I Love Old Books… and Some Treatments in Medicine *Have* Improved

Stuffy old bookstores are as much of a treasure as the flashy larger ones that sell household furnishings and coffee.

I recently acquired an Edwardian gem, originally published in 1917 by The J. B. Lippincott Company: Lippincott’s Nursing Manuals: State Board Questions and Answers for Nurses, sixteenth ed. (1938). Lippincott was *the* manual of nursing when I trained.

As a writer, it provides a microscopic view into the history of medicine before our current age.

As a nurse, it gives me a source of nightly humour.

For example, one question poses this exam question (I paraphrase):

It is the second week of March. A baby fed artificially convulses four times. Describe your immediate intervention to stop the convulsions. Why is the baby convulsing? How can this be prevented?

Answer 1: Give the baby a mustard bath: two teaspoons of water to one gallon of water at 85 degrees Farenheit. Protect the child from drafts during the day and after the bath. When removing the child from tub dry her gently using warmed towels and a patting technique. Cover the baby afterwards with warm blankets. Give a cleansing enema. Withhold food for 24 hours, but give lots of water.

Answer 2: Some form of gastro-intestinal disturbance is usually the cause of seizures.

Answer 3: To prevent more seizures, regulate the child’s diet.

There’s a multitude of reasons why people have seizures. In childhood, it’s often associated with a fever. Adding warmth in the form of blankets and warm water isn’t a good idea for a child with a fever – makes it worse.

Disruptions of the bowels were suspect for most maladies… if your doctor studied in the middle ages!

Here, I see glimpses of humoral theory, which dates beyond Galen (2nd century C.E.) to ancient Egypt.

With remedies like this, it’s a wonder babies ever grew up into adulthood!

[This post isn’t to be taken for any form of medical advice in any way whatsoever. If you want to follow the medical advice from 1913, then i prescribe a time machine.]

[I wonder if the treatment would be the same on a different calendar date? The second week of March seemed quite specific.]