American Red Cross Text-Book on Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick by Isabel McIsaac (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

Household Medicine Cupboard.

—In every household a small cupboard is needed for medical and surgical supplies. Glass shelves are desirable, because they show when dirty and are easily cleaned, but a wooden cupboard can easily be lined with clean paper or white enamel cloth held in place with thumb tacks. Dirty, stained shelves should not be tolerated. The cupboard should be kept locked and the key put well out of the reach of children. In the cupboard should be kept medicines in daily use; they should not be paraded on family dinner tables.

Poisonous drugs should have rough glass bottles and conspicuous labels. All medicine bottles should be kept well corked, since evaporation may take place and the remaining solution, by becoming stronger, may be dangerous to use in the ordinary amount. Pills and tablets sometimes deteriorate by standing, and may become so hard that they pass through the stomach and intestines without dissolving. It is best to buy drugs and surgical supplies in small quantities; when it is cheaper to buy more at a time the druggist should be asked whether they will deteriorate or not.

Almost every family needs to keep on hand some cathartics, some disinfectants, some material for first aid, and a few simple appliances. Most families have certain other needs peculiar to themselves, and for those who live at a distance from drug stores a greater quantity and variety may be required. Elaborate equipment and extensive supplies of medicines are neither economical nor necessary for household use.

Castor oil, Rochelle or other laxative salts, and two grain cascara tablets ordinarily constitute a sufficient supply of cathartics. The dose of castor oil is one or two teaspoonfuls for a baby up to a tablespoonful for an adult. Rochelle salts and seltzer aperient are given dissolved in water; the ordinary dose is from one to four teaspoonfuls. Seidlitz powders come in two packets, one white and one blue. The contents of the packets should first be dissolved in separate glasses each filled about a quarter full of water. One solution should then be poured into the other and the mixture taken while it is effervescing. Cascara tablets are generally given in one to ten grain doses.

A small bottle of tincture of iodine and one of 70% alcohol should be kept for disinfecting. Neither one is for internal use. The iodine is used to disinfect small wounds and abrasions of the skin. It is applied with cotton swabs and several swabs should be made and kept on hand in a box or envelope. Alcohol is used to disinfect thermometers and other instruments that cannot be boiled, for rubbing, and may also be used for disinfecting the skin. A 90% solution is sometimes used for rubbing; it need not be bought until needed. Denatured and wood alcohol are poisons and should be used in households only in spirit lamps; they are not safe for other purposes.

First aid materials may include two gauze bandages two and one-half inches wide and two bandages one inch wide, one American Red Cross First Aid Outfit, a small package of absorbent cotton, a roll of old muslin, a package of adhesive plaster one inch wide, boracic ointment, picric acid gauze or other application for burns, safety pins, and a pair of scissors.

For use in cases of fainting or exhaustion it is well to keep aromatic spirits of ammonia on hand. Its bottle should have a rubber stopper. The dose is one-half to one teaspoonful, in a quarter to half a glass of water. Hot coffee and tea are also good stimulants, but the time necessary to prepare them makes it desirable to have aromatic ammonia on hand. Household or ordinary ammonia must not be used as a substitute.

Olive oil, mustard, and baking soda may be brought from the kitchen when needed. It is assumed that vaseline, cold cream, hand lotion, talcum powder, and other toilet preparations will also be available.

Only a few appliances are necessary. Among them are a medicine glass, a teaspoon, clinical thermometer, hot water bag, fountain syringe, and an alcohol lamp in houses without gas or electric stoves. It is better not to buy other appliances until they are needed, particularly rubber goods since they deteriorate rapidly.

EXERCISES Why is it dangerous for persons without medical training to prescribe medicines? What is the especial danger of dosing oneself? What is meant by a habit-forming drug? Name all you can, and tell why they are peculiarly dangerous. What are the special objections to patent medicines? What precautions should be taken in order to administer medicine accurately? What precautions to avoid giving wrong medicines? How may some disagreeable medicines be made more palatable? Tell how to prepare and give a soapsuds enema. How should a fountain syringe be cared for? a throat spray? Describe methods for giving steam inhalations. Describe the equipment and care of a household medicine cupboard. What drugs is it well for a family to keep on hand? What appliances? What materials for first aid? How many drugs in addition to those prescribed by a physician have you or your family on hand at the present time? How many do you consider really necessary? Are any of these medicines used to remedy troubles that might be cured by sufficient attention to rest, exercise, diet, and fresh air? FOR FURTHER READING Health and Disease—Roger I. Lee, Chapter VI. How to Live—Fisher and Fisk, Supplementary Notes, Sections IV, V. Scientific Features of Modern Medicine—Frederic S. Lee, Chapters III, VIII. The Human Mechanism—Hough and Sedgwick, Chapter XX. The Conquest of Nerves—Courtney. Primitive Psychotherapy and Quackery—Lawrence, Chapters I-V. Nostrums and Quackery—American Medical Association. (See especially "Cancer Cures" and "Consumption Cures.")