Home › Medicine › Treatment (Emetic ipecacuanha may be)

Treatment (Emetic ipecacuanha may be)

An emetic (ipecacuanha) may be given on the first appearance of the disease, to be followed by a dose of salts, or eight grains of calomel, with as many of rhubarb. If the pulse is full and strong, the head aches, and the heat is great, draw blood, and apply cold water over the body freely and frequently. There is no disease in which the advantages of cold affusion are more striking. In order to reap the full benefit of it, however, it must be freely employed, that is, as often as heat, etc., seem to require it, or eight or ten times in the twenty-four hours. The saline mixture, p. 123, is of great use. If there is any soreness of the throat, the gargles recommended for that complaint should be used, and a mustard poultice be applied to the parts. If symptoms of putrescency appear, have recourse to the plan recommended for putrid sore throat. As scarlet fever is undoubtedly contagious, the usual precautions should of course be adopted. Writers on this subject generally consider scarlet fever as consisting of three kinds, viz., the simple fever, the fever with sore throat, and the malignant fever. The treatment of the first should be like that of any other inflammatory fever; that of the second has been detailed in speaking of inflammatory sore throat; and the last is precisely that of putrid sore throat.

Erysipelas, or St. Anthony's Fire.