Important: Safety Warning
This page recommends preparations containing opium, laudanum, morphine, or similar narcotics — in some cases for children. These substances are dangerously addictive, easily fatal in overdose, and strictly controlled by law today.
This page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Some Kitchen Kinks: Occasionally
Occasionally, the doctor orders an ice compress for the head. To make it, fold two large handkerchiefs (to be used alternately) so they will not be so wide as to come over the eyes or wet the hair or pillows, and turn in the edges. Put a block of ice with a little water about it in a basin, wring out a handkerchief and lay it on the ice till very cold; then apply, keeping one on ice, the other on the patient's head.
Occasionally, a room is situated so that it is almost impossible to let the air sweep through it as it ought without blowing on the patient. Arrange a little tent by placing around the invalid a low clotheshorse with three panels. Over this spread a sheet or blanket. If the air is very cold, put a hot bottle at the feet and cover the lower part of the body with extra clothing. In this way there will be no danger of the patient catching cold.
The Medicine Closet. - Even in the household where every member is strong and healthy, there ought to be in reserve all sorts of simple medicines and emergency requirements, which are ready at the moment needed. The medicine closet should be high enough to be out of the reach of children's hands. If made of wood, enamel it white inside and out, thus making it very easy to keep clean. Put a secure lock on the door and keep the key where it can be found instantly by anyone in the household. Divide the shelves into different departments for all sorts of needs. In one side store everything that is poisonous, or in any way dangerous. In another, keep rolls of antiseptic gauze, absorbent cotton, sterilized linen, bags for poultices, lint, surgeon's plaster, finger stalls, rubber bandages, and court-plaster. Reserve one shelf for such common, everyday remedies as calomel, camphor, castor oil, cascara sagrada, Epsom salts, Jamaica ginger, glycerin, paregoric, ipecac, limewater, magnesia, sweet spirits of niter, oil of peppermint, quinine, rhubarb, senna, sulphonal, flowers of sulphur. Upon another keep such drugs as are used for cleansing wounds or bruises and healing burns, also things to be used in cases of emergency, as alcohol, boracic acid, alum, carbolic acid, arnica, borax, charcoal, collodion, witch-hazel, WHAT THE HOME NURSE OUGHT TO W 1133 iodoform, turpentine, dioxygen, listerine, and peroxide. There ought to be a corner for poultice and plaster necessities. There one would find mustard, flaxseed, oil silk, bran, linseed meal, and antiphlogistine. Here, too, have small supplies kept together of such things as might have to be looked for in different parts of the house: carbonate of soda, ammonia, whisky and brandy, olive oil, sweet oil, camphorated oil, limewater, and oil liniment.