Health and Beauty

1908

Spanish Influenza - Treatment

If influenza has overtaken you, go to bed at once, if possible, under the care of a physician. Provide plenty of bedding, and plenty of ventilation in the room.

For the sake of others as well as yourself, put yourself in quarantine. If possible, have only one person attend to your wants. And this one should wear a mask, as already described, all the time while in your room.

Let the diet be light and simple.

All dishes, spoons, soap, towels, clothing, handkerchiefs, and the like, that may be needed for your care, should be kept for your own individual use.

Do not cough or sneeze without having a mask or a hand-kerchief before the nose and the mouth. Such masks or hand-kerchiefs should be frequently replaced by clean ones, and the discarded. ones should be either burned or thoroughly disinfected.

In this disease, there is a constant tendency to internal congestion and external chilling. This should be studiously combated by the early use of hot leg baths, and fomentations to the chest. If the symptoms are particularly those of nausea and vomiting, fomentations should be applied to the abdomen. Each treatment should be followed by a witch-hazel rub, or a cool, but not cold, sponge. Great care should be taken, during the entire period of treatment, that the patient be kept under the covers. The arms and the breast should be care-fully protected at all times.
In case there is a very high temperature and retention of urine, full blanket packs or full tub baths should be employed. Apply cold to the head, preferably by means of an ice cap. In the more severe cases, cold should also be applied to the heart. These treatments will nearly always bring down the temperature from one to four degrees. and will relieve the pain.

From the very first, large quantities of liquid, preferably hot, should be given to the patient. Strained soup, broth, hot lemonade, and fruit juices should be given freely, as this helps in the elimination of the poisons produced by the germs. These poisons give risc to the aches and pains and the ex-treme prostration. To the extent that elimination can be maintained, through hot treatments applied as suggested and repeated as frequently as necessary, will the patient be kept free from prostration, aches, and pains, and recovery be hastened.

If pneumonia has developed, the accompanying temperature will be best controlled by the application of cool compresses applied to the chest directly after each general treatment as outlined above. Renew the compresses as often as they warm up, until the fever is reduced. Great care should be taken to keep the patient well covered at all times. But fresh air should be allowed in the room, and the room’s temperature should be kept moderate, except at the time of treatment, when all doors and windows should be closed, to prevent drafts from chilling the patient.

The methods of giving the treatments noted in the fore-going paragraphs are explained and illustrated in this book, in the chapter entitled “Nature’s Remedies,” beginning on page 193. The hot leg bath is explained on pages 205 and 206; the fomentations, on pages 203 to 205; the blanket packs, on pages 208 and 209; and the cool compress, on page 216.

Other similar and related treatments are explained in other parts of this same chapter. The following chapter, on “How to Nurse,” will also prove helpful to the one who may need to attend the sick.

[Next Section]