Precaution

“ CARE OF THE SICK ROOM Although it is quite possible that few may be able to follow every instruction or precaution advised to guard against the spread of diseases, we may at least outline the conditions to be aimed at and secured as nearly as possible. ”

“ The occurrence of three or more closely connected cases, in the practice of one individual, no others existing in the neighborhood, and no other sufficient cause being alleged for the coincidence, is prima facie evidence that he is the vehicle of contagion.
7. It is the duty of the physician to take every precaution that the disease shall not be introduced by nurses or other assistants, by making proper inquiries concerning them, and giving timely warning of every suspected source of danger. ”

“ Where the necessity is imperative, it is a duty to take every possible precaution against the dangers of the case. There are hundreds now among us, blind, consumptive, or suffering under spinal disease, who might by timely care have been saved. ”

“ These precautions are important; they give no trouble, and they inspire confidence—besides, they may really save your life. You should establish these habits immediately and permanently; You ought not to be obliged to have resource to them on some emergency, which would hurt the feelings of those around you. ”

“ There are sanitary precautions which need to be taken in factories and houses. There are precautions against fire which are necessary. There is care needed that children be not employed too young, and that they have an education. ”

“ Whether this be true or not, it is very certain that when an epidemic is threatened or prevailing, the people who are constantly talking about and discussing the disease, the newspapers which daily report its progress and fatality, and the doctors and nurses who ventilate their experiences, who predict evil, speak ominously and enjoin all sorts of precautions, [241] are themselves fomenters and carriers of the disease, infectious centers to the whole community. ”

“ It is the duty of a physician who is attending a patient infected with a contagious disease, when called upon to attend others not so infected, to take all such precautionary means experience has proved to be necessary to prevent its communication to them. ”

“ She will know that by taking the necessary precautions, she may save the child's life; that she must not take him thus chilled, to the fire or into a room highly heated, but that by gentle exercise or friction, she must restore the circulation of the blood, and in using such precautions, she may ward off the attacks of disease that would surely follow if they were neglected. ”

“ A careful study of the conditions as they exist, moreover, will show that he can accomplish much—more than is usually thought—and that it is as much a professional obligation to do so as, by the application of hygienic precautions and regulations, to lessen disease and suffering of all kinds and prevent death. ”

“ We can recommend isolation of the sick, and personal precautions in speaking and in coughing and sneezing, and occasionally may score an isolated success; but we are practically helpless against this enemy. ”

“ Preventable Diseases.—Men should be given a certain amount of theoretical knowledge of preventable diseases. These matters will be taken care of to a large extent by the Medical Corps; but men should be taught just what precautions are necessary to avoid recourse to the hospital. ”

“ So we were obliged, no doubt fortunately for the patient, to allow Nature to take her course, merely adopting such simple precautionary measures as would suggest themselves to anyone possessed of average common sense. ”

“ If, for example, a traveller is sick or infirm, delicate in health, specially nervous or emotional, liable to be upset by slight causes, and therefore requiring precautions which are not usual or practicable for travellers in general, notice should be given, so that, if reasonably practicable, arrangements may be made accordingly, and extra care be observed. ”

“ Much disease, especially in the more recently settled parts of this country, is consequent to neglecting simple and comfortable precautionary means; sometimes this neglect is owing to misdirected industry, and at others to laziness or evil habits. ”

“ No one should enter this room except those on duty in nursing, nor should any from the house ride in public conveyances or attend meetings. These precautions are just as necessary in slight as in severe cases, as infection from a mild case may cause a fatally severe attack in another person. ”

“ If the opinion is confirmed by a second competent medical man, then, and not later, is the time for precautions, for removing the child from school, and for selecting, as far as may be, a suitable winter climate. When the signs of disease are well marked, a reprieve, perhaps a long one, is all that can be confidently reckoned on. ”

“ You take these precautions because your most elementary common sense tells you that such precautions as medicaments, etc., enter for something of a condition in the decree of God which reads that you shall die or not die. ”

“ Whether the reader admits that the case is proved, the dictates of reason favor the observance of certain precautions, such as not allowing the same person to remain in too constant attendance on consumptives, nor permitting another to sleep with them, securing the most perfect ventilation possible, and the exercise of great cleanliness with immediate removal and destruction of sputa. ”

“ But I would also strenuously exhort you to observe all the precautionary rules laid down for you, to avoid all unaccustomed strain or indulgence such as can only be undertaken with impunity by a man in full vigor and absolute soundness of health. ”

“ But we eventually agreed that, under the circumstances, it would be prudent to keep our eyes open, and to adopt precisely such precautionary measures as we should resort to if we were expecting the men to break into open mutiny. ”

“ The dietetic instincts of a rationally educated person should obviate the necessity of special precautions, but in large cities, where temptations walk in disguise, the welfare of inexperienced children may require additional safeguards. ”

“ It should be well and maturely considered and digested, and with the greatest secrecy, lest, however able the leaders or council may be, some of the precautions necessary to be taken, be discovered. These precautions are infinite both at home and abroad. ”

“ For the latter purpose the main object is not to permit any discharge to become dry before being destroyed. Before the consumptive person has learned the personal precautions which must be taken, and up to the time when he has been trained to carry them out carefully, he has probably distributed a considerable amount of infective matter. ”

“ I have expressed my opinion publicly as to the precautions against the spread of so-called infectious and contagious diseases in the following words: —
“Rather than quarrel over vaccination, I recommend, if the law demand, that an individual submit to this process, that he obey the law, and then appeal to the gospel to save him from bad physical results. Whatever changes come to this century or to any epoch, we may safely submit to the providence of God, to common justice, to the maintenance of individual rights, and to governmental usages. ”

“ Eaten bread is soon forgotten. Dangers which are warded off by effective precautions and foresight are never even remembered. ”

“ Again, not only is a firm and strict compliance with medical directions in the administration of remedies, of regimen, and general measures, necessary, but an unbiased, faithful, and full report of symptoms to the physician, when he visits his little patient, is of the first importance. An ignorant servant or nurse, unless great caution be exercised by the medical attendant, may, by an unintentional but erroneous report of symptoms, produce a very wrong impression upon his mind, as to the actual state of the disease. ”

“ When the circumstance is present that you say, according to hygiene, induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, perform your office as porter, and shut out these unwelcome guests; exercise the mind's authority over the body, and protest against their entering your castle, and you can keep them out; nothing can affect your body to the issues of pain or pleasure, unless the mind says it or fears it, and like a frightened porter forsakes his watch and admits the intruder through fear, concluding he is not strong enough to guard the entrance. ”

“ Consider first the average American household, where the family physician cannot call every day. Not a day finds this household without the need of information in medicine or hygiene or sanitation. More efforts of the profession are thwarted by ignorance than by epidemic. Not to supplant the doctor, but to supplement him, carefully prepared information should be at hand on the hygiene of health—sanitation, diet, exercise, clothing, baths, etc.; on the hygiene of disease—nursing and sick-room conduct, control of the nervous and insane, emergency resources, domestic remedies ”

“ Guard Your Water Supply—How Diseases Are Classified—How to Prevent Contagion—Care of the Sick Room—Disinfection, Its Importance and Its Methods—Period of Isolation or Quarantine—Duty of All Households Where Sickness Has Invaded, to Guard Others Against Its Spread. Man cannot preserve his health entirely by his own caution as to his food and personal habits. His surroundings enter into the matter at all times. By this is meant the house in which he lives, its situation and conditions, as well as the community itself. ”

“ Only the healthy should keep these rules. Whoever is ill or a sufferer from any injuries, or has lost his health through bad habits, for him there are special rules for each disease, only to be found [Pg 105] in the medical books. Let it be remembered that every change in a life habit is the beginning of an ailment.
21. If no physician can be secured, then ailing people may use these rules as well as the healthy.
These rules are, of course, full of the common sense of medicine that endures at all times. ”

“ When in the midst of and waiting on those who are under the scourge of an epidemic, be as little very close to the patient as you can, and don't inhale his or her breath or exhalations when you can help it; be rather in the current to, than from him. Be very cleanly in putting away all excretions at once, and quite away; go frequently into the fresh [88] air; and don't sleep in your day clothes. Do what the Doctor bids you; don't crowd round your dying friend; you are stealing his life in taking his air, and you are quietly killing yourself. ”

“ V. Let me advise you, in your visits to the sick, never to appear in a hurry, nor to talk of indifferent matters before you have made the necessary inquiries into the symptoms of your patient's disease.
VI. Avoid making light of any case. “Respice finem” should be the motto of every indisposition. There is scarcely a disease so trifling, that has not, directly or indirectly, proved an outlet to human life. This consideration should make you anxious and punctual in your attendance upon every acute disease, and keep you from risking your reputation by an improper or hasty prognosis. ”

“ The lesson to be learned when this situation confronts physician and patient is that of organic limitation. The vital organs are capable of function only within bounds, beyond which. are danger and possible death. Safety rests in natural processes alone; danger lies in tonics and in food.
A general classification of the symptoms of disease tending to limit certain signs to certain ailments can never be made with accuracy. ”

“ To keep the public health,—to protect it by keeping one's body well, by taking care to commit no nuisance, to contaminate no source of public infection, and to lend one's self to participate in the correcting of abuses. ”

“ Prevention is the watchword which is being signalled along the line of the medical profession, at the present time, concerning the management of disease. The importance of State Boards of Health in many of the larger States has become so generally recognized, that they are yearly appointed, and make regular reports, with more or less full accounts as to the results of observations in reference to the public health and the prevention of disease, which prove to be of the highest value. ”

“ This case is one of a numerous and highly important class—an individual in fair health, without symptoms of any disease, is, by the stethoscopic ordeal, accounted a "bad risk," or is denied the advantages of assurance, and informed that some hygienic or curative course is essential for his safety. ”

“ Undertakers, like physicians and all those who may be called at any time of the day or night to make use of their physical and mental faculties, whose duties compel them to breathe the foul effluvia of the sick chamber, or the noxious gases generated by the dead, even to come into direct contact with every variety of contagious or epidemic disease—such professionals find it to their interest and physical welfare to observe certain rules of living in accordance with the requirements of their calling. ”

“ Broadly speaking, if you will keep away from every one whom you know to have an infectious disease; wash your hands always before you eat, or put anything into your mouth; keep your fingers, pencils, pennies, and pins out of your mouth,—where they don't belong; live and play in the open air as much as possible and keep your windows well open day and night, you will avoid nine-tenths of the risks from germs and the dangers that they bring in their wake. ”

“ The part which the public services, such as the army and navy, played in the progress of hygiene was very important, as might indeed be expected; for under no other circumstances could bodies of men be so well observed, and the effects of surroundings and conditions upon health noted. ”

“ To PRESERVE HEALTH,–to guard against disease, should be the object, on the score of economy, comfort, and safety; and this may be accomplished in all cases, unless under rare and very peculiar circumstances of exposure. A uniform state of health may be maintained until old age, by a careful observance of the rules already set forth. ”