Читать книгу A Book of Medical Discourses, in Two Parts онлайн

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No Bay Rum, perfume, puff powders or other unnatural substances should be tolerated about young infants. But after the patients have been made comfortable, all soiled clothing or slops should be quietly removed. All loud talking or laughing should be strictly prohibited. To insure this, no sly jokes should be indulged in by any one present; for by so doing convulsions of an alarming nature may be brought on. Judging from the actions of some women, when around a confinement bed, it is not at all unlikely that many cases of internal convulsions, both of mother and child, are the results of inward or suppressed laughter soon after delivery, and before the womb has had time to get in place, or when the babe is nursing.

Infants should be accustomed to a change of apparel as soon as possible. It is an error to suppose that a child should be kept hot, and tucked down in soiled wrappings till after the navel drops off. After twenty-four hours it can be wiped with clean warm water, close around the navel. The napkins, too, should be changed and washed out just as often as soiled. Also there should be clean day wraps and night slips in constant readiness during the child’s helpless period. Heavy or wadded coverlets should be discarded, even in the coldest weather, for the reason that they are heavier than woollen, retain the moisture from breaths, are not so easily washed as woollen blankets, nor are they so warm. The science of our nature teaches us that woollen is the best covering during the hours of sleep. For instance, the pores of our skin permit the escape of all gases not necessary for the renewal of the tissues of the body; in like manner woollen goods permit the odors to escape from our bodies.