mouth and the throat. Avoid broths and stimulants of every kind.

When the appetite returns, you may consider the patient to be safe. The diet ought now to be gradually improved. Bread and butter, milk and water, and arrow-root made with equal parts of new milk and water, should for the first two or three days be given. Then a light batter or rice pudding may be added, and in a few days afterward, either a little chicken or a mutton-chop.

The essential remedies, then, in scarlet fever, are, for the first few days—(1) plenty of fresh air and ventilation, (2) plenty of cold water to drink, (3) barm poultices to the throat, and (4) the acidulated infusion of roses' mixture as a medicine.

Now, then, comes very important advice. After the first few days, probably five or six, sometimes as early as the fourth day, ''watch carefully and warily, and note the time, the skin will suddenly become cool'', the child will say that he feels chilly; then is the time you must now change your tactics—instantly close the windows, and put extra clothing, a blanket or two on his bed. A flannel night-gown should, until the dead skin has peeled off, be now worn next to the skin, when the flannel night-gown should be discontinued. The patient ought ever after to wear, in the daytime, a flannel waistcoat. On the importance, the vital importance, of the wearing of flannel next to the skin, see Flannel Waistcoats. His drinks must now be given with the chill off; he ought to have a warm cup of tea, and gradually his diet should, as I have previously recommended, be improved.

There is one important caution I wish to impress upon