OCR Text |
Show Treatment for Small-Pox. There is no medicine which can check this disorder; when once taken it must go though its regular stages, and nothing will cut short or cure it. The patient should be at once isolated. The diet should be light consisting of milk, tea, gruel, beef-tea, chicken broth, etc. The hair should be cut close as it is impossible to brush or comb it after the pustules have risen. Great pains should be taken to ventilate the room without having too much draught, and it should be kept at a temperature of 60 degs. Scrupulous cleanliness must be observed, and all linen, clothes, etc.[Et Cetera], must be disinfected after being used. Carpets and hangings of any kind must be dispensed with. Flour, starch, or arrow-root may be sprinkled abundantly over the face to relieve the itching and discomfort, and to absorb the acid discharge. Olive oil, cold cream, and glycerine [glycerin] and water will also relieve the patient, when locally applied. To prevent pitting keep the light from the patient's face, either by covering it with a piece of something black - say silk, with holes out of the eyes and nostrils, or by keeping the room dark. Covering the face is better than darkening the room; it is more convenient for the attendants, and has a better effect on the skin. The part of the body covered with clothes is scarcely marked in comparison with the parts exposed - as the face and hands. Small-pox is dreadfully infectious; on one, therefore must in allowed to come in contact with anything which the patient has touched until it has been carefully disinfect4ed. The room in which the patient laid must be thoroughly fumigated before being used again. In small-pox the pits can be entirely prevented by covering the pustules as fast as they break with a coating of collodion, a liquid cuticle, sold by all druggists. |