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Apothecaries' Measure: Burns

Bruises. First cleanse them; then, until pain is relieved, apply cloths wet with cold water, to which laudanum may be added. After the pain has subsided, warm water dressing will hasten the removal of the discoloration, swelling, and soreness. Burns and Scalds. - Dust the parts with bicarbonate of soda, or wet with water in which as much of the soda has been placed as can be dissolved. When the burns are so severe that the skin is broken and blisters are raised, open the blisters at one side and swathe the parts with soft linen anointed with simple cerate or saturated with sweet oil, castor oil, or equal parts of linseed oil and lime water. Burns from acids should be well washed with water. Burns from caustic alkalies should be well washed with vinegar and water.

Choking. If possible remove the offending substance at once with the fingers, or with blunt scissors used as forceps or a loop of small wire bent like a hair pin. It may be possible to dislodge it by blowing strongly in the ear, or by causing the patient to vomit by tickling the throat.

In a child these efforts may be aided by holding it up by the legs.

Cholera Morbus. - Give thirty drops of laudanum or two or three teaspoonfuls of paregoric to an adult, or proportionate doses for children. Also apply over the stomach a mustard plaster or cloth wrung out of hot water and turpentine, and frequently changed. Colic-May be treated as above, with the addition of an emetic or purgative, or both, if due to undigested food.

Convulsions in Children. When these are brought on by indigestion, place the child in a warm bath immediately, give warm water, or a lobelia emetic, rub the skin briskly, etc., to get up an action. In brain disease the warm water is equally useful. In fact, unless the fit is constitutional, the warm bath will relieve the patient by drawing the blood to the surface.

Cramps. A cold application to the bare feet, such as iron, water, rock, earth, or ice, when it can be had, is an excellent remedy for cramp. If the patient be seized in the upper part of the body, apply the remedy to the hands. Croup attacks children at night, and is distinguished by a peculiar resonant, barking sound. Hoarseness is one of the earliest symptoms. Apply hot water to the throat for fifteen or twenty minutes, with a sponge or soft cloth, and give powdered alum mixed in syrup, in half teaspoonful doses, repeated every twenty minutes until vomiting takes place. Keep the child warm, so that sweating may be induced, and strive to allay its excitement or fear.

Diarrhea. In sudden attacks of diarrhœa, a large cup of strong, hot tea, with sugar and milk, will frequently bring the system to a healthy state.

Drowning.-Instructions for those Swimming to their Relief. When you approach a drowning person in the water, assure him with a loud and firm voice that he is safe. Before jumping in, divest yourself, as far and as quickly as possible, of all clothestear them off if necessary; but, if there is no time, loose, at all events, the foot of your drawers if they are tied, as if you do not do so they fill with water and drag you. On swimming to any person in the sea, if they are struggling, do not seize them then, but keep off for a few seconds till they get quiet, for it is sheer madness to take hold of them when they are struggling in the water; if you do, you run a great risk. Then get close to them and take fast hold of the hair of the head, turn them as quickly as possible on their back, give them a sudden pull, and this will cause them to float; then throw yourself on your back also and swim for the shore, both hands having hold of their hair, you on your back and they also on theirs, and of course their back to your stomach. In this way you will get sooner and safer ashore than by any other means, and you can easily thus swim with two or three persons; the writer has even, as an experiment, done it with four, and gone with them forty or fifty yards in the sea. One great advantage of this method is that it enables you to keep your head up, and also to hold the person's head up you are trying to save. It is of primary importance that you take fast hold of the hair, and throw both the person and yourself on your backs. After many experiments it is usually found preferable to all other methods. You can in this manner float nearly as long as you please, or until a boat or other help can be obtained. It is believed there is no such thing a death-grasp, at least it is very unusual to witness it. As soon as drowning persons begins to get feeble and to lose recollection, they gradually slacken their hold until they quit it altogether. No apprehension need therefore be felt on that head when attempting to rescue a drowning person. After a person has sunk to the bottom, if the water be smooth, the exact position where the body lies may be known by the air-bubbles which will occasionally rise to the surface, allowance being of course made for the motion of the water if in a tide-way or stream, which will carry the bubbles out of the perpendicular course in rising to the surface. A body may be often regained, from the bottom before too late for recovery, by diving for it in the direction indicated by these bubbles. On rescuing a person by diving to the bottom, the hair of the head should be seized by one hand only, and the other used in conjunction with the feet in raising yourself and drowning person to the surface. If in the sea, it may sometimes be a great error to try and get to land. If there be a strong "outsetting" tide and you are swimming, either by yourself or having hold or a person who cannot swim, then get on your back and float till help comes. These instructions apply alike to all circumstances, whether the roughest sea or smooth water.

Treatment of the Apparently Drowned. Send immediately for a physician. Arouse the patient. Unless in danger of freezing, do not move the patient, but instantly expose the face to a current of fresh air, wipe dry the mouth and nostrils, rip the clothing so as to expose the chest and waist, and give two or three quick smarting slaps on the stomach and chest with the open hand. If the patient does not revive, proceed thus:

To Draw off Water, etc., from the Stomach and Chest. If the jaws are clinched, separate them, and keep the mouth open by placing between the teeth a cork, or small bit of wood; turn the patient on the face, a large bundle of tightly rolled clothing being placed beneath the stomach, and press heavily over it for half a minute, or so long as fluids flow freely from the mouth.

To Produce Breathing. -Clear the mouth and throat of mucus by introducing into the throat the corner of a handkerchief wrapped closely round the forefinger; turn the patient on the back, the roll of clothing being so placed as to raise the pit of the stomach above the level of any other portion of the body. If there be another person present, let him with a piece of dry cloth, hold the tip of the tongue out of one corner of the mouth (this prevents the tongue from pulling back and obstructing the wind-pipe,) and with the other hand grasp both wrists, and keep the arms forcibly stretched back above the head, thereby increasing the prominence of the ribs, which tends to enlarge the chest. The two last named positions are not, however, essential to success. Kneel beside or astride the patient's hips, and with the balls of the thumbs resting on either side of the pit of the stomach, let the fingers fall into the grooves between the short ribs, so as to afford the best grasp of the waist. Now, using your knees as a pivot, throw all your weight forward on your hands, and at the same time squeeze the waist between them, as if you wished to force everything in the chest upward out of the mouth; deepen the pressure while you can count slowly one, two, three; then suddenly let go with a final push, which springs you back on your first kneeling position. Remain erect on your knees while you count one, two, three; then repeat the same motions as before, at a rate gradually increased from four to five to fifteen times in a minute, and continue thus this bellows movement, with the same regularity that is observable in the natural motions of breathing which you are imitating. If natural breathing be not restored after a trial of the bellows movement for three or four minutes, then, without interrupting the artificial respiration, turn the patient a second time on the stomach, as directed previously, rolling the body in the opposite direction from in that which it was first turned, for the purpose of freeing the air passages from any remaining water. Continue the artificial respiration from one to four hours, or until the patient breathes; and for a while after the appearance of returning life, carefully aid the first short gasps until deepened into full breaths. Continue the drying and rubbing, which should have been unceasingly practised from the beginning, taking care not to interfere with the means employed to produce breathing. Thus, the limbs of the patient should be rubbed, always in an upward direction toward the body, with firm grasping pressure and energy, using the bare hands, dry flannels or handkerchiefs, and continuing the friction under the blankets or over the dry clothing. The warmth of the body can also be promoted by the application of hot flannels to the stomach and arm-pits, bottles or bladders of hot water, heated bricks, stones, etc., to the limbs and soles of the feet.

After Treatment. -Externally : As soon as breathing is established, let the patient be stripped of all wet clothing, wrapped in blankets only, put to bed comfortably warm, but with a free circulation of fresh air, and left to perfect rest. Internally: Give a little brandy and hot water, or other stimulant at hand, every ten or fifteen minutes, during the first hour, and as often thereafter as may seem expedient. Later manifestations: After reaction is fully established, there is great danger of congestion of the lungs, and if perfect rest is not maintained for at least forty-eight hours, it sometimes occurs that the patient is seized with great difficulty of breathing, and death is liable to follow unless immediate relief is afforded. In such cases, apply a large mustard plaster over the breast. If the patient gasps for breath before the mustard plaster takes effect, assist the breathing by carefully repeating the artificial respiration.