Mother's Remedies Part 163

Peptogenic Milk Powder.--This may be used for a short time during or after acute illness; you can add it to the formula used as directed on the package.

[NURSING DEPARTMENT 625]

NURSING DEPARTMENT Including Care of the Sick and the Sick Room

FOODS, FORMULAE, DELICACIES FOR SICK ROOM, HOW TO PREPARE THEM; DIET IN FEVERS AND OTHER DISEASES, SECURED FROM TRAINED NURSES, PHYSICIANS AND HOSPITALS.

Every Phase of Nursing Given in Detail and in Plain Mothers'

Language, including Latest Sanitary Care and Science.

VENTILATION.--The sick room should be ventilated without any draught hitting the patient. The patient's bed should be placed out of the line of air currents. If this is not possible he must be protected by means of screens, the head of the bed being especially guarded. That draughts are dangerous is founded on fact no less than is the modern idea that an abundance of fresh air is necessary and helpful. A nurse has been guilty of gross neglect of duty when the patient contracts pneumonia through exposure to too severe currents of air. A simple way to ventilate a private room is to raise the lower sash of window six inches and place a board across the opening below; the air will then enter between the two sashes and be directed upward, where it becomes diffused and no one in the room is subjected to a draught. In a room where there is only one window a pane of gla.s.s may be taken out and a piece of tin or pasteboard may be so placed that the current will be directed upwards; or a window can be opened in an adjoining room which fills with fresh air and the door of the sick room opened afterwards to admit the air; or, the patient may be covered up, head and all, for a few minutes two or three times a day, while all the windows are thrown open, The room should be thoroughly warmed before it is so thoroughly ventilated.

[624 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]

TEMPERATURE OF THE ROOM.--This should be regulated by a thermometer suspended at a central point in the room. The temperature should be regulated according to the nature of the disease and the comfort of the patient. In fevers it should be lower, varying from 55 to 60 degrees F., but in bronchial troubles it should be kept about 70 degrees F. The mean temperature should be kept about 60 degrees to 70 degrees. It should be raised or lowered gradually, so that the patient will not be overheated or chilled.

LIGHT.--The patient should have plenty of light and sunshine, but do not let the sun or light shine directly upon the face.

CARE OF THE DISCHARGES (Excreta).--This is very important. Sputa, dirty vessels, soiled dressings and linen are prolific sources of impure air.

Sputum Cups.--These should be of glazed earthenware, without any corners or cracks and provided with a simple moveable cover when in use. They should be sterilized for one hour in every twenty-four hours.

Bed Pans and Urinals.--These should be washed out thoroughly. Allow boiling hot water to run on them for some time before they are put away after being cleansed.

Soiled Dressing and Linen.--These should be received in covered basins or in paper bags and at once carried away and destroyed or disinfected, or put in a metal dressing can and closely covered until the contents can be cared for at the earliest possible time. Vomited matter or the discharges from the bowels and the urine should always be covered in the vessel either with a lid, towel or rubber cloth. The rubber is better than the cloth as it keeps in the odor and can be scrubbed and disinfected.

If the patient is too sick to use a sputum cup, the expectoration can be received in a paper handkerchief or a piece of cheese cloth and placed in a small paper bag and burned at once.

SOILED AND STAINED LINEN.--These should be put away in a covered receptacle that contains enough disinfectant solution to keep them moist.

They are removed as soon as possible to the wash room to be cleaned and sterilized.

Sterilization.--This term is usually employed when heat is used to sterilize.

Disinfection.--This is the term used when chemicals are relied upon to purify (sterilize).

Heat and Chemicals are much aided by sunshine, light and fresh air, especially that of high dry climates.

[NURSING DEPARTMENT 625]

The germs (bacteria) are destroyed by dry or moist heat, the latter used in the form of steam. Dry heat is not so penetrating and requires a longer time and some goods are destroyed when exposed in it long enough to destroy the germs.

In order to destroy these organisms it is thought to be necessary to expose whatever is to be sterilized to the steam at 200 degrees F. for three successive days for thirty minutes or more each day, and during the interval to keep them in a room with a temperature of 60 degrees F.

A SIMPLE METHOD OF STERILIZING.--Put the articles (small articles) in an ordinary kitchen steamer; closely cover it and place it over a pot of boiling water. If you wish you can add two parts of carbonate of sodium to each ninety-eight parts of water.

Germicides are chemicals used to destroy germs.

Disinfectants are chemicals used to arrest and prevent their development.

These disinfectants should always be fresh.

Carbolic acid is one of the most efficient and most frequently employed of the known chemical disinfectants. It comes to us in the form of white crystals and dissolves in water, glycerin, or alcohol.

Watery solutions cannot be made stronger than five per cent. Solutions weaker than this will not destroy all germs, but on account of its irritating qualities the weaker solutions are employed when used for the skin and mucous membranes. How to make a five per cent or one to twenty solution:

A bottle containing the crystals is placed in hot water until they are melted (or you can buy this dissolved product). Then take one part of the acid and add it to nineteen parts of boiling water and shake this vigorously until all has been thoroughly dissolved and mixed. To make a 1, 2, 3 or 4 per cent solution, you take 1/100 or 1/50 or 1/33 or 1/25 of acid.

Corrosive Sublimate or Bichloride of Mercury.--Tablets can be bought at any drug store containing the desired strength, and are better to use.

This is a powerful irritant poison and must be used carefully. Tablets of the strength of 1-1000 and 1-2000 are most often employed for germicide action. The weaker solutions 1-5,000 or 1-10,000 were used to wash out the cavities. It is not now used much for that purpose; it stains clothing and corrodes instruments.

Milk of Lime is considered very valuable and safe to use in vessels to receive evacuations from the bowels. It should be freshly made or it is useless. Equal parts should be stirred up with the contents of the bed pan and this must be let stand at least one hour. This is the best way to disinfect stools.

To Prepare Milk of Lime.--The milk of lime is made by adding one part of slaked lime to four parts water.

Chloride of Lime (Chlorinated lime) is also a very good disinfectant. It has a bad odor and unless it is very fresh, is not reliable.

[626 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]

Boric acid disinfectant. This property is not very marked, but it is not irritating. The standard solution is five per cent. The weaker solutions are used to clean cavities, for superficial wounds, and to wash out the bladder.

The standard or saturated solution is made by using one part of the acid in crystal form to nineteen parts of water; or, this saturated solution can be easily made by putting a large quant.i.ty of the crystals in a filter and pouring the quant.i.ty of boiling water over them slowly until all are dissolved. Strain the solution to get rid of the excess of crystals or it can be allowed to cool when the liquid can be poured off.

Normal salt solution is made by using one teaspoonful of salt to a pint of water.

CARE AND DISINFECTION OF AN INFECTED ROOM.--Carpets, upholstered furniture, hangings, bric-a-brac, or any personal clothing, the color of which may be destroyed by disinfection, should have been removed from the room at the beginning of the disease.

DAILY CARE OF THE ROOM BY THE NURSE.--The furniture should be wiped off with a damp cloth and the floor swept with a broom covered with a damp cloth wrung out of a 1-20 (five per cent) carbolic acid solution; besides this the floor must be rubbed thoroughly with a damp cloth every second or third day. If the disease is contagious a damp sheet kept moist should be hung in the line of the air currents. Cloths that are used daily should be washed in hot soap suds and when not in use left to soak in carbolic acid solution 1-20 (five per cent).

After the patient has recovered from an infectious disease he should receive a hot soap and water tub or sponge bath, thorough washing of the hair and irrigation of the ears included, followed by a thorough sponging with a one per cent carbolic acid or corrosive sublimate (1-10,000) solution. The finger-nails and toe-nails should be cut close and cleaned underneath.

A nasal douche is given, and the mouth should be washed with listerine or a saturated (five per cent) solution of boric acid. The patient is then wrapped in clean sheets or clothes and taken in another room. Then the bedding and clothing are made ready for sterilization.

DISINFECTION OF THE ROOM.--Brush off the mattress, wrap it in a damp sheet wrung out of a twenty per cent solution of carbolic acid, and send to the sterilizer. The clothes are steamed and sent to the wash room. When there is no sterilizer the bed must be soaked in a 1-20 (five per cent) carbolic solution, afterwards boiled and the mattress ripped apart and boiled or burned.

[NURSING DEPARTMENT 627]

DISINFECTING THE ROOM.--Arrange all articles that are left in the room so as to expose them the best to the fumigating substance. To disinfect with formalin, close the room tightly, seal all cracks and openings with paste and paper. Place an alcohol lamp in a metal dish in the center of the room. Put in a receptacle over the lamp three fluid ounces of a forty per cent solution of formaldehyde; have a dish of water in the room for some time; moisten the air of the room, light the lamp and then close the room up tight for twenty-four hours, until the dust has settled; then enter gently so as not to disturb the dust and wipe off everything in the room with a cloth wrung out of a corrosive sublimate (1-1000) solution. Floors, woodwork, furniture, bedstead must be so washed or wiped, and use for crevices pure carbolic acid, applying it with a brush. The walls should be washed down with the 1-1000 corrosive sublimate solution. Then leave the windows wide open. Sulphur fumigation is not considered so certain in its results.

HOW TO TREAT SPUTUM FROM TUBERCULOUS PATIENTS.--Sputum is dangerous when it is dry. The sputum cups should be of china or paper, so that they may be either boiled or burned. There should be no crevices. The cup should be kept covered and the sputum moist so that none of the germs on the sputum becoming dry may escape into the air of the room. The china vessel should be frequently cleaned and, before the contents are thrown away, the germs must be destroyed by putting the sputum in a two per cent solution of carbonate of soda for one hour. The paper cups and contents must be burned before the contents have time enough to become dry. In infectious diseases, all discharges from the nose, mouth, bowels and bladder should be received in a china vessel containing carbolic acid or milk of lime.