HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 37, 8 January 1946, Page 6

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

INFECTIOUS DISEASE IN THE HOME

(By the Department of Health) Our hospitals, as they are getting more and more overworked are finding dill'iculty in providing beds lor all infectious disease cases. Just now a number of people are having to nurse cases of -scarlet fever in their own homes, and unless- such homes are. very careful, infection will spread, ft is not possible to give the full technique of isolation nursling in the,i home in a short article but attention should lie drawn to some general principles you should follow.

Have a separate room or verandah for the patient. Have “clean” and “contaminated” areas in the room. Have a small table or wash stand in the room for the nurse’s wash basin towel and saucer for soap. There should be a cupboard or box for the. patient’s wash-bowl tooth mug and brush, and. for the bedpan if needed. The thermometer should be immersed for two-thirds of its length in a disinfectant solution and stand out of reach. Have a separate mop or broom and. duster for the room. There must be. an overall or gown for the one who acts as nurse, hung at the back of the door.

On entering the room this gown must always lie worn, and it’s wise to cover the hair with a cap. After attending the patient, scrub the hands and arms for one minute in hot water and remove the gown without touching the outside until the arms art out. Get some nursing acquaintenance to show you the trick in doing this. Hang the gown up and re-scrub hands and arms- for one minute. Any utensils should now be emptied and returned to the

room. Bed-linen can go straight to the boiler, be soaked there and boiled, or stay in a container till washing day. A good antiseptic for soaking linen is cyllin—l in 80 strength, for four hours. Feeding utensils should be scraped on to paper, placed in cold water and brought to the boil, or keep dishes tea towels- and, dishcloth separate entirely for the patient. Wash your hands always after completing anj r procedure for the sick room.

ANTI-SCURVY FACTOR (By the Department of Health) Nearly 200 years ago James Lind evolved his method of fighting scurvy in the Navy—“broths made of fresh meat with plenty of recent vegetables otherwise, roots and fruits.” He used the citrus fruits when available, and made concentrated citrus juice for the voyage, protected from oxidation by air by a layer of oil on the top under tthe cork. He used the rinds too. He’d noticed a man self-cured of scurvy by eating the rinds of lemons after the naval officers had squeezed out the juice for their pundfc. ;

In Lind’s time a couple of centuries ago the navy man was doomed to scurvy. His daily ration was a pound of* hard biscuits, later in the voyage often tapped on the table to jar out the large Aveavils, the small ones being eaten. The meat was salt beef or salt pork, rarely saft fish or jerked beef, about 9ozs daily. They had butter while it lasted and cheese to aid digestion. And this was his “fresh provisions” o{ich day—ll 4 lbs of flour made into a pudding with preserved suet. When the suet went bad, raisins or currents replaced it. Is it any won. tier so many died of scurvy on long voyages?

Well, 200 years ago Lind not only proved that cooking needn’t interfere Avith the antiscurvy properties of vegetables and fruits he also found that keeping the air off Ins fruit juices enhanced their Amine. He’d never heard about vitamin C, but lie had the key to present cooking knoAvledge all these years ago. lt’& being applied now—in some homes where the taste for A'cgetallies that are boiled a long time in lots of water is being replaced by keenness, lor cooking that uses little Avater keeps the air out and depends on steaming for a few minutes. For taste colour and vitamin C put your vegetables into the least possible amount of already boiling salted water, and cook, tightly lidded till tender only. 3