Important: Safety Warning
This page gives first-aid or emergency advice that predates modern medicine and can make an emergency worse. Do not follow it. In any medical emergency, call emergency services and follow current first-aid guidance.
In addition, 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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Symptoms (Inflammatory fever dry cough)
Inflammatory fever; dry cough and hoarseness; sneezing, watering of the eyes, which itch; a running from the nose; great drowsiness. On the fourth day small red points break out, first on the face, and then gradually over the body. They are in clusters, and, on passing the hand over them, are found to be a little raised.
On the fifth or sixth day the vivid red is changed to a brown, and the eruption goes off.
Distinguish it from small-pox and all other diseases by the dry cough and hoarseness, by the appearance of the eyes, which are red, swollen, and loaded with tears.
Treatment. The patient must be confined to a low diet, and kept in bed, with as much covering, but no more, as may be agreeable to his feelings.
The room should be cool, and, if there is much fever and pain in the head, bleeding may be necessary. Should there be pain and oppression at the breast, apply a blister. The bowels may be opened by salts. The mild form of measles ought to be treated like any other inflammatory complaint, taking care, however, not to repel the eruption by cold. If this happens, place the patient in a warm bath, give him warm wine, etc., internally, and apply mustard poultices and blisters to the feet and ankles.
There is another and more dangerous kind of this disease, which may be known by the fever being typhous, and by all the symptoms showing a depressing tendency. The moment this is perceived have recourse to bark wine, muriatic acid, etc., etc., as directed in typhus fever.
Chicken-Pox.
Symptoms. Fever; inability to sleep; pain in different parts of the body; a crop of small pimples or points on the back, which, by the second day, are changed into little blisters, which are ripe on the third and disappear before the fifth day, without forming true pus or matter, and leaving no marks or pits behind them.
Distinguish it from small-pox by the eruption coming out on the back, by the mildness of the fever, by the fluid contained in the vesicles or blisters not being true pus, and by the whole falling off in scales on the fifth day. Treatment. Confine the patient to his bed, keep him cool and quiet, and give him a dose of salts.
This is all that is necessary.
Cow-Pox.
Symptoms. A pimple at the spot where the matter was inserted, which gradually undergoes certain regular changes that characterize the complaint.