The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV | Page 4

or of soap-suds. The amount of food should be reduced to suit the
circumstances and the condition of the patient.
We treat the local condition in the nose with a menthol mixture. The
following is a very good one: Menthol, 30 grains; Camphor, 30 grains;
White Vaseline, 1 ounce. Put some of this on the end of the finger and
push it gently into each nostril. When the nostrils become blocked and
the child cannot breathe through the nose, tickle the nose with a feather
until it sneezes; this will clear the passage. Immediately after the sneeze
place the menthol mixture in each nostril. When the child is about to
sneeze place a handkerchief before the nose, as this discharge is full of
germs and will infect others when dry. Internal remedies should not be
used unless the child is distinctly sick and is running a fever, in which
case a physician should look the child over and prescribe whatever is
called for.
The upper lip and the nostrils of the child should be protected, because
the discharge very quickly irritates the parts and renders them raw and
painful. Vaseline or cold cream is very suitable for this purpose.
Mothers should not wash out the nose of a child with any solution
advised for this purpose where force is used, as, for example, with a
syringe. Any forceful irrigation of the nose is dangerous, because it
would carry the infection into the deeper parts and set up a more
serious condition.
If the above treatment is carefully carried out and the child unexposed
to a fresh cold, two or three days will be sufficient to cure the disease.
It is not, however, the treatment of an acute attack of "cold in the head"
that is important; it is intelligently to follow out a plan which will
prevent these attacks from repeating themselves that is of consequence.
The tendency to take cold is a real condition in childhood and a very
common one. When mothers appreciate that it is possible to prevent
this condition and to cure it when it is seemingly an established habit,
more interest will undoubtedly be taken in the subject. Too frequently it

is looked upon as an unfortunate affliction, but it is never regarded as a
condition that is caused by neglect and ignorance.
It is an exceedingly common occurence to find a mother worrying over
her child's cold, dosing it with cod liver oil or some other unnecessary
tonic, rubbing it with camphorated oil or plastering it over with certain
useless patent plasters, dressing it with extra pieces of flannel on its
chest and extra clothes pinned snugly around it, then shutting it up in a
warm, stuffy, unsanitary, ill-smelling room, in order to keep it from
"catching a fresh cold." Can you imagine anything else she could do to
defeat her purpose?
No quantity of cod liver oil, no medicine, no coddling, will remove the
tendency to "catch cold." The child's life must be lived amidst sanitary
surroundings and hygienic conditions first; then other expedients may
be utilized if necessary. These children must be kept out of doors most
of the time, unless during the severest wet weather. They should sleep
in a room the windows of which are open at the top and bottom every
night in the year. They should not, however, be in a draught. The rooms
in which they live should be of a uniform temperature, never too hot
and never too cold, between 68° and 70° F. These delicate catarrhal
children should be accustomed to light clothing on their beds. Chest
protectors, mufflers, cotton pads, and heavy wraps of any description
should be absolutely prohibited. It is advisable to use flannel underwear
winter and summer, light in summer and a medium weight in winter.
During the summer months the mother should begin cold sponging of
the face, throat, chest, and spine every morning and carry it into the
winter. The entire process need take only a moment or two. Always dry
thoroughly with a fairly rough towel. If the cold sponging is begun in
the warm summer time the child will become so accustomed to it that
no objection will be made when the cold weather comes.
If the child continues to be "catarrhal," despite a course of this
treatment, it would be well to investigate whether any adenoids or
adenoid tissue exist in the naso-pharynx. If adenoids are found no
treatment will be successful until they are removed.
It is a wise plan to place a flannel cap on an infant who has an acute

attack of "cold in the head" (snuffles). This will prevent catching a
fresh cold and it will aid in the speedy cure of the attack from which it
is suffering when it is put on.