Home › Preventable Diseases of Children › Preventable Diseases of Children: Symptoms

Preventable Diseases of Children: Symptoms

Symptoms. The period of incubation is from four to fourteen days after exposure. The symptoms for the first few days are those of an ordinary cold or simple catarrh but with less fever than measles. The cough is more severe than the other symptoms seem to warrant and grows harsher from day to day. After a week or ten days the characteristic whoop develops. This continues with varying degrees of severity for a month or six weeks. Then the paroxysms cease, often leaving a simple catarrhal cough which may last indefinitely.

Modes of Infection. -Infection is ordinarily by direct and fairly intimate contact between the infected and healthy person. The virus of the disease is not as long lived as that of diphtheria or scarlet fever and hence not so likely to be conveyed from the sick room on the hands and clothing of the nurse or by means of other objects. The disease is probably not spread through the air except within the range of the fine spray thrown from the mouth of the patient while coughing.

Quarantine.-Isolate the patient in a sick room prepared as recommended for typhoid fever, especially if there is an infant in the family under two years of age. Keep on the safe side by observing all the sanitary precautions recommended for the sick room in other communicable diseases and disinfect the sick room after the death or recovery of the patient.

MUMPS ear.

Mumps is a glandular swelling in the angle between the jaw and the wholly unnecessary and preventable It is a highly contagious but disease. It chiefly affects children, but may attack older persons who have not become immune from having had the disease in childhood. It usually develops in from two to three weeks after exposure.

Symptoms. The early symptoms are fever with pain below the ear on one or both sides. A slight swelling below one ear may be first noticed.

Within two days there is great enlargement of the neck and side of the cheek. The other side usually becomes affected within a day or two.

The swelling persists from seven to ten days then gradually subsides. A second or even a third attack may occur and troublesome complications are quite common. It is always advisable to consult a physician. Quarantine.-Isolate the patient in the sick room and exclude other children and adults who have not had the disease.

Keep children from school for a period of three weeks following their last exposure.

PARASITIC DISEASES are Pediculosis (Lice). - There three varieties of these parasites which infest human beings, the head louse, body louse and crab louse. A single family of children so infested may communicate them to many others through the contacts of outer clothing hung up in school dressing rooms, or in play, or otherwise. In most states such children may be excluded from schools until these parasites have been exterminated. The following methods of treatment for killing parasites and nits are recommended: naphtholeum disinfectant to a pint of Add two teaspoonfuls of chlorowarm water. Wet the hair with this mixture. Put a towel around the head and let it dry on. When the PREVENTABLE DISEASES OF CHILDREN hair is dry comb with a fine comb.