Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-14
Loss of Consciousness.

Patients who appear insensible may be
perfectly conscious, nevertheless, and yet
may be unable to give any indication
thereof Care should be used in every at
| tempt to rouse them, and all conversation
held in the room should be with the
| knowledge that they may understand and
remember every word spoken. Even if
| they are insensibie, nothing is lost by ex-
ercising care in conversation, and gentle
ness in efforts at restoration to conscious
ness. Patients in this condition should be
| furnished cool, fresh air, their clothing
should be loosened and they should be
| laid in bed Notice and remember if there
are any peculiarities of breathing, if the
| pupils of the eyes be equally dilated, or
one more than the other, and if So,
| which one, and if the light affects
them. And remember these conditions
and note them down for the physician
when he comes. Loss Of consciousness
may be due to loss of blood; failure of the
blood supply to the brain; to poison by al
cohol, opium or other drugs; to poison due
to diseased kidneys; to apoplexy and to
| other causes.
Well-fed persons are least likely to catch
| infectious diseases, and nurse having in
| charge patients sick with such diseases
should be especially careful to keep her
own appetite and digestion excellent, and
| her system well nourished. Many diseases
which affect the human body are contag-
ious, and the laws of contagion should be
| much better understood than they are. As
the word is used by medical men, contagion
means coming in contact with. 1t is not
| necessary that the persons come into i'm.
| mediate contact with each other in order
that disease be transmitted, but there must
be transmission of the disease-carrying
material, whatever it may be, in some man
ner from the diseased to the well. These
specific materials may be transmitted as
fine particles of worn-off skin floating in
the air, or adhering to clothes or bed-cloth-
ing; they may be imperceptibly waited by
draft Of air from the stools of patient.
They may enter the system with the
drinking water that has reached the
drainage from a privy vault. They
may enter the system at the mouth
by a kiss, through the skin by
contact, through the lungs, and in null
titude of ways. For example: We know
that the ordinary mode by which hydro
phobia, syphilis, CHAMBERS, etc., are admitted
into the body is by incubation at some
broken portion of the skin or mucous sur
face.
In view of the large number of deaths in
this country annually from epidemics of
contagious diseases, it is but proper to
enumerate some of the means of the COM
mon diffusion of contagion: Persons first
sick are not isolated from crowded COM
munities. Persons partially recovered at
tend at crowded places of amusement, and
children return to school alter recovery
too early and with clothing and unwashed
hair that carry seeds of disease. Almost
every boarding school has, once in every
four or FIVE years, its epidemic of measles,
diphtheria, scarlet or typhoid fever, and
the pupils are scattered hurriedly to carry
the disease into multitude of uninfected
districts. Filthy sinks and cesspools and
defective house drains and sewers dessemi-
nate the evil from house to house. Laun-
dries that receive promiscuous and i'll
conditioned custom assist the mischief,
while the water supply taken from the
rivers that in their course receive every
thing diseased and dirty, living and dead, !
is mixture of nastiness that filters can
not cleanse, ard combination of calami- |
ties that seldom miscarry. If half the
wealth bestowed unwisely on systems Of
paving andlighting and transit were spent
in procuring water from unpolluted /
sources the average duration of human
life in The cities would be increased five
years.