T
TWO boys were absent when the class met for the next lesson.
“How disappointed I am,” said Miss Helpem. “This is the first time anyone has missed a lesson.”
“Perhaps Tom and Jim will come late,” suggested Ibee Brave, and just as he spoke steps were heard.
Ibee opened the door and in came the two boys. Jim was holding a handkerchief to his nose, which was bleeding profusely.
“He didn’t want to come in,” explained Tom to the nurse, “but I told him you could make it stop. He said he didn’t believe so, for he’d tried everything. He kept saying he ought to lie down, and I kept saying he ought to sit up to keep the blood from flowing so easily.”
Tom stopped to take a breath. You see he had great confidence in Miss Helpem’s first-aid help ever since his experience with his “black eye.”
“You were right, Tom,” said Miss Helpem, showing Jim to a seat before the class. “If you do not mind, Jim, I will give the boys their lesson now on what to do for—
1. Sit patient upright.
2. Raise arm on bleeding side.
two boys and nurse
Jim Was Holding a Handkerchief to His Nose
3. Wrap neck and forehead with towels dipped in cold water.
4. Sniff ice water and salt up nostrils. One-half teaspoon salt to a glass of water.
5. Place a piece of ice under the upper lip. Hold ice, wrapped in cloth, on the bridge of the nose.
6. If bleeding still continues, use a small piece of absorbent cotton as a wedge or plug or cork. Fasten a thread to the cotton—to be used to remove it. Dip it into peroxide of hydrogen, and push gently into bleeding nostril with a pencil.
Shesa Brave brought the articles needed as Miss Helpem worked, and in a very few seconds after the nurse had used the cotton wedge, Jim’s nose stopped bleeding.
It was an excellent lesson for the boys, who didn’t realize that the next day they would only be dolls, whose noses may break, but not bleed. Still, if you can remember what to do, those dolls will never mind.
After Jim took his usual place Miss Helpem continued the lesson.
“Let me see,” she said, “I think, after nosebleed, perhaps the next most common complaints are earache and toothache and a few other little aches.
“Now, as to—
This dreadful pain is generally caused by hardening of the wax in the ear from cold. To prevent wax from hardening, use a little common red (unbleached) vaseline in the ear.
Treatment:
Hold ear over a cloth wrung out of hot water on which is sprinkled some pure alcohol.
With a medicine dropper, drop into ear some warm olive oil; or saturate a small piece of absorbent cotton with the warm olive oil, and place in ear—cover with dry cotton.
(Mothers often use one drop of laudanum in the olive oil, but laudanum is too dreadful a poison for children to handle.)
For watery discharge after earache, it is best to see a doctor, but a sprinkling of boric acid in the ear will usually relieve the trouble.
If earache recurs often, see the doctor.
For Insect in the Ear
Drown insect by filling ear with warm olive oil.
(Mothers sometimes pour a little pure alcohol into the ear to drown and shrink insect.)
For “Something” in the Eye
1. Wink—do not rub.
2. Hold upper lid over under lid, and blow opposite nostril.
Remember that almost always an object in the eye will work itself out if the eye is kept closed.
Wash the eye with boric acid solution in an eye-cup.[H]
Toothache
Boy sitting on stool with head wrapped
Toothache
As soon as possible see a dentist. There would be but little toothache if children were taken in time to a good dentist. This applies even to first teeth, for if first teeth are neglected, the second teeth are affected.
Treatment:
If the tooth feels long, with a throbbing pain, there is trouble with the nerve. Paint gum with iodine, being careful not to swallow any. For painting, use a small ball of cotton twisted or tied fast to the end of a toothpick. Never dip the used cotton back into the iodine.
If the tooth aches, look for a cavity, clean out the cavity with a toothpick.
Fill cavity with absorbent cotton wet with essence of peppermint or red pepper water or oil of cloves, and cover with dry cotton.
Splinters
Be careful not to break splinter; pull it out from direction in which it entered.
If no end appears above the skin, open the skin with a needle, but dip the needle into alcohol first to kill germs.
Every medicine closet should contain a splinter extractor or tweezers. They cost from five to ten cents.
Hiccough
Hiccough is usually caused by indigestion.
Treatment:
A few soda-mint tablets are generally helpful.
Nine or more swallows of water without breathing is a good old-fashioned remedy. So, also, is holding a deep breath.
If hiccough continues, mothers usually give children a cup of warm water in which is dissolved a half teaspoon mustard powder—to cause the child to “throw up” whatever is causing trouble in the stomach.
“Now, I see some of you shuddering,” laughed the nurse, “and no one can blame you, but sometimes hiccough becomes very serious, and it is better to take the nasty dose of mustard water than to endanger the heart’s action from hiccoughing. But just to console you, I will give some hints as to—
How to Stop Nausea (Sick Stomach)
Cracked ice[I] held in the mouth, and allowed to melt slowly is excellent.
Soda mint is good.
Chills
Chills usually show that a person is going to be ill. See a doctor.
Never cool off suddenly. Do not sit down in a cool, breezy place when in a perspiration. It is very dangerous and has caused many a person to “catch his death of cold.”
If a person becomes chilled from exposure:
1. Use hot-water bags (or stones or bricks, heated in the oven) or hot stove lids or flatirons, covered with paper or cloth to prevent burning the patient. Place them under the arms and at the feet.
2. Rub the patient’s limbs toward the body.
3. Give hot coffee or tea or hot lemonade.
4. Keep well wrapped.
5. Give a hot foot bath in which is a teaspoonful powdered mustard.
6. Wrap in blanket and put to bed.
Fainting is caused when too small an amount of blood flows to the head.
To Prevent:
Oftentimes, bending the head forward until between the knees, spreading knees apart, prevents a person from fainting, for the blood then flows to the head.
To restore a person who has fainted:
Keep people away. Patient needs air.
Lay patient flat on floor with no pillow, having fresh air in room. Fan patient.
Loosen clothing about neck.
Hold household ammonia or smelling salts to nose.
Dash a little cold water in face.
Coffee may be given after patient recovers consciousness.
“That is all the lesson for to-day,” said the assistant nurse, “and you’ve all been so attentive that I would like to give you a reward.”
“I don’t think that we need any reward, Miss Helpem,” said Tom Holden, “when you’ve done so much for us all, already. Gee, you make me feel like being a doctor when I grow up!”
“I hope not all of you feel that way,” laughed Miss Helpem. “A doctor in a town full of doctors would have a difficult time making a living.”
“That’s not true of first-aiders though,” said Tom.
