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

—The usual symptoms of infectious diseases include fever, chill, sore throat, nasal discharge, cough, headache, vomiting and other digestive disturbances, and a general feeling of being sick all over. When one or more of these symptoms appear, unless they are very slight, a doctor should be sent for. The patient, whether child or grown person, should go to bed in a room alone and should stay in bed at least as long as the fever and symptoms of cold in the head continue, in order to protect others as well as himself. Persons in active life, it is true, are not always able to go to bed during colds; but there is no doubt that ultimately they would save time by doing so. It is especially necessary for children to remain in bed when suffering from colds, not only to insure their own well-being but also to protect others, since children are notably careless in regard to coughing, sneezing, and borrowing handkerchiefs. The patient needs mental rest as well as physical, and should not be allowed to work in bed.

The patient's nose and throat discharges should be received only in material that can be burned, like old linen or muslin, gauze, or paper napkins. As soon as they are soiled these handkerchief substitutes should be placed in strong paper bags and afterward burned. Soiled handkerchiefs lurking under pillows or in other parts of the bed may infect other people or re-infect the patient. Handkerchiefs that may not be burned should be placed as soon as soiled in a covered receptacle filled with cold water containing a little washing soda; when several have been collected they should be boiled in the same covered receptacle for 20 minutes. After boiling they may go to the regular laundry.

The patient's diet at first should be liquid or semi-solid. Large amounts of nourishment are not necessary during the first day or two, especially if the illness is likely to be short, but water should be taken as freely as possible. Cold drinks are generally acceptable during the feverish stage, but lemonade and other acids should be used with caution, since they sometimes irritate a sore throat. When the active symptoms have subsided the patient will need more food than usual, and a liberal, nourishing diet for a few days will do much to prevent the weakness and depressed vitality that often follow colds, tonsilitis, and other comparatively slight infections.

The bowels should be carefully regulated, and a mild cathartic is often beneficial at the outset.

Even during slight illness a patient should receive the daily care already described, and should be made as comfortable as possible. As in any illness, sponging and alcohol rubs are refreshing. An ice bag or cold compress may relieve headache, and hot applications or a cold compress on the throat are often soothing. The throat may be gargled with a solution of one teaspoonful of common salt dissolved in a pint of boiled water. If the patient perspires profusely he should be rubbed with a towel until dry, and provided with fresh warm, night clothes. An alcohol rub may well follow. It is most unwise for a patient who is perspiring freely to get up in a cold room and attend to himself.

Common colds are far more serious than they are usually supposed to be.

"More people suffer from common colds than from any other single ailment.... Could the sum total of suffering, inconvenience, sequelæ, and economic loss resulting from common colds be obtained, it would at once promote these infections from the trivial into the rank of the serious diseases.... Colds are contracted from other persons having colds, just as diphtheria is contracted from diphtheria. Arctic explorers exposed to all the conditions ordinarily supposed to produce colds do not suffer from these ailments until they return to civilization and become infected by contact with their fellowmen.... While common colds are never fatal, the complications and sequelæ are serious. These are rheumatic fever, pneumonia, sinusitis, nephritis, and a depressed vitality which favors other infections and hastens the progress of organic diseases.

"Common colds are perhaps most contagious during the early stages. If persons isolate themselves by remaining in bed during the first three days of a cold, they would not only benefit themselves, but would largely prevent the spread of the infection. The contagiousness and severity of colds differ in different epidemics and in different seasons of the year, depending upon the particular micro-organism involved and other factors not well understood.

"Prevention.—The prevention of colds consists, first in avoiding the infection, and, secondly, in guarding against the predisposing causes. Contact should be avoided with persons who have colds, especially in street cars, offices, and other poorly ventilated spaces where the risk of persons coughing or sneezing directly in one's face is imminent. Contact with the infection may further be guarded against by a careful self-education in sanitary habits and cleanliness, based upon the modern conception of contact infection.

"Colds, like other diseases conveyed in the secretions from the nose and mouth, are often conveyed by direct and indirect contact through lack of hygienic cleanliness and a disregard of sanitary habits. Kissing, the common drinking cup, the roller towel, pipes, toys, pencils, fingers, food, and other objects contaminated with the fresh secretions will transmit the disease."—("Preventive Medicine and Hygiene," Rosenau.)