The clothing may be disinfected by heating to a temperature of 230 [degrees] Fahrenheit or by dipping in boiling water before washing.

Dogs and cats will also carry the disease and should be kept from the house, and particularly from the sick room.

SYMPTOMS.—­Chilly sensations or a decided chill, fever, headache, furred tongue, vomiting, sore throat, rapid pulse, hot dry skin and more or less stupor.  In from 6 to 18 hours a fine red rash appears about the ears, neck and shoulders, which rapidly spreads to the entire surface of the body.  After a few days, a scurf or branny scales will begin to form on the skin.  These scales are the principal source of contagion.

HOME TREATMENT.

1.  Isolate the patient from other members of the family to prevent the spread of the disease.

2.  Keep the patient in bed and give a fluid diet of milk gruel, beef tea, etc., with plenty of cold water to drink.

3.  Control the fever by sponging the body with tepid water, and relieve the pain in the throat by cold compresses, applied externally.

4.  As soon as the skin shows a tendency to become scaly, apply goose grease or clean lard with a little boracic acid powder dusted in it, or better, perhaps, carbolized vaseline to relieve the itching and prevent the scales from being scattered about, and subjecting others to the contagion.

REGULAR TREATMENT.—­A few drops of aconite every three hours to regulate the pulse, and if the skin be pale and circulation feeble, with tardy eruption, administer one to ten drops of tincture of belladonna, according to the age of the patient.  At the end of third week, if eyes look puffy and feet swell, there is danger of Acute Bright’s disease, and a physician should be consulted.  If the case does not progress well under the home remedies suggested, a physician should be called at once.

WHOOPING COUGH.

DEFINITION.—­This is a contagious disease which is known by a peculiar whooping sound in the cough.  Considerable mucus is thrown off after each attack of spasmodic coughing.

SYMPTOMS.—­It usually commences with the symptoms of a common cold in the head, some chilliness, feverishness, restlessness, headache, a feeling of tightness across the chest, violent paroxysms of coughing, sometimes almost threatening suffocation, and accompanied with vomiting.

HOME TREATMENT.—­Patient should eat plain food and avoid cold drafts and damp air, but keep in the open air as much as possible.  A strong tea made of the tops of red clover is highly recommended.  A strong tea made of chestnut leaves, sweetened with sugar, is also very good.

  1 teaspoonful of powdered alum,
  1 teaspoonful of syrup.

Mix in a tumbler of water, and give the child one teaspoonful every two or three hours.  A kerosene lamp kept burning in the bed chamber at night is said to lessen the cough and shorten the course of the disease.