Domestic medicine: or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, : by regimen and simple medicines: with an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. / By William Buchan, M.D.

  • Buchan, William, 1729-1805.
Date:
1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Domestic medicine: or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases, : by regimen and simple medicines: with an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners. / By William Buchan, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    daily washed in cold water. This is a partial nse of tinjj cold bath, and is better than none. In winter this may* suffice ; but, in the warm season, if a child be relaxed! or seem to have a tendency to the rickets or scrophula, it: i whole body ought to be frequently immersed in cold wa ter. Care however must be taken not to do this when the s body is hot, or the stomach full. The child should bel dipt only once at a time, should be taken out immediately! and have its skin well rubbed with a dry cloth. The bud Effects of unieholesomc Air upon Children. Few things prove more destructive to children tharj confined or unwholesome air. This is one reason why sej few of those infants, who are put into hospitals, or parish 1 workhouses, live. These places are generally crowdedl with old, sickly, and infirm people ; by which means the I air is rendered so extremely pernicious, that it becomes ;] poison to infants. Want of wholesome air is likewise destructive to mam of tlie children born in great towns.' There the poorcu sort of inhabitants live in lowr, dirty, confined houses, tc which the fresh air has hardly any access. Though grown people, who are hardy and robust, may live in such situations, yet they generally prove fatal to their off- spring, few of whom arrive at maturity, and those who do are weak and deformed. As such people are notin a con- dition to carry their children abroad into the open air, wc must lay our account with losing the greater part of them. But the rich have not this excuse. It is their business to see that their children be daily carried abroad, and that they be kept in the open air for a sufficient time. This will always succeed better if the mother goes alon^ with them. Servants are often negligent in these matters, and allow the child to sit or lie on the damp ground, instead of leading or carrying it about. The mother surely needs i air as well as her children ; and how can she be better em- ployed than in attending them ? A very bad custom prevails, of making children sleep in small apartments, or crowding two or three beds into i one chamber. Instead of this, the nursery ought always \