MUMPS.

DEFINITION.—­This is a contagious disease causing the inflammation of the salivary glands, and is generally a disease of childhood and youth.

SYMPTOMS.—­A slight fever, stiffness of the neck and lower jaw, swelling and soreness of the gland.  It usually develops in four or five days and then begins to disappear.

HOME TREATMENT.—­Apply to the swelling a hot poultice of cornmeal and bread and milk.  A hop poultice is also excellent.  Take a good dose of physic and rest carefully.  A warm general bath, or mustard foot bath, is very good.  Avoid exposure or cold drafts.  If a bad cold is taken, serious results may follow.

MEASLES.

DEFINITION.—­It is an eruptive, contagious disease, preceded by cough and other catarrhal symptoms for about four or five days.  The eruption comes rapidly in small red spots, which are slightly raised.

SYMPTOMS.—­A feeling of weakness, loss of appetite, some fever, cold in the head, frequent sneezing, watery eyes, dry cough and a hot skin.  The disease takes effect nine or ten days after exposure.

HOME TREATMENT.—­Measles is not a dangerous disease in the child, but in an adult it is often very serious.  In childhood very little medicine is necessary, but exposure must be carefully avoided, and the patient kept in bed, in a moderately warm room.  The diet should be light and nourishing.  Keep the room dark.  If the eruption does not come out promptly, apply hot baths.

COMMON TREATMENT.—­Two teaspoonfuls of spirits of nitre, one teaspoonful paregoric, one wineglassful of camphor water.  Mix thoroughly, and give a teaspoonful in half a teacupful of water every two hours.  To relieve the cough, if troublesome, flax seed tea, or infusion of slippery-elm bark, with a little lemon juice to render more palatable, will be of benefit.

CHICKEN POX.

DEFINITION.—­This is a contagious, eruptive disease, which resembles to some extent small-pox.  The pointed vesicles or pimples have a depression in the center in chicken-pox, and in small pox they do not.

SYMPTOMS.—­Nine to seventeen days elapse after the exposure, before symptoms appear.  Slight fever, a sense of sickness, the appearance of scattered pimples, some itching and heat.  The pimples rapidly change into little blisters, filled with a watery fluid.  After five or six days they disappear.

HOME TREATMENT.—­Milk diet, and avoid all kinds of meat.  Keep the bowels open, and avoid all exposure to cold.  Large vesicles on the face should be punctured early and irritation by rubbing should be avoided.

HOME TREATMENT OF DIPHTHERIA.

DEFINITION.—­Acute, specific, constitutional disease, with local manifestations in the throat, mouth, nose, larynx, wind-pipe, and glands of the neck.  The disease is infectious but not very contagious under the proper precautions.  It is a disease of childhood, though adults sometimes contract it.  Many of the best physicians of the day consider true or membranous croup to be due to this diphtheritic membranous disease thus located in the larynx or trachea.