HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 September 1941, Page 2

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

TREATMENT OF COMMON COMPLAINTS WHOOPING COUGH. I.Prepared and issued by the Health Dept.) Never under-estimate the seriousness of whooping-cough. Where the patient is under one year, there is a definite risk to life. After that, the risk lies in the complications that can. and semetimes ' do, follow —pneumonia, bronchitis, and even tuberculosis. This is a childhood complaint as a rule, but it is no respector of years—people of all ages are fair game for the microscopic whooping cough germ. It is a disease that requires expert medical aid. As soon as it is suspected, call in your doctor, whose help and advice are always reassuring. The patient must be isolated; he must have fresh air and proper diet, based on milk and eggs, with extra to make up for food lost during vomiting. Cod liver oil in some form, or concentrated form of vitamins A and D should be given. This is important: Adults and other children must be kept away from the patient. Many healthy persons carry pneumonic germs in their throats, and may infect the patient with the dread pneumonia. By building up the patient's resistance with proper food, fresh air, sleep and rest, whooping cough will be kept to its normal course. As with some other infectious diseases, the first symptoms of whooping cough are not altogether plain. But if a child has a persistent cold in the head, treat it as whooping cough until it is proved otherwise, particularly if there has been a case in the neighbourhood. A cold in the head, which lasts from three to ten days, frequently indicates the onset of the disease. A barking cough is the first positive sign. This cough is accompanied by paroxysms that may cause vomiting, or, in severe cases, even convulsions. In babies the characteristic whoop does not always develop, but other painful symptoms, such as feverishness and listlessness, show up early in the attack. If your child has a cold in the head, don’t let him mix with other children, because it is during the period of the cold that infection is most likely to spread. Another thing, keep the patient isolated for at least two weeks after the start of the whoop.