30 DISEASES OF CHILDREN. 



Occasionally, too, the brain, may suffer, and it not unfrequently happens that 

 during an attack of mumps the first signs of tubercular meningitis become manifest. 

 It is because of these possible serious complications that mumps must be considered 

 as one of those diseases during which, no matter how mildly they may suffer, 

 children require unremitting attention. 



The only disease for which mumps is likely to be mistaken is an inflammatory 

 swelling of the glands over and in the neighbourhood of the parotid the so-called 

 parotid bubo which sometimes fornu during or after scarlet fever, and, less fre- 

 quently, after other of the febrile attacks of children. 



The treatment of mumps is very simple. Those affected should be separated from 

 those non-affected, and it must be borne in mind that a child is supposed to be 

 infectious for at least three weeks after it is first attacked. Many thoughtless 

 persons might be inclined to say, " Such precautions are nonsense : mumps is a mild 

 disease, and the sooner the children have it the better." Such an argument cannot 

 be too strongly condemned, and we think that those who do not use every reasonable 

 precaution to protect their children from disease of all kinds, no matter how slight 

 and trivial it may appear, incur a very grave responsibility. If mumps is a trifling 

 matter, we have shown that its complications are often serious, and we would further 

 insist that during convalescence from these little diseases children are often left in a 

 very vulnerable state, and are liable to be attacked by constitutional maladies of a 

 very grave nature. Children need not be kept in bed, but they must be kept in an 

 equable temperature, and not exposed to draughts. The bowels must be regulated 

 by a little phosphate of soda given in broth, and the diet must be nourishing and 

 soft soups, beef tea, eggs, arrowroot, and so forth. If there is much thirst, some 

 lemonade to which some bicarbonate of potash has been added will be found grateful. 

 Iced seltzer water (the true, not the artificial) is often appreciated. Unless the local 

 swelling is very bad, no treatment need be resorted to ; but if there be much 

 pain or tension, warm-water fomentations constantly renewed will be found to give 

 relief. If fomentations or warm applications are used, it must be constantly borne in 

 mind that after their removal the parts are very liable to suffer from the effects of 

 cold, so that they must be constantly and carefully wrapped up in flannel. If the 

 testicles become inflamed, the boy must immediately be sent to bed, and kept there 

 till the inflammation subsides. 



When the disease subsides, which is best judged of by employing the thermometer, 

 it may be advisable to give some tonic medicine, such as quinine, bark, iron, or the 

 mineral acids, and the remarks we have made about the convalescence from this 

 disorder must not be forgotten. 



NCKVUS, or MotJwrs 1 Mark. (See DOMESTIC SURGERY.) 



Night Terrors. This is one of the minor troubles of childhood which often prove 

 alarming to the friends. A child is put to bed in good health and spirits. After it 

 Las been asleep some two or three hours, shrieks and cries are heard coming from its 

 bedroom, and when the mother has run in to see what is amiss, the child is found 

 sitting up in bed in an agony of fright crying at the top of its voice, and with the 



