Infantile Complaints not Unavoidable - Malevolent and Benevolent Microbes - How Infection is

Incurred - The Avoidance of Infection

One of the most important problems a mother has to solve is the prevention of infectious ailments in the nursery. It is always a pity when a child contracts measles, scarlet fever, whooping-cough, or any other similar disease. The old idea was that these were unavoidable, that every child had to go through them at one time or other, and the sooner they were over the better. Such reasoning is altogether wrong. Every serious illness is a tax on a child's vitality, which is inevitably lowered, for a time at least. The younger the child the more serious is the risk he must run. The longer a mother can ensure protection from infection the better, as an older child has greater resisting powers and a stronger constitution. The best plan of all is to prevent a child contracting infectious ailments at any time.

Infectious fevers are caused by the invasion of the body by germs or microbes. By preventing the entrance of microbes into the body we can ensure immunity from infectious disease.

Microbes or germs are very low forms of vegetable life. They multiply or increase with great rapidity, especially under suitable conditions of warmth and moisture. They exist everywhere on this planet wherever life is. They are in the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breathe. They settle upon our hair, our skin, our clothes. The only way to avoid them altogether would be to live in a refrigerator or an oven, because intense heat and cold destroy them.

Why, then, do we not succumb more often than we do to infection? First, because all microbes are not antagonistic to the well-being of man. Some work to bring about certain changes in animal life which are beneficial to man; others are the carriers, or causes, of disease. Secondly, our tissues have the power of fighting and destroying a great number of harmful germs. The healthy body has a wonderful resistance against disease.

A child, however, can contract infection (1) through the mouth and stomach by swallowing microbes into the digestive organs; (2) through the skin and the mucous membrane, or lining skin, of the mouth, throat, eyes, etc; (3) by inhaling, or breathing, microbes into the respiratory passages.

Infectious Disease Contracted from Food and Drink

A very common way by which infectious ailments are conveyed from one person to another is by water. Typhoid fever is, perhaps, the disease most frequently contracted in this way. Oysters and other shellfish can carry the poison of typhoid when they are obtained from water contaminated with sewage. A pure water supply can be ensured in the home by careful inspection and examination of the water from time to time. The house at the seaside, the cottage in the country are not always blessed with a good water supply, and the mother who takes her family off for the holidays should pay more attention to the water than to the view. Whenever there is the slightest suspicion that the water is not absolutely pure, it should be boiled before being given to the children. Filtering water is not of the least use, as the microbes pass with the greatest ease through a filter; but boiling will destroy them.

Infectious disease very often comes round in the milk-can. Scarlet fever is generally spread by infection from milk. If a case of scarlet fever occurs on a farm or in a shop where milk is supplied it forms the centre for the spreading of infection to every customer. It is said that diphtheria can be spread by means of milk, while very virulent microbes causing diarrhoea in infants and. young children are carried into the milk by flies in hot weather. Tubercular disease in children, also, is largely due to infection from milk. The infecting germ of tuberculosis is present in the milk when it comes from a cow suffering from the disease, and a very large proportion of cows in this country are tubercular. It must be remembered that milk may contain disease germs without there being the slightest change in its appearance or taste.

A great deal can be done by care to ensure a pure milk supply to the children. It is a big question, which the State or the municipalities will have to tackle before safety is assured. Meantime, the mother can do a great deal by keeping milk covered and in clean vessels at home to prevent the entrance of disease-carrying flies. The family doctor can generally advise as the best milk supply, and if at any time the family are in a place where it is suspected that the milk is not' good, or doubtful, it must be boiled.

With regard to other foods, the best way to prevent infection is by absolute cleanliness. Strict cleanliness in the home is one of the best means of preventing illness in the nursery.

Hygienic Hints

The Skin should be kept clean by daily washing and careful drying, and the wearing of clean underclothing. In the case of infants and young children, skin rashes and infectious skin disorders are very often due to carelessness in this respect. Certain skin ailments of a contagious kind are sometimes very difficult to get rid of, and spread very rapidly from one child to another. An article on "Rashes in the Nursery " has already dealt with this subject. (See page 740, Part 6.)

Parasitic infection of the mouth by means of dirty comforters and teats is not uncommon. The comforter is allowed to lie about in all sorts of dusty corners, and is cheerfully transferred from the floor to the baby's mouth. In this way all kinds of microbes gain entrance to the system. Infectious ailments are " caught " by using dirty towels, or towels that have been infected by another child with running eyes. Cold in the head is an infectious ailment very often contracted by one child using another's handkerchief. The infection of measles is in the discharge from the eyes and nose, and spreads by carelessness in not isolating an infected child early enough.

The mother who wishes to keep infectious ailments of all sorts out of her nursery must go in for the most rigid cleanliness. Soap and water rigorously applied destroy germs of many kinds. The clean house offers no harbourage to the microbe. Germs lurk in dark and dusty corners, and multiply in damp, badly ventilated places of habitation. Plenty of sunshine and fresh air in the home also keep the microbe outside, and this brings us to the third method by which microbes enter the body.

Breathing Microbes

A large number of germs find their entrance into the tissues by way of the respiratory passages. Germs are present in the air as unavoidable particles, and especially in crowded centres. We breathe the microbes of influenza, cold in the head, consumption, and pneumonia daily. In every case, therefore, the vitality of these germs is diminished by pure, fresh air. Cold air is one of the best destroyers of germs, and a tonic for the lungs at the same time. In spite of this fact, the average person has such a horror of draughts that he will sit in a stuffy, airless railway carriage with both windows shut. Ill-ventilated churches, stuffy bedrooms, overheated sitting-rooms, and places of entertainment are filled with microbes, which fasten upon the tissues whenever the vitality becomes sufficiently lowered by breathing poisoned air. Young children should be kept out of crowds as much as possible. Even in the tramcar someone may be present with incipient measles or other infectious disease, and it is better to let the children play in open parks in preference to taking their daily walks through the shopping centres in the cities.

Prevention is not only surer, but cheaper than cure; and it is worth while for the children's sake to exercise a little commonsense to guard against unnecessary infection.