HEALTH IN THE HOME.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 512, 26 October 1912, Page 7

HEALTH IN THE HOME.

HINTS FOR THE SICK ROOM.

As hot milk tends to form a scum over the surface on short notice, it is well to whip it quickly for a moment with an egg beater and keep it tightly covered; and simmer for five minutes. In serving food to the invalid see that the napkin is fresh, the spoon bright, and the water clear, and the food dainty. Use your best china, and place a blossom or a leaf on the tray. Never serve food to an invalid lukewarm; never serve it twice in exactly the same manner. When vomiting occurs peptonised or pancreatinised milk can be given. Milk usually leaves a coating in the mouth ; a few teaspoonfuls of weak tea taken afterwards will leave a clean taste in the mouth. Emaciated persons should be rubbed with olive oil; and it often proves acceptable when the skin is dry from fever. The juice of an orange can often be retained on the stomach when all other things fail; mixed with a little rice it will be grateful to a parched tongue. Ricewater is one of the most valuable drinks in dysentery. Lemon juice added to barley or rice-water is excellent. Screens are invaluable in a sick-room, as they are a protection from draughts, and to hide the medicine-stand and bottles. They can be covered with silk, linen, or canvas, or a sanitary one can be made by enamelling the frame and covering with plain oilcloth. In a case of contagious disease it is especially desirable that all utensils and dishes which have been used by the patient should be disinfected, then thoroughly scalded with boiling water.

NEW TREATMENT OF SPRAINS. A new method of treating sprains has been recommended by a Canadian surgeon. Everyone whose practice throws him in the way of treating sprains is frequently annoyed by the slowness with which the injured part recovers. The surgeon mentioned, being quite dissatisfied with the usual plans of treatment, was led to emjjloy clay as an external dressing. He uses the ordinary brick clay, free from gravel, dry and finely pulverised mortar, then mixed with just sufficient water tc form a thick paste. This is spread upon muslin to the thickness of a quarter of an inch, applied to' the part, and over this a rubber roller bandage is placed just' tightly enough to keep the dressing from shifting, and to retain the moisture. At the expiration of twenty-four or thirty-six hours the dressing must be renewed. The, writer reports a number of cases, of sprain in which this treatment was used with great satisfaction, the cure of what were considered very severe sprains being effected in eight to ten days, while the pain subsided in eleven cases after the first twenty-four hours' application of the cool clay dressing.

CHOLOROFORM AND ITS ADMINISTRATION. The notion fostered by a hundred novels, that one has but to flourish a handkerchief wet with chloroform below the nose of any individual to secure instant unconsciousness, has no basis in fact. Even with a free use of the drug it takes a matter of minutes to put a person "over." And, as it is done professionally, the thing is a science. Sometimes the chloroform is dropped on a towel spread over the patient' face, sometimes upon a mask, but oftener air is pumped through the drug and is allowed to escape into a special apparatus which covers mouth and nose. And the administration proceeds upon a definite p!:n, beginning with the merest suspicion of the vapour and gradually increasing. The anaesthetist is alert and prepared for every danger. As far as possible the patient is fortified against risks and discomforts. Even the operating table is made so that, if need be, it may aid resuscitation. And -luring the whole period of insensibilitv, the patient's eye, his pulse, his respiratory movements, the sound of his breathing, the colour of his cheeks and lips are watched most anxiously.

BLINKING AND ITS CL'RM. Opticians and oculists will, pe. haps, find some help in the follow ing paragraph, which bears on a habit quite common among persons of 'a sedentary occupation : "If you find yourself blinking your eyes rapidly without any cause, stop it at once, or it will grow into an incurab'e habit that will make our eyesight fail comparatively early in life. "Natural blinking is necessary to clear and moisten the eye. The average number of natural blinks is about twenty per minute. But a nervous blinker will get in something like a couple of hundred in a minute in bad cases. The result of this is a big development of the eyelid muscles. It, besides, involves counter irritation, which acts on the optic nerve, and renders the sight daily more weak and irritable. "Once contract this habit, and •ou will find you cannot bear a strong light or read small type, and the eyes get worse and worse. The cure consists in keeping the eyes shut for at least ten minutes every hour, and bathing the lids in warm