Mothers often think that something is wrong with their child’s feet when actually they are perfectly normal. But it doesn’t do any harm for them to think so, because it leads them to take their child to a special doctor, called an orthopedist, for an examination. And it is a good thing for a child to have his feet examined once in a while.


Here a flat foot and a foot with an abnormally high arch (pes cavus) are compared to a normal foot. Flat feet are extremely common in children. Pes cavus is the opposite of flat feet, and doesn’t become noticeable until the child reaches seven or eight years of age.

There are several abnormal conditions of the feet with which a child can be born. Here are a few of them:

1. Flatfoot. This is the most common condition affecting a child’s feet. It means that the normal arch of the foot is not strong and, as a result, the whole undersurface of the foot touches the floor when the child is standing. (See the diagram.)

Flatfoot usually results from weak muscles and ligaments in the foot, but it may also be caused by spasm of foot muscles, or by faulty development of some of the bones of the feet.
Wearing the wrong kind of shoes won’t give a child flatfoot, but it may make a case of mild flatfoot get worse.

There are things that can be done to help flatfoot:

A. With bare feet, try to pick up marbles from a carpeted floor with your toes. (See the diagram.) Hold the marble with your toes and place it in a bowl.

B. Stand several inches away from a wall and gently push back and forth from the wall while keeping your soles and heels flat on the floor.

C. Flatfoot can also be helped by wearing arch supports inside the shoes, or by getting special shoes advised by the orthopedist.

D. Children with flatfoot may have no pain at all, or their feet and legs may hurt from the condition. Whether E. such children have pain or not, they should be encouraged to run and play like other children. Exercise helps flatfoot, as it will strengthen weak muscles and ligaments.

2. Pes cavus. This condition is the opposite of flatfoot. In other words, the arches are too high. Pes cavus doesn’t usually become noticeable until the child reaches seven to eight years of age. Then calluses (hard, thickened skin) will develop on the soles of the feet and the toes will appear to be pushed backwards over the top of the foot. Also, the heel bones look larger than normal.

Pes cavus is not nearly so common as flatfoot. It is treated by stretching the tight tissues of the sole of the feet and by wearing special shoes that have a leather bar across the sole just where the toes join the main part of the foot.

In a few cases, it is necessary to operate upon a foot with pes cavus, and this usually controls the condition.

3. Pigeon toes. In this condition, the front of the feet turn inward and the child walks with the heels of the feet turned out. Some children with pigeon toes have something wrong with the bones of their legs or hips. If the hips don’t fit into their sockets properly, an operation to correct the condition will have to be done. When the bone condition is corrected, pigeon toes disappear. However, most youngsters with pigeon toes have no serious bone condition and all that is necessary is a pair of special orthopedic shoes. These shoes will make the child walk with his feet pointing straight out.

Flat feet may be improved by the proper exercises. One exercise involves picking up marbles from the floor with the toes and placing them in a bowl.

Years ago, parents used to have their pigeon-toed children wear their right shoe on their left foot, and their left shoe on their right foot. This forced them to keep their feet straight. Try it, and see how funny it feels.

Most children enjoy running around barefoot, both indoors and out. It is perfectly all right to go barefoot, except under these conditions:

1. Don’t go barefoot indoors if there are wooden floors from which you can get splinters in your feet.

2. Don’t go barefoot indoors when the house is cold. This may make you catch a cold.

3. Don’t go barefoot outside in places where you might step on broken glass or nails, or get splinters in your feet.

4. Don’t go barefoot in places where animals soil the ground. Animal droppings may contain germs or parasites (tiny worms that can be seen only under a microscope) that can get into
your body through the soles of your feet and cause disease.

5. Don’t run barefoot on very hot streets. You may burn your soles.

Ingrown toenails are most easily avoided if children are taught to cut the nail on the big toe straight across so it does not grow into the skin groove.

Here are some more things children should know about taking good care of their precious feet.

1. If shoes feel too tight, you have probably outgrown them. Let your parents know, and stop wearing shoes that no longer fit.

2. If you are getting irritation of the skin of your heels, it may mean your shoes are too big for you. That’s easy to correct by inserting a pad inside the heel of the shoes.

3. If you are developing a corn on one of your toes, it probably means you need a wider-sized shoe. Let your parents know.

4. Toenails, especially the big toenail, should always be cut straight across, not down in the corners. (See the diagram.) This will avoid ingrown toenails and other infections around the nails.

5. Feet must be washed thoroughly every day. Dirty feet may contain germs that can get into the body and cause sickness.

6. Toes get frostbitten very easily. Therefore, in cold weather, make sure to wear warm socks and heavy shoes.

People who study nature tell us that one of the greatest reasons man has developed more skills than the apes is that man can touch all his other fingers with his thumb, and the apes can’t. This means that man can grasp things and use his hands much better than the apes. Try writing without bringing your thumb over to your index finger. Try throwing a football without bringing your thumb around to your other fingers. Try sewing a hem on a dress without bringing your thumb toward your other fingers. Or, try buttoning your coat without using your thumb.

We are also told that primitive man made tools and weapons with which to hunt because he could use his hands better than any other animal. It is strange, isn’t it, that even though the apes are so highly developed, they never made tools or weapons or clothes to protect themselves from bad weather.

Now that we realize how precious our hands and fingers are, doesn’t it make sense for us to take good care of them? One would think so, but it is surprising how careless some children are! They take all kinds of risks with their hands and fingers. And some children never stop to think how bad it could be if they seriously injured even one finger.

We never realize how valuable each and every finger is until we hurt one of them. Our hands are very precious possessions and we should never put them in places where they can get hurt.

Here are some good rules everyone, including grown-ups, should follow in the care of their fingers and hands:

1. Hands get dirtier than any other part of the body and should therefore be washed frequently.

2. Dirt collects quickly beneath fingernails and looks terrible if left there. Everyone should clean his fingernails whenever they are dirty.

3. Loose skin around the nails is called a hangnail. Don’t pull or bite a hangnail, as it may lead to a nasty infection. Hangnails should be cut carefully with a scissors.

4. Fingernails should not be cut far down in the corners as this may lead to an infection.

5. Sooner or later everyone gets a splinter in a finger, often beneath the nail. Splinters should be removed as soon as possible in order to avoid an infection. It is always best to have a grown-up remove a splinter so that it doesn’t break off, leaving some of it behind. Deep splinters should be removed by a doctor.

6. We don’t know why children like to stick their fingers into the necks of bottles, but they do. This is a foolish thing for them to do as the finger may become stuck. When this happens, it might be necessary to go to a hospital and have the situation brought under control by a surgeon. This can be painful, so don’t put your fingers into bottlenecks or other tight places.

7. Curiosity is great. It teaches us many things we would not otherwise know. But never be so curious that you put your fingers into machinery that you don’t fully understand.

Many children have suffered serious injuries to their fingers and hands by sticking them into washing machines, washer-dryers, blenders, lawn mowers, and other appliances. Let your mother or dad fix these machines if they get out of order. Don’t you try to do it yourself!

8. Many homes have work rooms with electric saws and drills and lathes. These are wonderful instruments, and when children grow up, they will benefit a lot by knowing how to use them. But young children, and even children below the teen ages, should not tinker with electric tools unless one of their parents is there and gives permission for them to do so. Unhappily, many a child has had a serious hand or finger injury while trying to operate these tools.

9. Knives are valuable tools, too, but they must not be used as playthings. Throwing knives or fooling around with them can lead to bad cuts. More over, children should get instructions from their parents about how to use sharp knives before they try to cut with them. They should also learn how to open and close a penknife so as to avoid cuts to their hands and fingers.

10. Many children like to sew at an early age, and this is good for them to do. However, it is important that they learn to avoid sticking themselves with sharp needles. And they should also be taught how to use a thimble properly so that they don’t injure their fingers while sewing.

11. The kitchen is a great place to help in the cooking or cleaning up. But you have to be pretty careful in the kitchen if you want to avoid injuries:

A. Always use a potholder when taking a pot off the stove.
B. Always make sure you know how to light a stove or oven before trying to do it yourself.
C. Never wear loose, tong-sleeved clothing when working near the stove.
D. Never try to lift a pot or platter with hot food that might be too heavy for you to handle.

12. When you turn on the faucets to wash your hands, always turn on the cold water first, and always turn off the hot water first when you are finished washing.

13. Matches are not toys. Don’t play with them. You might burn your fingers, or even start a serious fire.

14. More children get finger and hand injuries from slamming doors than from anything else. Car doors, doors in your home, revolving doors, all can catch fingers if used improperly. Most doors have knobs which should always be used in opening and closing the door. People should push a revolVing door by the bar that is provided for the purpose. They should keep their fingers away from the edges of a revolving door.

Children should remember that they have two hands and that they must be careful about both of them. While slamming a car door with one hand, a child must watch out that the other hand is not caught when someone is closing the other door.

15. A good many cuts happen when opening soda bottles or pulling the tabs on cans carelessly. If these tops seem to be on very tight, it is a much better idea to let a grown-up open it for you.

16. Children who help out washing dishes should be sure to rinse all the soap or detergent off their hands, and then they should be sure to dry their hands thoroughly when they are finished. Cracking of the skin can lead to painful hands if they fail to do so.

17. Everyone should wear gloves when out in the cold. Chapped hands are not only ugly, but they can hurt quite a lot, too. Also, frostbite can result if a child fails to wear gloves when out in the cold.

18. Children frequently skin their knuckles while playing or roughhousing. If this happens, the skinned area should be cleaned with soap and water and then covered with a Band-aid. Skinned knuckles usually take a long time to heal, but they’ll take longer if they get infected or aren’t protected by a Band-aid.

Remember, some day you may be earning your living with your hands, so take especially good care of them while you are young.

Most boys and girls learn to brush their teeth by the time they are three to four years old. And their parents usually take them to see a dentist twice a year for a check-up, even when nothing seems to be wrong with the teeth.

During the dental check-up, the dentist looks to see that the teeth are growing in straight, that there are no holes—most people call holes cavities— in the teeth, that there is no infection surrounding the teeth, and that the gums are healthy. If the teeth are growing in crooked or the teeth of the upper jaw don’t meet the teeth of the lower jaw the way they should, the dentist may recommend treatment for the condition. If there is a cavity in a tooth, the dentist will fill it in with silver or some other substance. And if there is an infection around a tooth or in the gums, the dentist will suggest special medicines to clear it up.

There are many reasons why young people may have cavities or other things wrong with the teeth. Here are some of them:

1. Cavities may develop because bacteria in the mouth eat into the hard substance called calcium, which makes up a good part of the outer part of a tooth.

2. Eating too much candy and drinking too many sweet sodas are thought to cause cavities in the teeth.

Loss of a tooth frequently throws the remaining teeth out of alignment and leads to malocclusion. This means that the upper and lower teeth don’t mesh and come together evenly. To correct this condition, dentists often place a “retainer” in the empty space.

3. Insufficient fluorine in the drinking water is thought by most dentists to lead to cavities. Most towns and cities now add fluorine to the water in their reservoirs if it is necessary. As a result, cavities from too little fluorine don’t happen as often as they used to years ago.

4. A child who has an improper diet, with too little calcium and iron and vitamins, is more likely to get cavities than a child who eats properly and drinks a lot of milk. Remember, milk has plenty of calcium, and meats and fruits and vegetables have plenty of iron and vitamins in them.

5. Children who don’t brush their teeth regularly are much more apt to develop cavities and mouth infections.

6. If the upper and lower teeth don’t come together properly, a child has greater chances of getting cavities.

7. If a boy or girl is in poor health because of some illness that has lasted for a long time, he or she may develop more than the usual number of cavities and mouth infections.

Some children take excellent care of their teeth but get cavities anyway. We don’t know why this happens, but we do know that certain children just have better teeth than others. Besides, cavities aren’t terribly serious unless we neglect them. Actually, after a cavity has been filled, the tooth is as good as new again. Cavities don’t cause toothaches unless they grow big because we have neglected them, and a child who visits his dentist every few months won’t get into too much trouble.

Here are some good ways to have as few cavities as possible, and to avoid infection of the gums surrounding the teeth:

1. Have your doctor check your general health two or three times a year. A healthy child tends to have healthy teeth.

2. Always eat a good diet with plenty of green vegetables, fresh fruits, meat and fish, chicken and eggs, and, of course, three to four glasses of milk each day. In that way you’ll get all the vitamins and minerals you need to maintain strong, healthy teeth.

3. Brush your teeth after every meal. naturally, if you eat lunch in school, you may not be able to brush them there. But certainly, you can always brush your teeth after breakfast and before going to bed at night.

4. Don’t eat more candy or drink more soda than your parents allow. )One piece of candy and one soda a day ought to be enough.

5. If you have a toothache or your gums hurt, let your mom or dad know about it so they can make an appointment with your dentist.

6. See your dentist twice a year, even if your teeth and gums feel fine. By doing this, he may be able to give you hints on how to prevent infections or cavities.

Here are some other things children should know about their teeth:

1. If a first tooth has to be pulled, this will not hurt the second tooth that will come in. However, when a first tooth has been removed before it is ready to come out by itself, the dentist may put a device called a space-retainer in your mouth so that there will be room for he second tooth when it comes in. If an empty space between teeth is not kept open, the teeth on either side tend to drift toward one another. Then, there might not be enough room for the second tooth when it is ready to come in.

2. If a first tooth is broken—and this happens once in a while from a fall or accident—the dentist will file it down so hat the rough edges will not scrape or cut the lining of the cheek.

3. If a second tooth is chipped or broken, the dentist may file it down and put a cap over it. The cap looks exactly like a real tooth, and when the dentist is finished, no one is able to tell that there is a broken tooth beneath the cap. The cap stays there permanently, or until a new cap is made when the child has grown up.

4. If a child looses a permanent tooth, a space-retainer is placed in the empty space and is kept there until the child is old enough to have a permanent false tooth put in. And today, false teeth are made so well that no one can tell them from real teeth.

5. If the upper teeth don’t meet the lower teeth properly, special braces, wires, or plates are used to bring the teeth into proper line. This kind of dental work is called orthodontia. Orthodontia is usually done when a child reaches twelve years of age, or older. Once in a while, if the need is very great, orthodontia is started in a child as young as ten years of age.

It may take two or three, or sometimes more, years to correct teeth that are badly out of place. However, this kind of dental work is very worthwhile because it can get the teeth almost perfectly in line, where they should be. And orthodontia often improves the child’s appearance tremendously.

Orthodontia is not painful, although the wearing of braces and wires and plates in the mouth may be uncomfortable. And while wearing braces, a youngster may have to stop eating such things as gumdrops and caramels and chewing gum and other stuff that might get caught in the braces.

2. Tell your parents whenever you have an earache. It may be a simple thing to overcome, or it may mean the beginning of an ear infection. The sooner an ear infection is treated, the greater are the chances that you will avoid damage to your hearing.

3. Don’t blow your nose too hard when you have a cold. This can spread the infection from the nose to the ears.

4. Don’t keep sniffling up mucus when you have a cold, as this, too, may cause the spread of an infection from the nose to the ears. Blow your nose gently instead of sniffling.

5. Tell your parents if you are collecting a lot of wax in your ears. It may be necessary to visit a doctor who will remove it for you.

6. Don’t stick anything into your ears; you may damage the eardrum. The smallest thing a child should put in his ears is his elbow. See if you can do that!

7. Protect your ears whenever you can from extremely loud sounds. It has been found that damage to hearing can result from continued loud sounds. Did you know that musicians in bands that always play loudly can lose some of their hearing, and people who work in factories where the machinery constantly makes loud noises sometimes suffer loss of hearing?

Sound waves received by the external ear are transmitted through the ear canal and the middle ear to nerves in the inner ear, which send impulses to the brain. When the brain receives these impulses it translates them into words or sounds that we understand.

Some children lose a great deal of their ability to hear because of an infection that damages the bones in the middle ear. Others lose hearing because their nerve of hearing (the acoustic nerve) is damaged by disease. Such children should be taught lip reading. By watching other people’s lips as they speak, many unhearing people—children as well as adults— learn to “hear” with their eyes!

Classes in lip reading are given in special schools in almost every city in our country. The results of study in lip reading can be so remarkable that many people “hear through their eyes” almost as well as if their ears were perfectly healthy.

Unfortunately, children who are born without hearing cannot benefit from training in lip reading. Since they have never heard the sounds of talk in the first place, they cannot be taught what the lips are saying when they make their movements during speech.

There are a great many ways to make sure our eyes are kept in the best possible shape, and all boys and girls should follow these rules:

1. Wash your eyelids when you wash your face every morning and every during the day when you think they might be dirty. Keeping your eyelids clean will help to prevent the conjunctiva—the lining in front of the eyeball and under the eyelids—from getting inflamed or infected. It will also lessen your chance of getting inflamed eyelids (blepharitis).

2. Tell your mother or father whenever your eyes feel itchy. This may mean that you are getting conjunctivitis, an inflammation of the conjunctiva. Early treatment of this condition with special eyedrops or eye ointments will clear it up quickly in a couple of days.


A parent may syringe a child’s eye to remove a foreign body, but should not touch the eyeball. If syringing is unsuccessful, the child should be taken to a doctor.

3. Let your parents know whenever you get something in your eye that irritates you. Sometimes an eyelash drops into the eye, or a speck of dust or dirt flies in. Most such things can be easily washed out of the eye or wiped out by your mom or dad with a piece of moist cotton. However, if a speck of dirt or an eyelash doesn’t come out easily, a doctor can remove it without any trouble.

It is not a good idea to allow something to stay in your eye for more than an hour or so. Certainly, we should never go to sleep with something in our eyes. Do you know why? Well, if you leave it in overnight, or for more than a couple of hours, the conjunctiva may become all red and irritated. And, every once in a while, the conjunctiva may become infected. But more important, it will take the doctor much longer to remove the dirt or hair if it has been in too long. And, probably, he would make you wear a patch over your eye for a few days, and you wouldn’t like that too much, would you?

4. It is a bad idea to rub your eyes too hard at any time, but it is especially bad to rub them when your hands are dirty. When you rub your eyes, there is a great chance that some of the dirt from your fingers will get into the eyes and don’t forget, when you play outdoors, loads of germs may be on your hands and they would just love to get onto your eyelids where they can form a sty, or get into your eyes where they can give you conjunctivitis.

Do you know what a sty is? Well, it is a painful little pimple that forms on the edges of the eyelid. It sometimes hurts like the dickens for a few days until it bursts and the pus comes out.

Conjunctivitis is just as bad. Since certain types of conjunctivitis, like pinkeye, are very catching, you will have to stay home from school and won’t be able to play with your friends for a few days. Also, because conjunctivitis makes the eyes irritable and itchy, you won’t be able to watch television until they get better.

So, don’t rub your eyes with dirty fingers.

5. Never run and play with a pen or pencil, a stick, or any other sharp thing in your hand. You may slip and the sharp point may injure your eye. And even though you feel pretty sure of yourself, just think how often you do slip and fall each day. All kids do, and you are no exception.

It is just as important to remember not to poke or point anything sharp at another child. Even when you are only fooling, an accident might happen and you would feel terrible if you hurt the other child’s eye.

Did you ever notice that athletes always protect their eyes against all possible chances of injury? Football players wear face masks attached to their helmets to help protect their eyes,and fencers, who use swords, always wear special eye masks.

Remember, too, when you roughhouse with a playmate or a brother or sister that you must be careful not to poke your fingers into their eyes. Did you ever accidentally poke your fingers into your own eye? If you did, you sharp point may injure your eye. And even though you feel pretty sure of yourself, just think how often you do slip and fall each day. All kids do, and you are no exception.

It is just as important to remember not to poke or point anything sharp at another child. Even when you are only fooling, an accident might happen and you would feel terrible if you hurt the other child’s eye.

Did you ever notice that athletes always protect their eyes against all possible chances of injury? Football players wear face masks attached to their helmets to help protect their eyes,and fencers, who use swords, always wear special eye masks.

Remember, too, when you roughhouse with a playmate or a brother or sister that you must be careful not to poke your fingers into their eyes. Did you ever accidentally poke your fingers into your own eye? If you did, you know how much it can hurt.

6. Let your parents know if you aren’t seeing as clearly as you usually do. You may need eyeglasses. You can be tested to see if you need glasses within a matter of a very short time by going to an eye doctor or optometrist.

7. Reading in a good light is important so you won’t strain your eyes. Some boys and girls are quite careless about this, and they will pick up a book or magazine and read it almost anywhere, without thinking about how good the light is. If you do strain your eyes, they get all red, and you may even get a headache. And it may take a couple of days for your eyes to feel good again. Here are a couple of things everyone should know about lighting:

A. The light should always be behind you and should come over your shoulder when you read. It will strain your eyes if you read while a bright light is glaring into your face. This is also true if you are reading outdoors. If you are, turn your back to the sun while reading.

B. Make sure the lights are bright enough in any room in which you are reading. The print on the page should be clear and easy to see without straining.

Rubbing your eyes, especially when your hands are dirty, may cause the conjunctiva, the membrane covering the front of the eyeball (left), to become irritated and red, or the glands under the eyelids to become infected and form a sty, (right).

8. The retina in the back of your eyes is very sensitive and can be damaged by staring too long into the sunlight. Children should never look for more than a few seconds directly into the bright sun, even if they are wearing sunglasses.

9. Everybody should wear sunglasses if they are going to be out in bright sunshine for long periods of time. It is especially important if you are lying on a sand beach, or sailing or taking a long ride in a boat on a bright day, or skiing, or playing in the snow on a sunshiny day.

Did you know that your eyes can get sunburned? Well, they can, and quite easily, too. When it happens, the conjunctiva becomes swollen and red, and the eyes hurt, become itchy, and the sight is kind of blurry. And so, all of us must protect our eyes from too much sun by wearing sunglasses.

Sunglasses should not be worn in dim light. They do no good at all unless the light is very strong. As a matter of fact, no one sees nearly as well with sunglasses when they are worn in the shade or in poor light.

10. Whenever you think anything is wrong with your eyes, tell your mom or dad about it right away. Don’t forget that it is simple to make an appointment with an eye doctor who will be able to tell very quickly what needs to be done to fix you up. And best of all, examination and treatment by an eye doctor won’t hurt. Even if you have something in your eye that he is going to remove, it won’t hurt. All he does is to put a drop or two of a special medicine in your eye, and all the pain disappears. You will feel nothing while he removes whatever it is that has gotten into your eye.

11. Anyone can strain his eyes by concentrating for too long a period of time on anything. Women who embroider for hours at a time may strain their eyes; men who repair watches and handle fine parts of the watch for hours at a time may strain their eyes; doctors who perform delicate operations all day may overtire their eyes; scientists who peer into a microscope all day long can strain their eyes; and children who watch television for hours at a time may strain their eyes.

Watching television will not cause eyestrain in children if they do not watch it excessively and if they sit at least six feet away from the screen.

Parents who insist that the television set be turned off aren’t mean. They know it isn’t good to stare and stare constantly into the bright light of a television set for too long. And most children do just that! Oh, an hour-long show won’t do any harm, but there are boys and girls who watch program after program, for an entire morning or afternoon or evening without stop. And if the program happens to be very interesting or exciting, they never take their eyes off the set.

There are even children who don’t want to eat their meals because they might miss part of a program; others gulp down their food in a few minutes so they can run back to their television set. These practices are not good for the eyes or the stomach. So be sensible, turn off the set when you are told to, and get up and walk around when the commercials are on. You’re not going to buy an automobile or a dishwasher right away, are you?

It is funny, but children enjoy being dirty and being clean. They love to play in dirt and mud, and at the same time, they love to get sparkling clean after they come into the house and wash up for supper and get ready for bed. There are, of course, youngsters who balk and squawk when told to bathe or wash. They usually complain, “Why should I get so clean, I’m only going to get dirty again?” Well, there’s a good answer to that question. If we left dirt on our bodies when we came into the house, several bad things could happen:

1. We could dirty the furniture and dining table with our unclean clothes and hands.

2. We could put dirty fingers in our mouths when we ate, and that might make us sick.

3. We could allow germs that are on our dirty bodies to enter a little crack in the skin, and give us an infection.

4. We might rub our eyes with our dirty hands and give ourselves an eye infection.

5. And, finally, we would be terrible to look at if we ate at the table or went to sleep without bathing or washing.

Normal children with healthy skins should bathe or shower every day. Oh, there are exceptions. A child who is extremely tired and didn’t get very dirty that day might skip a bath without doing any harm. Or if it is terribly cold in the house and there isn’t enough hot water, a child can miss a bath and merely wash with soap and a washcloth. And, if a child is sick and has a fever, it is best to avoid a bath or shower that day. A sponge bath is all that is needed.


Many children prefer showers to baths, especially at hair-washing time. And no one need worry if a little soap gets in the eyes. The stinging sensation is over in a few seconds at a time during the coldest season. They might freeze if they took off all their clothes to bathe!

There are other exceptions, too, depending upon where a child lives. For example, a child who lives in a hot, tropical climate and perspires a great deal may bathe two or three times a day. This is mainly done to cool off, rather than to keep clean. And, Eskimo children may not bathe for several days

It is a good idea to get into the habit of a daily bath or shower. Most children do it just like brushing their teeth, cleaning their fingernails, getting dressed, or going to school. Bathing should become a natural part of a child’s daily life. There shouldn’t be discussions about whether or not to bathe. Of course, we should bathe. Only in that way will we protect ourselves best against all the germs that are on our bodies. Only in that way will we look our best. Only in that way will we smell nicest. (Did you know that unclean bodies don’t smell very nice, and that clean bodies smell delicious?)

Here are a few other things we should know about bathing or washing:

1. For children with exceptionally dry skin, it may not be advisable for them to bathe more than every other day. The soap might wash away oils that the skin needs to protect itself. However, there are oils that can be put in the bath to replace oi1s lost from washing.

2. For children with certain skin diseases, baths may not be advisable more than every two to three days.

3. No one should use strong soaps when bathing, because they can injure rather than help the skin.

4. It is rarely necessary to scrub hard to clean one’s body, unless paint or grease must be washed off. Scrubbing too hard may injure the skin.

5. Children should not stay in a bath so long that the water cools off and gets chilly. This is a good way to catch cold.

6. Soap in the eyes may sting a bit, but doesn’t do any real harm.

7. It isn’t necessary to splash powder all over the body after bathing, nor to use after-bath lotions. A clean body smells nicer than powder or lotions.

8. Since perspiration causes most unpleasant odors, it is more important to bathe during the hot months of the year when we sweat a lot.

Bathing and washing become a habit very early in life, and those children who develop the habit of being clean grow up into clean adults. Those who neglect cleanliness when they are young often stay that way all their lives. And it is terribly important for people to be clean, because it has a great deal to do with the impression they will make wherever they are and whatever they do. Can you imagine a president of our country, or a judge, or a doctor, or a great moving picture actress or actor, who always looked sloppy and whose body smelled because of not bathing and washing regularly?

People aren’t anxious to make friends with those who are dirty and smell unclean. Even among young children, it doesn’t take long before they shy away from a classmate whose body has an unpleasant odor. And for some funny reason, no one tells a person when he doesn’t smell nicely. Really, they should tell him. Then, perhaps they would decide to bathe more often. It would not only do them good physically, but they would soon find out that other children are friendlier and more willing to play with them.

Here is a list of things recommended for every home:

1. A box of gauze pads wrapped in sterile paper. (These are to be placed on cuts, scrapes, or burns.)

2. One roll of one-inch adhesive tape. (A piece of tape will hold the gauze pads in position.)

3. One roll of one-inch and one roll of two-inch gauze bandage. (These are used to cover the gauze pads and to protect a cut or burn so that it doesn’t become infected.)

4. A two-inch elastic bandage. (This is used to wrap around a sprained ankle or wrist.)

5. A large roll of cotton. (Moist cotton is often used to wash the dirt out of a cut or deep scratch.)

6. A box of Band-aids. (These make excellent dressings for small cuts and scrapes.)

7. Cotton-tipped wooden applicators. (When moistened, these are very helpful in cleaning a wound.)

8. A bottle of hydrogen peroxide. (This is often used to cleanse the skin when it has been injured.)

9. A bottle of rubbing alcohol. (This can be used to clean dirt off the skin. It should not be used to clean a cut or a scrape.)

10. One tube of an antibiotic ointment.

11. A flashlight.

12. An icebag.

13. A large rubber pad. (This is placed under a patient in bed when wet dressings are going to be applied and will protect the mattress.)

14. A mouth thermometer and a rectal thermometer.

15. Tweezers. (To be used in removing splinters.)

16. A urinal and a bedpan. (These will make it unnecessary for a really sick patient to get out of bed when he wants to use the toilet.)

17. An enema bag.

18. A steam inhalator. (This can be most helpful if a child has croup or bronchitis.)

19. An enamel basin. (This can be used to wash in, or for preparing wet dressings for wounds. Or, if a bed patient feels sick to his stomach, he can throw up in such a basin.)


Every home should have certain supplies for first aid, and it is a good idea for boys and girls, especially older ones, to know where these supplies are stored.

In addition to the supplies we have mentioned above, every home should have a certain number of essential medicines. Of course, powerful medicines should always be kept separate
from the ordinary medical supplies. It is important that they are placed far out of the reach of small children!

Here are some of the ordinary medicines that will be used often in the home:

1. Aspirin, or some other medicine such as Tylenol, to relieve a headache or the pain of an ordinary minor ache or pain.

2. Bicarbonate of soda, to be used in preparing a wet dressing. A little bicarbonate of soda powder, when mixed with water, can also be used to relieve indigestion or nausea.

3. An eyewash. A little eyewash placed in an eyecup is frequently used to wash dirt out of an eye.

4. A box of epsom salts powder, often used in preparing a wet dressing for an inflamed or infected part of the body.

5. A bottle of milk of magnesia, often used as a laxative when someone is constipated. It can also relieve an upset stomach. However, it should not be used when a child has stomach pain.

6. Salt tablets. These are prescribed sometimes when a child is markedly overheated and has perspired a great deal on a very hot day.

7. A mouthwash. (Strong mouth- washes containing alcohol or other antiseptics are not advised.)

8. A bottle of calamine lotion. (This, when applied to an itch or a rash, often brings relief.)

9. A container of a medicated powder to relieve prickly heat, or the itch of a rash.

10. A container of talcum powder. (Talc frequently relieves discomfort when the skin is chafed or irritated.)

Any animal bite should be reported to a child’s parents. Even squirrels have been known to bite, and they, too, occasionally get rabies.

1. Place the patient flat on his or her back on a hard surface. A patient who is in bed should be placed on the floor.

2. Kneel and straddle the patient. (See the diagram.)

3. Place the palm of the right hand flat on the patient’s breastbone.

4. Place the left hand on top of the right hand and push down so that the breastbone goes down for one to two inches.

5. Lift up both hands, releasing the sterile paper. (These are to be placed on pressure, then press down again. 6. Repeat the pressing down and lifting up every second for at least ten minutes, or until the heart begins to beat again on its own.

7. At the end of ten minutes, the first aider puts an ear to the patient’s chest and listens for heartbeats.

8. If there is even one occasional heartbeat, the cardiac massage is continued.

9. Stop the cardiac massage when the heart is beating regularly, or when it is certain that there are absolutely no heartbeats.

10. If the heart resumes beating, the patient should be kept quiet and not moved until an ambulance arrives.

1. The person is stretched out flat on the back with chin up and head tilted backward.

2. All tight clothing is loosened, especially around the neck and waist.

3. With the first aider’s fingers, the victim’s nostrils are pinched together.

4. The first aider’s mouth is placed directly against the patient’s mouth, and the first aider blows as hard as possible. (An opened handkerchief or thin scarf may be placed between the first aider’s lips and the patient’s, although this is not as good as placing the mouth directly against the victim’s mouth.)

5. After blowing as hard as possible, the first aider removes his or her mouth to allow the air blown in to come out. The patient’s nostrils are kept closed, however.

6. The first aider puts his or her mouth back onto the victim’s mouth and this is repeated every five seconds. This means the first aider will blow in about twelve times a minute.

7. The mouth-to-mouth breathing is continued as long as the person’s heart continues to beat. The first aider can tell this by bending down and putting an ear next to the victim’s chest and listening for the heart beat.

8. If the first aider gets tired of the mouth-to-mouth breathing and someone else is around to help out, the other person can substitute for a while.

9. If the person is going to recover, ‘breathing will begin again by itself. Then, and only then, should the mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration be stopped. It should be continued if the victim only breathes once in a while or doesn’t breathe regularly. This may require as much as one half to one hour more of mouth-to-mouth breathing.

10. After recovering and breathing without help, the victim should be kept quiet for at least one half hour, kept covered if it is cold, and should be given nothing to eat or drink or smoke.

The victim should be stretched out flat on his back, with chin up and head tilted backward. All tight clothing should be loosened. The first-aider should pinch the victim’s nostrils together, so that air can’t escape, then place his mouth directly against the victim’s mouth and blow as hard as possible. This action should be repeated every five seconds until the victim responds.

1. The child should be in a sitting position.

2. The bleeding nostril should be packed tightly with a piece of clean absorbent cotton. If none is available, a clean piece of toilet tissue may be used instead. After the cotton or toilet tissue has been stuffed tightly up into the nostril, the nose should be pressed firmly against it with a finger. This pressure should be continued for about ten minutes.

3. The child’s head should be bent forward to prevent blood from trickling down the back of the nose into the throat.

4. When the bleeding stops, the cotton or tissue should be allowed to remain in the nostril for several hours.

5. If the bleeding doesn’t stop, the child should go to a doctor or to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. The bleeding will be stopped by applying a special medicine to the blood vessel and by packing the nose tightly.

A child with a nosebleed should sit with his head bent slightly forward while cotton is placed inside the nostril and pressure is applied to it.

1. The child should be placed in a tub of very cold water. This will bring down the high fever.

2. After coming out of the tub, the child should be wrapped in cold, wet blankets.

3. A child who has perspired a great deal should be given salty foods to eat. Also the child should swallow some salt tablets.

4. Rest in bed is important until the temperature remains normal and the child has had plenty of time to drink large quantities of water and to eat plenty of salty food.

Most animals are a great deal smarter than children when it comes to protecting themselves from the heat. Did you ever notice that a dog always manages to find some shade to lie down in when there is a hot sun? Wild animals, like lions and tigers, do the same thing. If you want to be real smart and void heat exhaustion and heat stroke, here are some of the things you should do:

1. Wear a light cap or hat if you tend to be out in the hot sun for a long time.

2. Wear sunglasses. Remember that the eyes can be burned by a very hot

3. Wear a light cotton shirt to protect your shoulders and chest from getting many of the sun’s hot rays.

4. If there is a lake or a pool, or a river or the ocean nearby, take frequent dips in its cool waters.

5. Get into the shade and rest there every half hour or so for at least fifteen to twenty minutes.

6. Don’t play so hard and long in the sun that you become all wet from perspiration.

7. Take plenty of cool drinks and eat some salty crackers if you are out in the sun for a long time.

8. Get out of the sun the minute you begin to feel dizzy or nauseated or weak. Let your parents, or some nearby grown-up, know how you feel so they can get you started with proper treatment.

Overexposure to hot weather and sunshine can cause a high fever. A child suffering from heat exhaustion or heat stroke should be placed in a tub of cold water, then wrapped in cold, wet blankets to bring down the fever.

Perhaps the most serious bites occur when one person bites another. Infection results more often from human bites than from animal bites! That is because we have the type of germs in our mouths that can cause an infection in another human being. Dogs, except for rabies and a few other germs, have many bacteria in their mouths that are perfectly harmless to humans.

Older children are sometimes bitten by a younger sister or brother. Older children know better than to bite a sister or brother, or to bite another child even if they are fighting him. Anyone who receives a human bite that has punctured or torn the skin, should do the following things at once:

1. Wash the wound thoroughly for ten to fifteen minutes with soap and warm water.

2. Iodine, alcohol, or other medicines should not be poured over the wound.

3. A clean dressing should be placed over the area of the bite.

4. The child should be taken to a doctor, who will clean the wound further and will stitch it if necessary. He will then probably give a tetanus booster shot and will prescribe antibiotic medications to prevent infection.

Frostbite

Frostbite is a burn caused by being out in the cold too long. This happens to children, especially young ones, if they play out in the snow on very cold days for long periods of time. The most frequently seen places for frostbite are the tips of the fingers and toes, the tip of the nose, and the ears. This is the first aid treatment for frostbite:

1. The child should be allowed to warm up slowly in a room of ordinary temperature.

2. Warm foods and warm liquids should be taken. This will help to raise the entire body temperature, including the areas that were frostbitten.

3. The frostbitten parts should not be massaged or rubbed.

4. The frostbitten parts should not be placed in either hot or cold water. They should be permitted to warm up by themselves.

5. If the frostbitten parts are very painful, a grown-up may give the child an aspirin or some similar pain-relieving medicine.

6. If the skin is broken in an area of frostbite, it should be covered with a clean dressing.
Fortunately, most frostbite clears up by itself within a short time.

Following overexposure to cold, a child should be covered with blankets or placed in a warm tub. Neither hot water nor snow should be used to treat frostbite.

To prevent frostbite or dangerous exposure to cold, a child should always dress properly when outdoors in very cold weather. Woolen socks and heavy boots are helpful in protecting the feet and toes; woolen mittens give good protection to the fingers; and a woolen cap that can be pulled down will help to prevent the ears from getting frostbitten. However, no matter how warmly a child is dressed, overexposure to cold can result in frostbite. A child must be sensible and come in out of the cold when his fingers or toes or ears or nose begin to tingle or freeze.

Any animal bite should be reported to a child’s parents. Even squirrels have been known to bite, and they, too, occasionally get rabies.

If we follow the same rules in handling cats as we do when we handle dogs, we won’t get badly scratched too often. If we do receive a bad scratch it should be thoroughly cleansed with soap and warm water, and a clean bandage should be placed over the area. And if we happen to be scratched or bitten by a strange cat, it is safest to go to the doctor. Cats, too, sometimes get rabies.

Once in a great while, a child who has been scratched will develop cat-scratch fever. This is an illness that comes on anywhere from one to four weeks after the scratch. First, there is a skin rash near the scratch. Then the child may develop enlarged lymph glands, headache, weakness, and fever. The disease us thought to be caused by a virus. Although everyone gets well from cat- scratch fever, it may take several weeks before the glands return to normal size and the fever goes away.

Nobody knows how to prevent cat- ‘scratch fever because it is usually caused by a perfectly healthy cat.


When cats play, they almost always do so with their claws unsheathed—this is their natural instinct. Consequently, children who have pet cats are likely to get scratched. Such wounds should be thoroughly cleansed with soap and water and bandaged.

1. Keep your dog on a leash when outdoors. Then you can control it so that it won’t bite one of your playmates or some stranger who is passing by.

2. Don’t pet or play with a strange dog. You know nothing about it. Something you do in a friendly way, it may think is unfriendly. And it may try to protect itself by biting you.

3. Don’t tease a dog, even if it is friendly. A time may come when it is tired of being teased and it may get angry and bite.

4. Never disturb a dog while it is eating. It may think you want to take its food away, and if it thinks that, it will bite.

5. A sleeping dog should not be awakened suddenly. It may react without thinking and will bite before it is fully awake and knows what it has done.

6. Never pick up a sleeping dog unless you have been talking to it a few minutes and it is sufficiently awake to recognize you.

7. A small child should not be permitted to walk a dog outdoors alone. If the dog has a fight with another dog, the child might get into the middle of the fight and be bitten.

8. Never run up behind a dog and startle it. It may automatically turn around and bite before it recognizes you.

9. Keep dogs away from deliverymen or strangers who come to your house. Many dogs are good watchdogs and they think they are protecting your home when they bite the deliveryman or stranger.

10. Never spank or punish a dog with your bare hands. It may bite to protect itself.

11. Children should never place their faces against a dog’s face unless they know the dog very well and are certain that it is wide awake, friendly, and in good health. Some dogs who feel sick will bite even their friendly masters.

12. Stay away from your dog if it has had a fight with another dog until you can be positive your dog has not caught rabies in the fight. Rabies is a disease that humans can catch from a dog who has the disease.

13. Any dog that bites people repeatedly should be gotten rid of; The ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) will take him for you.

If a child should be bitten by a dog, here is what should be done:

1. The wound should be scrubbed thoroughly for five to ten minutes with soap and warm water.

2. A clean gauze bandage should be placed over the wound.

3. The dog who caused the bite should be found and taken to a veterinarian to make sure it does not have rabies. Rabies is a serious disease that dogs can transmit to people. Anyone who is bitten by a dog that has rabies must receive injections as protection from getting the disease.

4. The child who has been bitten should visit the doctor and in all probability will be given a booster shot of tetanus toxoid and maybe some antibiotics. This may be done even if the child has been bitten by a healthy dog.

1. A tourniquet should be placed above where the bite has taken place. (See diagram.) This must be done immediately in order to slow down the absorption of the poison into the body.

2. A sharp knife should be used to make two crossed cuts into the skin where the snake’s fangs have entered. It will not hurt to make these cuts, as the snake’s venom (poison) deadens feelings in the area. A penknife can be used to make the cuts. Each cut should be about as long as an eraser on a pencil.

3. After the cuts have been made, the wound should be sucked out thoroughly. If your mouth cannot reach the wound, somebody else should suck it out. This will get rid of some of the poison. No harm can come to anyone from swallowing the snake’s venom.

4. Suction to the bite area should be repeated every five minutes for at least sixty minutes.

5. The tourniquet must be loosened for five to ten minutes every twenty minutes in order to allow circulation in the arm or leg.

6. The child who has been bitten should lie down and remain as quiet as possible until arrangements have been made to take him to the hospital. If he remains quiet, less poison will flow through his body.

7. If ice or cold water is available, it should be applied to the bitten area. This will reduce blood flow, and therefore the flow of the snake’s poison, through the bitten limb.

8. The child should be taken as soon as possible to the nearest hospital where they will give him antivenin which will destroy the poisonous effect of the snake’s venom.

9. In order for the people at the hospital to know exactly what kind of antivenin to give, the snake should be found, killed, and brought to the hospital with the patient.

A poisonous snake bites its victim to inject venom through its fangs, releases the prey and follows it until it dies, then eats it. A nonpoisonous snake has a double row of upper teeth because it must hang onto its prey until it is swallowed.

1. If the sting has been left in place, pluck it out gently. Try not to break it as you pull it.

2. Most bites swell and itch more when they are scratched, so try not to scratch. Also, remember that a bite may become infected if you scratch it too much. There are some ointments in the drugstore that relieve the itching caused by insect bites, and these can be put on the bites. If there is no drugstore nearby, soak the stung part of the body in hot water for about half an hour.

3. If a great deal of swelling takes place, the child should be given an anti-allergic pill. Remember, though, a grown-up should give the pill; don’t take one yourself.

4. If a bite is caused by an insect that burrows under the skin, such as a chigger, or by one that attaches itself to the skin, such as a tick, wash the area with soap and water. Place a drop or two of turpentine over the area, and that may dislodge the tick or chigger. Then cover the area with vaseline or a jelly.

The scorpion is one of two insects in this country (the other is the black widow spider) whose bite can make a child very ill. You should know what a scorpion looks like, and stay away from it. It will not bite unless it’s annoyed.

People used to think that some children were more likely to be bitten by insects than others. Actually, it is not the child but his surroundings that influence how often he is bitten. A child who plays where there are uncovered garbage cans or where people are cooking or eating food outdoors is apt to be bitten more often. And if the child is surrounded by adults who use large amounts of perfume, hair sprays or tonics, suntan lotion, or cosmetics, he is more apt to be bitten by insects which are attracted to such smells. The best way to get as few stings and bites as possible is to follow these precautions:

1. Do not eat outdoors or feed pets outdoors when there are a lot of bugs and insects in the area.

2. Garbage cans should always be kept covered, whether they are full or empty.

3. If you have spilled food on your clothing, wash it off before going outdoors.

4. The areas in which you play should be sprayed frequently with one of the insect killers.

5. Adults in an outdoor area where children are playing should be encouraged to avoid using perfumes, hair tonics, hair sprays, and things like that. This is especially important if the weather is warm and a lot of insects are around.

6. The more of the body that is uncovered, the more likely is a child to be bitten by insects. Therefore, when in such areas, wear shoes and high socks and long sleeves.

7. Many insects, especially chiggers, live in tall grass. Therefore, don’t play in tall grass when chiggers are there.

8. Ticks live in forests and in the woods. If a child has been playing in the woods, his body should be inspected each night before bedtime.

9. Before going out to play in an area where there are a large number of insects, children should apply an insect repellent to their skin. There are many good ones being sold in drugstores.

10. A child who has an allergy such as asthma or hay fever, may get quite sick from some types of insect stings or bites. Therefore, allergic children should take very special precautions not to be bitten. And the allergic child’s parents should have plenty of anti- allergic medications ready to give if the child is bitten or stung.

11. Before visiting a strange area, or going to a camp or to a foreign country, it is a good idea to find out what kind of insects inhabit the area. That will help you to take special measures to avoid bites. For example, if you are visiting a place where there are mosquitoes that cause malaria, you must have mosquito nets with you and sleep under those nets. If you are going to a part of the country where there are chiggers, wear long pants and long socks, and stay out of tall grass. Or, if you are camping in a forest where there are ticks that cause Rocky Mountain spotted fever, it would be best to be vaccinated against this illness before going on the trip.

There are two insects in this country whose bites can make a child almost as sick as a snake’s bite can. These are the black widow spider and the scorpion. The pictures of these insects should be memorized, and children should stay away from them when they see them. They usually will not bite unless they are annoyed.

Even though people don’t die from black widow or scorpion bites, anyone bitten by one should remain very quiet, not run around, and should be taken to a hospital. Treatment in a hospital will result in recovery.

1. Keep the patient quiet and do not permit any use of the injured arm or leg. Damage can be increased by trying use the limb.

2. Try to splint the injured part so it moves as little as possible. (A splint is a piece of wood or other hard material that keeps an injured part from moving.)

3. Try to make sure the patient is g down when, taken to a doctor or a hospital. Then the chances are least t the injured bone will move or be her damaged.

Children usually cannot splint a broken bone by themselves, but they can be helpful first aiders by trying to do the following things:

1. A broken hip, thigh, leg, or foot is best treated by having the patient lie down flat on the back with both legs out straight. The two legs are placed closely together so that the good leg acts as a splint for the injured leg or hip. (See diagram.) The legs can be kept snugly in this position by tying a shirt, or a towel, or a scarf, or a sweater, around both thighs, knees, legs, and ankles.

2. A broken arm is best treated by keeping it as close to the body as possible. The body then acts as a splint to the injured arm. It can be kept that way by tying a shirt or towel around the arm and chest. (See diagrams.)

Many broken bones or torn ligaments or cartilages are treated the same day that the accident takes place. However, if there is a great deal of swelling resulting from the accident, or if the patient is in poor general shape, doctors sometimes prefer to set the fracture or operate upon torn ligaments or cartilages a few days after the accident. Of course, in the meantime, it is important that the injured bones or ligaments be kept absolutely still. In that way, they will be less painful and the swelling will go down.

A dislocated bone is usually put back in place the same day, often just an hour or two after the accident has occurred.

To avoid the most serious results of gas poisoning, it is wise to leave a window open at all times so that some fresh air can get into the room. Even when it is very cold, it is a good idea to have a window open. An extra blanket can keep a sleeping person warm, even in a cold room.

It has been found that most dangerous gas poisoning occurs in rooms where all the windows are closed. And, of course, if you are sitting in an automobile on a cold wintry day and the motor is running, it is absolutely essential that a window be open. Otherwise, carbon monoxide, the same gas that causes so much trouble in the house, may cause poisoning. The main trouble with carbon monoxide is that it has practically no smell.

Most dangerous gas poisoning occurs in rooms where all the windows are closed. To avoid the possibility of gas poisoning, it is a good idea to leave at least one window open so that fresh air can get into a room at all times.

The first aider should be sure to save the poison container so the doctor can inspect it. The doctor must know the exact poison in order to give the specific medicines to counteract it. When a person swallows a poison, it will stay in the stomach for a little while before it moves into the intestines. In some cases, forcing the person to vomit will remove the poison before it can do much damage. But two kinds of poison should not be removed by vomiting because this can cause more damage. The first kind is petroleum products such as gasoline and furniture polish. The second is corrosive, or burning, poisons.

If the container is nowhere to be found, two clues may show the kind of poison taken. Burns on the mouth will reveal a corrosive. Petroleum products can often be smelled on the breath. Corrosive poisons are of two main types, needing different first aid.

1. The first type, alkalipoison, includes drain cleaners, ammonia, and laundry bleach. The person should not vomit, but should be given large amounts of orange juice or lemon juice.

2. The second type, acid poison, includes metal and toilet-bowl cleaners. Again, the person should not vomit.

The best way to induce vomiting is to give syrup of ipecac. If there is none, tickle the back of the throat with a finger.

After giving the person milk, the first aider should give milk of magnesia (1 tablespoon in 1 cup of water). Many poisons are not corrosive, including roach powder, some cosmetics, and most medicines, if a person takes too much of them. If a person swallows one of these poisons, and is wide awake, the first aider should help the person to vomit. First give a cup of water or milk to dilute the poison. Then give 1 tablespoon of syrup of ipecac. Be sure to keep this in the home for a poison emergency. But if there is none, put a finger way in back of the person’s throat. If necessary, give more cups of water or milk or juice.

When vomiting begins, the person should lie face down with the head lower than the body, to prevent any vomit getting into the lungs. Remember, keep the poison control center number right beside the phone!

1. Foreign bodies in the eye are best treated by a doctor if they don’t come out within an hour or so by themselves. Rubbing an eye, or trying to remove it with cotton or the edge of a handkerchief, may injure the delicate membranes that cover the eyeball. Sometimes pulling down the eyelid and pouring warm water into the eye may wash out the foreign body, but if it doesn’t, leave it alone and go to the doctor or to the nearest hospital emergency room.

One thing is important; a foreign body should never be allowed to stay in the eye overnight. It may cause inflammation that will require many days to overcome.

If treated properly, most foreign bodies do no permanent harm to the sight. It is only when foreign bodies are neglected that they can cause damage to vision.

2. Peculiarly, some boys and girls stick things into their noses. And once in a great while, a small insect may fly into a nostril. There’s never anything to worry or become frightened about when this happens because foreign bodies in the nose are always easy to remove. Even if they aren’t removed right away, no real harm results.

To get rid of a foreign body or insect in a nostril, it is a good idea to tickle the inside of the other nostril. This may cause sneezing, and in many instances, the foreign body is sneezed out. If tickling the nostril doesn’t work, have the child sniff some pepper. That will probably bring on the-sneeze.

If neither of these methods work, the child should be taken to a doctor or to a nearby hospital. They’ll get it out without any trouble. However, I did know a silly little fellow who stuck a marble way up into his nose, and he had to be put to sleep in an operating room before the doctor could get it out.

3. For some reason, some children stick things into their ears. Or, every once in a great while, an insect may accidentally crawl or fly into an ear. No harm ever results, as the ear canal is a short dead-end street. There’s no place for the foreign body or insect to go, and therefore they can’t do any damage. An ordinary tweezers can usually reach and grasp a foreign body in the ear, but if there’s any trouble removing it, a trip to a doctor or hospital emergency room is the best idea.

Insects can usually be floated out of the ear. The child will lie down, head turned to one side. Then some lukewarm mineral oil, or olive oil, or castor oil, is poured into the ear. And, in most cases, out floats the insect! If it doesn’t come out that way, it is an easy thing for a doctor to remove.

Incidentally, an insect that flies into an ear practically never bites or stings. We guess it’s just as frightened about what happened to it as the child is.

4. Splinters, glass, dirt, and other foreign bodies beneath the skin should only be removed by a first aider when a part of the foreign body sticks out from the skin’s surface. If such is the case, the end that sticks out should be grasped and slowly and steadily pulled out. If a foreign body lies completely beneath the skin, it is best removed by a doctor. A first aider who isn’t experienced in removing foreign bodies may push it in even deeper than it is.

No foreign body should be left beneath the skin overnight.

After removing any foreign body from the skin, the area should be gently cleaned with soap and water, then covered with a bandage or Band-aid. If the foreign body has been removed within a couple of hours after it went in, infection seldom takes place.

5. Swallowed foreign bodies like buttons or coins or paperclips rarely do harm if they go down all right into the stomach. Most of them pass through the stomach and intestines by themselves and are gotten rid of in a day or two when the child moves his bowels.

A foreign body in the nose will often be expelled if the child is made “sneeze. This may be encouraged by holding pepper under the child’s nose.

A) Foreign body such as a button or a coin, or a chunk of unchewed food, can occasionally get stuck in the back of throat, or it may get into the windpipe and bronchial tubes instead of passing down the food pipe into the stomach. This can be serious, as it may cause choking or interfere with breath- Here is the first aid in this situation A Place your finger far inside the mouth and sweep it around the back of tongue and throat. This will frequently loosen the foreign body or food is stuck, or will cause the person to h or vomit it up.

B) The person should be told to take deep breath very slowly and then to cough as hard as he can. This often brings up the foreign body or food.

C) If these measures don’t bring up the foreign body, the person should be turned upside down, told to cough, and should be hit several times quite sharply on the back of the chest. In a great many cases, this will loosen the foreign body.

D) If the patient has any trouble breathing, the Police should be notified so they can send an ambulance to take the patient to the hospital.

Even though most foreign bodies that are swallowed will pass through the stomach and intestines, there are some that do get stuck. In such cases, the person must be operated upon so the surgeon can remove it. Also, some foreign bodies that get into the bronchial tubes are not coughed up but are lodged way down in the lungs. When this happens the patient must be bronchoscoped. This means that a long, hollow metal instrument is passed through the mouth, down the windpipe, and into the bronchial tubes. The foreign body is then grasped by a special instrument and is pulled out through the hollow bronchoscope.

Fortunately, recovery takes place in practically all cases where the foreign body has been swallowed or has gotten into the lungs. But think how much better it would have been if the person had not put such things into his mouth in the first place. And think how much smarter it is to chew food thoroughly before trying to swallow. Then, there is ever so much less chance that the food will get stuck in the throat.

1. Clean the cut or scratch with warm running water and ordinary soap. Let the water run on it for a few minutes to loosen the dirt. Then wipe out the dirt from the wound with a piece of moist cotton, or facial tissue or toilet paper, if cotton is not available.

2. Do not pour iodine, alcohol, or any other medicine on a cut or scratch. They may burn the injured area and delay healing. Besides, the running water will get rid of more germs than the alcohol or iodine.

3. To stop bleeding, press directly on the wounded area with your fingers and hand. (See the picture.) Use a clean handkerchief or a piece of gauze or cotton if it is available. Keep pressing steadily for several minutes without stopping. This will usually stop bleeding in most ordinary cuts.

4. Don’t get frightened even if there seems to be a great deal of blood. Most cuts will slow down and bleed very little after a few minutes.

5. Don’t take any chances, however. It is always best to get help from a doctor. So even if bleeding has stopped. Cover the injured area with a bandage or a clean handkerchief or, indoors, a clean napkin or towel. Go to the nearest doctor’s office, or to the emergency room of the nearest hospital, to get further attention. A wound that continues to bleed, or a wound where the edges are widely separated, frequently will need to be stitched.


After the bleeding from a puncture wound has been controlled by pressure, the child should be seen by a physician, because he may need a tetanus booster.

First aid for bruises

Some bruises are not very severe and merely result in a black-and-blue mark in the skin; others are very serious and may require surgery. All bruises result from bleeding into the skin or into the tissues beneath the skin. Bruises are almost always caused either by a fall or by something hitting the body.

Most bleeding that takes place in the skin stops by itself and needs no first aid or other treatment. Sometimes, however, the bleeding beneath the skin can be quite severe and will cause a big lump to form. Such bruises are called hematomas.

If the bleeding beneath the skin seems to be continuing and the swelling is enlarging, then direct, firm pressure should be applied over the area with the palm of the hand. If this pressure is continued steadily for ten to fifteen minutes, it may stop the internal bleeding. Another way to stop the bleeding is to put ice or an ice bag on the skin surface over the injured area. Ice or an ice bag should not be kept in place for more than fifteen to twenty minutes at a time, for if it is kept on too long, it may cause a burn. If ice is not available, cold compresses may help to control the bleeding.

If the hematoma is still present a few days after the injury originally happened, and if it feels soft and mushy when it is touched, then in all likelihood fluid blood is present beneath the skin. To cure this type of bruise, a doctor may have to stick a needle into the hematoma and draw out the blood with a syringe. If the blood is too thick to come out through the syringe, a surgeon will have to make a cut into the hematoma in order to let out the blood. This will take care of the matter very quickly.

An ordinary black-and-blue bruise may take a few weeks before the discoloration disappears. During that time the black-and-blue mark changes to a lighter blue or a purple, then to a green, then to tan, then to light yellow, and finally the skin looks perfectly normal again.

First aid for burns

A burned area should be held under cold running water for about ten minutes. This is especially important if a chemical has caused the burn.

1. First-degree burns are very much like ordinary sunburns. They usually don’t require a doctor’s care. They should be covered with a sunburn ointment so the skin doesn’t become too dry. Any blisters that form should be left alone and not opened except by a doctor. A burn can become infected if a blister is not opened properly.

2. Second-degree burns are deeper and may be caused by fire, electricity, or even by the sun. The burned areas should be put into cold running water, or the person put in a tub of cold water for about ten to fifteen minutes. The burned areas should then be covered with clean gauze bandages—no ointments—or clean handkerchiefs, napkins or towels. The sooner the burn is placed under running water, or the sooner the patient is put in a tub of water, the greater will be the relief of pain and the better it will be for the burn itself. People with second-degree burns should be treated by doctors. Therefore, go to the doctor or to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. If you can’t tell how badly a burn actually is, take no chances—go to a doctor or to a hospital.

3. Third-degree burns are very deep, but the first aid is the same as for a second-degree burn. Put the burned a under cold running water for ten minutes and, if there is dirt in the burn, gently wipe it off. If clothing is stuck to the burn, don’t try to remove it yourself. Cover the burn and go to the nearest doctor or hospital. It is important that people ‘with third-degree burns be given huge amounts of fluids to drink to prevent them from shock. Ointments should not be put on any severe, deep 1urn. The ointment may interfere with the treatment the doctor may want to give the burn.

4. Burns of the eyes need special first aid. Cold water should be poised over the open eyes for several minutes in order to wash out thoroughly. Patients with an eye burn should go to an eye doctor immediately after the first aid was given.

1. Let the nearest grown-up know about the situation. Shout for help, if you have to.

2. Get in touch with the police a quickly as possible or ask someone else to do it for you.

3. If there is a doctor or a hospital nearby, go there and tell them about the situation.

4. Look for the nearest telephone. If you can’t use a pay telephone, ring somebody’s doorbell and ask them to notify the police. If.you want to save time, dial the Operator and ask her to get the police.

5. Don’t try to move the sick or injured person unless you are positive you can do it easily. Most times, it is best for the injured or sick person to lie quietly on his back with his chin up. Moving around may make an injury or illness worse.

6. Loosen the collar or tie, or open the zipper of a dress that fits tightly around the neck. If the person is wearing a tight belt, loosen it. By doing these things you will help the victim to breathe more easily.

7. Never touch anyone who has received an electric shock unless you are positive that the victim is no longer in contact with the electricity. If you do touch the victim, you may get shocked yourself. If an electric shock has taken place indoors, turn off the switch. If an electric wire is still in contact with anyone, get a dry stick or, indoors, use a broom handle, and knock the wire away from the victim’s body.

8. Most people who have met with an accident or have taken suddenly sick, should remain quiet and drink nothing until medical aid arrives. However, sometimes the person will know what’s wrong and will have a medicine to overcome the attack in his or her pocket or handbag. Then, it’s O.K. to get a little water to drink so the person can swallow the medicine more easily.

9. If someone has fainted, or has had a fit or a spell, he should lie quietly on his back. Don’t throw water on his face to wake him up. If he is unconscious, lift up his chin. This will permit him to breathe better.

10. If someone is drowning, get help from an adult as soon as possible. Don’t try to do this kind of first aid all alone, unless you are a really good swimmer, have taken lessons in lifesaving, and are bigger and stronger than the person who is drowning. Remember that a drowning person will grab anything and anyone, and may drag you under the water, too.

Once in a great while, when no one else is nearby, an injured or sick person must rely upon first aid from a child. Therefore, it is a good idea to know some of the things that should be done. And, you never can tell, by knowing first aid, you might actually save another person’s life. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing to do?

2. It is natural to move footstools from one place to another. Be particularly careful to watch out for them, especially in the dark.

3. Scatter rugs, or other little rugs, often slip and slide, so be careful how you walk or run over them.

4. Kitchen floors can get pretty slippery after they have been waxed. Walk, don’t run, or roughhouse, on a freshly waxed floor, or you might find yourself taking a painful flop.

5. Put your toys and playthings away before you go to bed at night. I knew a girl who broke her wrist when she tripped over a doll that she had left on the floor when she went to bed. She got up during the night to go to the bathroom, and bingo, her own doll caused her to fall.

6. Injuries in the bathroom would occur much less frequently if everyone placed a rubber mat in the bottom of the bathtub or used the special designs that stick onto the tub to prevent slipping. It is so easy to slip in a bathtub, especially if there is soapy water in it.

7. It is mentioned elsewhere, but remember never to touch anything electrical while your body or hands are wet!

In automobiles

1. Wear a seat or shoulder belt whenever going anywhere in a car, even if it is only a drive that will take a few minutes. Many accidents take place on short, as well as on long, rides.

2. Don’t try to get up and move around while the car is moving. A sudden stop, or a sharp curve, may cause you to hit yourself against a window or the roof of the car.

3. Don’t put your hand or arm outside the car window. A car coming the other way might hit your hand or arm, and that can cause plenty of damage.

4. Be sure the car doors are locked before the car starts to move, and don’t play with the locks. An unlocked door can sometimes fly open and you could fall out.

5. Sit back in your seat so that you won’t be thrown forward too far if the car has to stop suddenly.

6. Don’t play with the door handles at any time, because that may cause a door to fly open.

7. Never touch the car keys, or try to start the car yourself. Once in a while, a car may start moving; and unless you know how to drive, you may be in serious trouble.

8. Never touch the steering wheel while the car is in motion. You may cause the car to swerve suddenly and go off the road or hit another car.

9. Get out of the car on the curb side only. Many people have suffered severe injuries by getting out of a car on the wrong side. Another car may come by and hit you.

10. Don’t get into a car with a stranger, no matter what he or she tells you. There are some people in this world who are not very nice, and they may harm you.

On the street

1. Stay clear of driveways. You can never tell when a car will suddenly back out and the driver not see you.

2. Don’t cross a street when the light is red, even if you can’t see a car coming. Always cross streets at the corners. It’s much safer that way.

3. If there is no light, make sure to look in all directions and be positive no car is coming before you cross.

4. If you are unsure about crossing the street, ask a grown-up to walk with you, or wait until a grown-up comes by, and walk across close by.

5. Be especially careful about crossing the street when there is a strong sun shining in your eyes. It may prevent you from seeing an approaching car. Shade your eyes with your hand or with a book, if you’re not wearing a hat.

6. Don’t run out into the road or street to chase a ball or any other plaything. A car that you cannot see may come by and hit you.

7. If there is a school monitor directing traffic at the street corners, be sure to obey him or her.

8. Whenever possible, ride your bicycle or skate on the sidewalk, not in the road where automobiles and trucks travel.

Fire

1. Don’t play with matches or cigarette lighters. One of the most common reasons for burns and house fires is playing with matches.

2. Don’t roughhouse where grownups are smoking. You may burn yourself on the lit end of a cigarette, or you may tip over an ashtray and burn holes in the rug.

3. Make sure that the screen is closed whenever a fire is burning in the fireplace.

4. Don’t get too close to the fireplace, because sometimes a live ember or a little piece of burning wood may fly out and burn you, especially if the screen doesn’t fit snugly.

5. Make sure the fire in the fireplace is completely out before going to bed. Of course, if your parents are home, they will see to it.

6. Don’t build a fire outdoors unless a grown-up who knows how to build a safe fire is with you. Fires must be protected from sudden gusts of wind that can spread the flames where you don’t want them to go.

7. Never throw kerosene or lighter fluid on a fire. The flames may jump toward your body and cause your clothes to burn.

8. Never light the kitchen stove or oven unless a grown-up is with you and gives permission for you to do it. And always be absolutely certain when you do light a stove or oven that your sleeves don’t catch on fire.

Burns

1. Be very careful when walking past the kitchen stove that no handle from a pot or pan is hanging over the front of the stove. Also, see to It that boiling pots or pans are kept covered so that water doesn’t spatter onto you.

2. Don’t try to lift heavy pots containing hot water or other boiling liquids. They may be a lot heavier than you think, and sometimes they can tip over and scald you.

3. Don’t step into a bathtub or shower unless you test how hot it is with one of your fingers.

4. Always turn on the cold water faucet first in the bathroom or kitchen. Then you can slowly add the hot water until you get the right temperature.

5. If you are visiting a strange house or hotel, be certain to find out how the faucets work before you turn them on. In some places, the hot water faucet is on the right side, instead of the left side. And you could get a pretty nasty burn by turning on the wrong one.

6. Every home should have a fire extinguisher handy. Many of them are made so that a young child can work them. If you don’t have such an extinguisher, ask your parents to buy one. Also, most apartment houses have a fire hose on every floor. If there is one near your apartment, find out how it works.

7. Sunburn is a real burn of the skin and may do as much harm as a burn from a fire. Never stay out in a hot sun longer than you are told to. And make sure to protect your eyes with sunglasses.

8. Never gaze directly into the sun for any length of time. It is possible to damage your sight permanently, if you do.

Falling

1. Don’t lean out of an open window. Once in a while, a child will get dizzy and may fall out.

2. Don’t sit on a window sill when the window is open. It’s rather easy to lose one’s balance and to fall out backward.

3. Look down at the ground while you are running quickly. If you do, you’ll see anything that might trip you and Make you fall.

4. Don’t take a chance by jumping off a high place. After all, children only have two legs, not four like a cat. Besides, we’re not so good at landing feet first.

5. Hold on to the banister when running downstairs. If you miss a step, the bannister will support you.

6. Don’t stand on chairs unless someone is alongside to steady you.

7. Don’t climb a high ladder unless someone is holding it on the ground and it is properly placed. Improperly placed ladders sometimes tip over backward.

8. Don’t walk on narrow, high ledges, even if it seems like fun, A sudden noise, or a gust of wind, might cause you to lose your balance.

9. Don’t run in the dark. You may trip over something you can’t see.

10. Don’t run with a stick or lollipop in your mouth. If you trip or fall, you may cut the back of your mouth or your tongue.

Electricity

1. Never pick up or step on a loose wire. It may give a severe shock.

2. Don’t stand under a tree during lightning or a thunderstorm. Lightning sometimes hits trees.

3. Never touch anyone who is being shocked by electricity. If you touch him, you will be shocked, too.

4. Get out of the water during lightning or a thunderstorm. Lightning sometimes strikes the water.

5. NEVER touch anything electric such as a toaster or electric can opener or even a light switch or electric plug, while your hands are wet or when you are in the bathtub or shower. You may receive a severe shock because water conducts electricity very easily. This is extremely important to remember!

Animals

1. Remember, there is a big difference between a tame animal such as a cat or dog or horse or cow, and a wild animal. Some wild animals, like raccoons and foxes and squirrels and even bears, sometimes seem to be friendly and tame. However, they aren’t used to living with people, and they are easily frightened. As a result, even when you are friendly toward them, they might get frightened, and in order to protect themselves, they may scratch or bite.

2. It is best never to pet or pick up a strange animal. He might be sick, or have ticks or fleas. And once in a while, he may bite without warning.

3. If you want to make friends with a tame animal whom you don’t know, talk to him for a while from a distance. Then, before you become friendlier, ask a grown-up to look him over for you and have the grown-up pet him first.

4. Don’t come up behind an animal and touch him without his seeing you first, even if you know him well. He may turn and scratch and bite because he is frightened. Once in a while, even a horse will kick if he is surprised by someone who comes up behind him suddenly.

5. Don’t kiss animals, especially dogs or cats. They have their faces in the ground a great deal and pick up a great many germs. When you kiss them, or when they kiss you, they may spread their germs to you.

6. Don’t tease a pet, even if you are good friends. Remember, animals can lose their tempers just as people do, and when they become angry, it is natural for them to bite or scratch.

Other good don’ts

1. Don’t put nails, coins, buttons, or anything that doesn’t belong there, in your mouth. A sudden cough or sneeze may cause you to accidentally swallow. I even knew a child who ran around the house chasing his little brother with his toothbrush in his mouth. He tripped and gasped and—can you believe i swallowed his toothbrush.

2. Don’t put your fingers into the washing machine or wringer, or even into narrow bottle necks. Once there was a boy who had to go to the hospital and be anesthetized so they could get his finger out of a soda bottle.

3. Don’t go anywhere with a stranger, especially one who offers you candy or anything else, or who even says your mom or dad said to pick you up. If your mom or dad wanted you, and couldn’t come to get you themselves, they would send someone you knew, not a stranger!

4. Don’t take any medicine unless it is given to you by a grown-up, even if it looks like and tastes like candy, or tastes good when you drink it. Even some of the most ordinary medicines, like aspirin or a laxative, can be very dangerous when not taken as they should be.

5. Knives should not be used as toys or playthings. They are extremely useful in many, many ways, but one must learn how to use them properly, and it isn’t possible to teach a very young child to do that. Older children, too, should never fool or play with knives, especially when another child is around. All too often, children get accidentally cut.

6. If there is a pistol or a gun in your house, stay away from it! You can never be absolutely positive it isn’t loaded. Even if you saw your dad unload it, he may have accidentally left a bullet in it. Or, he may have reloaded it without your knowledge when you weren’t there. Remember, guns are for grown-ups, not youngsters.

High up, surrounded by the minor lips of the vulva, is the clitoris. This is a small, firm structure about the size of a pea, and just below it is the exit of the urethra. It is through the urethra that urine is passed from the bladder to the outside.

The female organs the vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries are shown here in relation to structures which surround them. These structures are the urethra, the urinary bladder, the ureters, and the rectum. All of these organs are located way down low, at the bottom of the abdomen. This area is called the pelvis.

The vagina in a young girl is covered by a thin membrane with holes in it. This is called the hymen, or maidenhead. The vagina is a canal, lined by mucous membrane, which extends in for a few inches and connects with the entrance to the uterus. In a grown woman, the vagina receives the sperm that the man places there during intercourse. The vagina stretches widely when childbirth occurs, and, as we know, the newborn child comes out through the vagina. The internal female organs consist of the uterus with its cervix pointing down into the vagina, two Fallopian tubes, and two ovaries.

A channel, called the cervical canal, runs through the middle of the cervix up into the uterus. It connects with a cavity, the uterine cavity, in the middle of the uterus. And the uterine cavity connects with a channel running through the Fallopian tubes. The ends of the Fallopian tubes are wide open and are located next to the ovaries.

It is amazing that so few girls-and grown women, too-have much knowledge of their female organs. Maybe it is because most of these structures are inside the body, where they can’t be seen. Many people don’t even know that females have more organs than males.

The female organs in a girl under eleven or twelve years of age are not active. When she reaches that age which we call the age of puberty-the ovaries begin to supply larger and larger amounts of hormones. When these hormones get into the bloodstream, they influence certain other organs. The girl’s breasts begin to grow, her uterus enlarges, she gets hair under her arms and over her external organs, and her figure begins to take the shape of a woman rather than of a little girl. At about this time, or perhaps a year or so later, the ovaries begin to manufacture mature eggs. One of these mature eggs, or occasionally two of them, comes out of one or the other ovary each month. When an egg leaves the ovary, it is called ovulation.

An egg from an ovary is only about the size of a pinpoint, and can really be seen well only through a microscope. It travels from the ovary into the open end of the nearby Fallopian tube. When it gets there, one of two things happens to it:

1. If sperm from the male are in the tube, the egg may become fertilized. This means that one of the sperm has joined with the egg to form an embryo. At this moment, the woman has become pregnant. The fertilized egg then travels down the three inches or so of the Fallopian tube into the uterus. The journey down the tube takes three to five days. When the fertilized egg reaches the uterus, it buries itself in the lining of the uterus and begins to
grow and develop. It will take nine months for it to grow into a fully developed child.

2. If there are no sperm in the tube when the egg arrives, the egg remains unfertilized and passes down the tube into the uterus, out of the uterus through the cervix into the vagina, and out of the vagina and the body.

Each month when an egg leaves the ovary, the uterus prepares itself so it will be ready if pregnancy is going to take place. The cells lining the inside of the uterine cavity grow and swell, and more blood comes to the uterus. This will make it easy for the fertilized egg to take root, much like a seed takes root in the earth. However, if the egg is not fertilized and a pregnancy does not take place, then the uterus sheds some of the cells lining its cavity. These cells, along with some blood, are passed out of the uterus into the vagina, and out of the vagina to the outside. This is called menstruation. It usually takes from three to five days for all these cells and blood to leave the body. Therefore, a menstrual period lasts about three to five days.

When the menstrual period is over, the uterus starts all over again to make itself ready for the next month. The ovary, too, gets ready for the next month when it will ripen another egg.

Ovulation, the ripening and the discharge of the egg from the ovary, usually takes place about two weeks before the menstrual period.

So you see how wonderful Nature is. It gets the female ready to become pregnant every month from the time she is a young girl of about twelve until she is a woman of about fifty years of age. By the time a woman reaches fifty, the ovaries usually stop manufacturing ripe eggs.

Sperm are produced in the testicles. They then travel to the coiled tubes called the epididymis. There, they mature rapidly and are stored, ready for use. During intercourse, they Travel up a long tube called the vas deferens, and eventually leave the body through the urethra of the penis.

When the urethra is being used to carry urine from the bladder, sperm and semen are blocked from passing through it. And when the urethra is carrying semen and sperm, urine is blocked, from passing through it. There are structures like valves, called sphincters, which prevent the urethra from carrying urine and semen at the same time.

Sperm cells are produced by the testicles, beginning when a boy reaches anywhere from twelve to fourteen years of age. There are hundreds of millions of sperm cells, each one so small that it can be seen only through a microscope. Sperm travel from the testicles to the epididymis. The epididymis is a small structure made up of one long, curled-up tube. Sperm that have been manufactured in the testicles are stored in this tube.

The seminal vesicles are glands that are filled with a fluid called semen. When the sperm cells are ready to come out and be placed in the vagina of the female, they travel up from the epididymis through a long hollow tube called the vas deferens. As the sperm get near the seminal vesicles, the seminal vesicles secrete the fluid, semen, which mixes with the sperm. Then the semen, which now contains the sperm, passes out through the urethra of the penis.

1. Giving special medicines an hour or so before the operation while the patient is still in his hospital bed.
2. Giving an injection of a medicine that makes the patient go to sleep on the operating table in the operating room.
3. Giving the patient an anesthetic gas to breathe.

There are several different gases that can put a person completely to sleep, unable to feel pain. Here are the names of some of them: fluothane; cyclopropane; nitrous oxide; ether; ethyl chloride.

These gases are breathed in through a special anesthesia mask that is attached by a rubber tube to an anesthesia machine that contains tanks of the
gases. And, as we have mentioned before, the gases are given only after the patient has been placed in a nice, relaxed state by medicine received even before being brought to the operating room. The doctor who specializes in anesthesia will choose the gas he or she thinks best for the particular patient and the particular operation the surgeon is going to perform.

Before the operation the surgeon or anesthesiologist visits a young patient, makes friends with her, and explains how anesthesia will be administered to her.

Here is what usually happens when a child goes, with his or her mother or father, of course, to the hospital for an operation:

1. The day before the operation the anesthesiologist (the doctor who specializes in anesthesia) visits the child in the hospital room and explains everything that is going to happen about anesthesia.

2. Anesthesiologists often show the patient the anesthesia mask that will be used in giving the anesthetic the next day. A child might want to practice breathing through it, even though it is not attached to an anesthesia machine.

3. An enema may be given the night before the operation so the stomach and intestines will be empty. That often does away with any uncomfortable feeling in the belly after the operation is over.

4. No food or drink is given to the patient after the evening meal in the hospital the night before the operation. This will keep the stomach nice and empty so one won’t feel sick to the stomach after the operation is over.

5. A sleeping pill, or even an injection, may be given the night before, just to make sure the patient has a good sleep and isn’t restless the next morning before going to the operating room.

6. A special medicine is injected an hour or so before going to the operating room in the morning. This makes certain the patient feels relaxed and comfortable when given the anesthetic gas to breathe.

7. The morning of the operation, the patient is given a special shirt to wear to the Operating room. After the operation, the patient will put on his or her own pajamas or nightgown again.

8. To travel to the operating room, a patient is put on a special stretcher. A child says goodbye to mother and father, but will see them again soon after waking up after the operation.

9. The operating room is usually on a different floor—called the surgical floor—in the hospital from the patient’s room. This may mean a ride, while on the stretcher, in an elevator.

10. Upon reaching the surgical floor, the patient will again greet the anesthesiologist. Together, they will go into the operating room, and the child will move off the stretcher to the operating table.

11. The patient lies back on the operating table and, looking up, can see a huge light. This operating light is very special because it throws a very strong beam without any shadows. This permits the surgeon and aides to see perfectly what they are doing. Many children like to ask to see the light turned on before they go to sleep.

12. The surgeon who is going to do the operation comes in and greets the patient.

13. The patient will notice that there are quite a few people who were not around before, hustling and bustling about the operating room. These are:

a.) The instrument nurse who is handling a bunch of surgical instruments. She will assist at the operation.
b.) The circulating nurse. She’s the one who comes in and out of the operating room to bring the instrument nurse various things she needs.
c.) An orderly. He is a man who helps to keep the operating room neat and clean in between operations. He may be the same man who brought the patient from his room to the operating room, and he may be the one who lifts the patient onto the operating table before the operation and lifts him off after the operation.
d.) There may be one or two doctors other than the patient’s surgeon in the operating room. They are there to assist the surgeon perform the operation.

14. Everyone in the operating room wears a cap, a face mask covering the nose and mouth, and a special gown that is put on backwards. The cap, mask, and gown are worn in order to keep everything as free as possible from germs. Of course, everybody knows that things should be germ-free (sterile) in an operating room. This will keep germs away from the surgical wound so that it will heal quickly, without infection.

15. The surgeon and surgical assistants, at about this time, leave the operating room and go to scrub sinks. These are specially designed sinks where the surgeons scrub their hands and arms with special brushes or sponges. They scrub and scrub for about ten minutes without stopping. This gets the germs off their hands and arms so they can’t get into the surgical incision.

16. While the surgeons are scrubbing, and before they have put on their operating gowns and rubber gloves, the anesthesiologist starts putting the patient to sleep. First, he or she gives an injection into the hand or arm and attaches the needle to a plastic bag containing fluid. This fluid has sugar in it so the patient will receive nourishment even while the operation is going on.. Then the anesthesiologist takes the anesthesia mask and gently places it over the patient’s nose and mouth. The patient takes a few deep breaths and—almost quick as a wink—falls asleep. And, of course, the patient stays asleep until the operation is finished.

17. A patient waking up from an operation may feel some pain in the wound area, but is still so groggy from the anesthesia that the pain won’t be remembered. Most patients doze off and on for an hour or two after the operation has been completed. This is O.K. Everybody will let them sleep. A patient may also feel thirsty, but it is usually a good idea not to drink anything for an hour or two after surgery. Drinking might make the patient sick to the stomach.

18. From the operating room, patients are brought to the recovery room, which is near the operating room. There are special recovery-room nurses who know all the ways to make someone who has just undergone surgery feel comfortable. If pain is severe, they will give medicines to relieve it. If the patient is sweaty, the nurses will sponge him or her off. Finally, when the patient has fully awakened, another ride on a stretcher brings a return to his or her own hospital room. A child, of course, will be greeted there by one or both parents.

There may be a few uncomfortable hours even after a child is back in the hospital room after an operation. But most children sleep a lot and don’t complain too much. Do you know why? Well, it’s because they are so happy the operation is over. Most patients get out of bed the morning after an operation.

Some can go home the day following surgery; others must wait longer, until the wound has healed. When the wound has healed, maybe six or seven days later, the surgeon will remove the stitches. However, in certain types of cases it is possible to put in stitches that absorb by themselves and don’t have to be removed. But if these kinds have not been used, a patient should know that there isn’t much pain to removing stitches. There might be a slight pinching feeling as the stitches are removed, but certainly, no more pain than a little mosquito bite.

When children come home after an operation, they begin to realize what a wonderful experience they have had. Just think of it, having your tonsils or appendix removed, and all you remember is going to the operating room on a stretcher and seeing the big light overhead on the operating table! We’ll bet you don’t even remember the anesthesiologist putting the mask on your face, do you? That’s pretty trrific, isn’t it? No wonder so many youngsters just can’t wait to tell their friends about their operation!

After it’s all over, children enjoy showing off their surgical scars. They get attention and have an opportunity to display their bravery to others.

The main trouble with hospitals is that many of them won’t let your mom or dad stay overnight with you when you are there. Some might allow this, but many hospitals don’t. And, of course, no youngster likes the idea of being separated from his parents. But it can’t be helped sometimes, and most children realize that they are only going to be in the hospital a short time, so it won’t make too much difference.

Although a child is likely to be at least a little homesick and anxious for a day or two after entering the hospital, he will soon meet other children and enjoy the recreational and entertainment programs that many hospitals provide.

To make up for your parents not being with you, many hospitals have specially developed programs to entertain children. In some hospitals, it’s pretty much like being in a play group in school. There are special sections of the hospital set aside for children so that they will have plenty of friends to play with. And hospitals have books for the children to read and games and toys to play with. Some hospitals even have shows and movies for the children. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Would you like to know what happens to children when they go to the hospital? Here goes:

1. A child takes a pair or two of pajamas or nightgowns, and a bathrobe and slippers to the hospital as well as a comb and brush, and toothbrush and toothpaste. It isn’t necessary to take a radio or television as they have them available in the hospital. It is also unnecessary to take toys or games or blankets or pillows. They have those in the hospital, too. A favorite book or two can be brought along, if one wants to.

2. When he gets to the hospital, the child and his or her parents will go to the Admitting Office. There, the mother or father tells the people the child’s name, age, and address. They then put this information on a bracelet which is slipped on to the child’s wrist. Doing this allows all the nurses and doctors to know exactly who the child is. All they have to do is read the information on the bracelet.

3. From the Admitting Office, the child goes to his room. It may have only one bed, or there may be two, three, four or more beds in the room. It is frequently more fun to be in a room with other youngsters with whom a child can talk and play.

4. After getting to the hospital room, a child undresses and gets into bed. A whole bunch of tests are carried out on almost all patients, no matter what is wrong with them. Here are some of the things that most children experience.

a.) An examination is done by a doctor. Often, the doctor is an intern or resident, and wears a white uniform. It may be a man or a woman doctor.
b.) The nurse takes the child’s pulse and temperature.
c.) A laboratory technician takes some blood from the child’s finger or arm to send to the laboratory. (This hurts just about as much as a mosquito bite.)
d.) The nurse asks the child to urinate in a bottle so that the urine can be sent t&the laboratory for examination.
e.) An X ray of the chest is taken. (This doesn’t hurt at all.)
f.) Special tests are done, according to the child’s illness.
g.) If the child is going to have an operation performed, the skin is shaved in the area that is to be operated upon.
h.) A child who is going to be operated on the next morning may be given an enema the night before. Also, one who is to be operated on the next morning should not eat or drink anything after going to sleep at night.

5. Parents are always allowed to visit their children every day, even if they aren’t permitted to stay overnight. They will come each day and will stay during the visiting hours. Children must understand that it is sometimes not possible for the parents to stay all day long. If they did, the doctors and nurses might not be able to give all the treatments that the sick children require.

6. As soon as a doctor can tell when a child is well enough to go home, the child will be told. It is perfectly all right for a child t ask the doctor when that time will come, but a child must understand that the doctor cannot always tell for sure. Some illnesses clear up in a few days; some take much longer. And, of course, a doctor is not going to send a child home until he is completely recovered.

7. The best way to go home quickly is for children to cooperate fully with their doctors and nurses. If they take their medicines and treatments without raising a fuss, they will get well much more quickly.

A parent can help prepare a young child for a visit to the hospital by reading the child picture books about hospitals and talking about them in a general way.

Many light-colored pink birthmarks II fade out and disappear by themselves before the child is a few months old. Ugly-looking, darker-colored birthmarks on the face can often be removed by a surgeon when the child has grow’ up a bit and is better able to undergo an operation.

A great many boys and girls will develop a mole or two by the time they reach five or six years of age. Moles are round in shape and are raised slightly from the surface of the skin. Some are light tan while others are. a deeper- brown or even a bluish-black color. Moles can be as small as a pinhead or may be extremely large, occasionally reaching the size of a lemon or orange. Children with many moles usually have a mother or father, or both, who also have a lot of moles on their bodies.

Moles that aren’t ugly or disfiguring can be left alone unless they begin to grow rapidly or change from a lighter to a darker color, or bleed because they are rubbed against by clothing. It is also a good idea to remove moles that are on the toes or feet or fingers or hands, because they often get irritated. To have a mole removed, a child usually goes to the hospital for a day. Most moles can be removed very easily, either with a little injection to relieve the pain or by getting an anesthetic so as to go to sleep during the operation. Operations to remove moles are not painful and children don’t mind the experience very much at all. If a mole happens to be especially ugly, the scar following its removal will look much better than the mole looked before it was removed.

Warts are caused by a virus infection and can appear anywhere on the body. Even though warts are caused by a virus they are not contagious.

Almost every child sooner or later will have a wart. Warts are caused by a virus infection. There used to be a story that warts came from playing with frogs or toads, but we now know that this just isn’t true. Warts are round and hard and raised above the surface of the skin. The top of a wart feels rough and horny.

Warts can appear anywhere on the body, but favorite places are on the hands and feet. It is not known why some youngsters have lots of warts and others have practically none. Doctors think that certain children just naturally seem better able than others to protect themselves against the viruses that cause warts.

Often, warts will last for a few weeks or months, and then, with nothing done about them, they disappear. Other times, warts do not go away, or they may grow larger and the child may develop more of them in the same or a different part of the body. And, sometimes, a doctor will remove just one wart, and all the rest of them will disappear all by themselves.

Diseases caused by parasites are fairly common in children who play in dirt where worms and other parasites live. The parasites often go from the ground into a child’s body when the child puts his dirty hands into his mouth. Parasites also get into children’s bodies when they kiss or hug or play with pets who have infected worms or ticks on their bodies. And finally, parasites may enter the body when an infected insect, like a mosquito carrying the malaria parasite, bites someone’s skin.

There are a great number of different diseases and conditions caused by parasites. Here are just a few of them, and how they affect children:

Malaria
This is an infection caused by one of four kinds of malarial parasite. It comes about when a person is bitten by a mosquito that is infected with the. parasite.

During the first week of malaria, the patient will have attacks of fever, headaches, and chilly sensations. Then, during the weeks afterward, he may feel fine one day, and the next day he may have a high fever and severe chills lasting for a few hours. Then, he will break out in a great sweat. This situation continues with one day high fever and chills, the next day no fever or chills.

The mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasites breed primarily in the humid, hot climate of the tropics and subtropics. They are seldom found in temperate regions.

An ameba is a single-celled animal organism that may cause diseases in children. The most common of such diseases is dysentery caused by Endamoeba histolytica.

The diagnosis of malaria is made by taking a little sample of the patient’s blood and examining it under a microscope. On examination, the malaria parasite will be found.

Malaria attacks may go on for many weeks or months if treatment isn’t given. Fortunately, there are several excellent medications to control malana, but they must be given over a long period of time in order to cure the condition.

To prevent this disease, someone who is in an area where malaria exists should take antimalarial pills every day. Also, he should protect himself against being bitten by mosquitoes.

Amebic dysentery

This is a form of diarrhea caused by a tiny one-celled animal parasite called the ameba. A child with amebic dysentery will have crampy pains in his abdomen, many watery, loose bowel movements, loss of appetite, loss of weight, and anemia.

The diagnosis of this condition is made by examining the stool in a laboratory and seeing the ameba parasite under a microscope. Luckily, there are excellent medicines to kill the parasite and cure the child.

To prevent amebic dysentery, a child must be very clean about his body and his eating habits. Also, if he isn’t careful, he may spread the infection to other members of his family.

Worms

Tapeworm sometimes grow to be many feet long. Medicines may cause the worm to be passed out of the intestines. Unless the head of the worm comes out with the segments, the worm will continue to grow.

Various worms can easily get into a child’s body if he runs barefoot outdoors, if he has the habit of putting 1 dirty fingers into his mouth, or if he plays with animals who have worms.

There are dozens of different kinds of worms, including the hookworm, the whipworm, the pinworm, and the tapeworm. Each one can get into the body, and each one can cause a different disease.

Some of the worms that get into the stomach and intestines finally come out in the stool. When they appear in the stool, doctors can examine them and will therefore be able to tell the exact kind of worm that is causing trouble. Occasionally, a worm will get into the blood, or will reach the muscles or other organs of the body. These worms may be harder to find, but there are ways of discovering and getting rid of them.

People are fortunate that doctors have discovered medicines to kill practically every type of worm that can get into the body.

Precautions
Here are some good rules to follow if we want to avoid conditions caused by parasites:

1. Don’t drink any water in the country or in a foreign land unless you are positive it is pure. Don’t eat the skins of raw fruits and raw vegetables when you are visiting in the country. Fresh fruit should be peeled, and raw vegetables should be cooked.
2. Children should protect themselves against mosquitoes, and against lice and other insects that might carry parasites. Mosquito sprays should be used. Long slacks or jeans, long-sleeved blouses or shirts, should be worn in areas where there are mosquitoes.
3. Vaccinations should be given against diseases carried by insects and viruses. For example, before traveling to some foreign countries, it is a good idea to be vaccinated against typhus fever, yellow fever, the plague, and other contagious diseases. When going to an area where there is malaria, a child should take antimalarial pills every day. And when camping out in woods where there might be ticks, it might be wise to be vaccinated against Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
4. Children should not kiss and hug dogs or cats or other pets that run wild in the fields. Such animals may carry insects that can transmit parasites.
5. Children should wash thoroughly when they come indoors and, of course, they should never put dirty fingers in their mouths!

Among the parasites found in children are: whipworm, hookworm, trichinosis larva in muscle, adult trichinosis worm, and liver fluke.

The kidneys and bladder are parts of the body’s waste-disposal system, and so when we have a kidney infection, we often have an infected bladder, too. The way to get over a kidney infection is to stay in bed, drink plenty of water and other liquids, and take the antibiotic or other medicines the doctor prescribes.

An inflammation or infection of the kidneys can usually be diagnosed because the child has a high fever, a pain in his back under his ribs where t. kidneys are located, and he is tender when the doctor touches the kidneys during his examination. Also, when the doctor examines the urine, he finds pus or other cells which show that the kidneys are inflamed. In order to get over a kidney inflammation or infection, a child must do following:

1. Stay in bed.
2. Drink the proper amounts of fluids that the doctor tells him to drink.
3. Take antibiotic medicines or other medicines that the doctor prescribes.

In most cases, a kidney infection will get well without too much trouble, but some of the inflammations caused by toxins may take a long time to get over. Often, when the kidneys are infected, the bladder also becomes infected. That is quite natural as the urine, containing germs, travels from the kidneys down to the bladder. It is easy to know when children have bladder infections. Here’s what happens in most cases:

1. There is a desire to urinate much more often than usual. Sometimes, a child wants to go every hour, or even more often than that.
2. The urine may burn as it passes out of the body.
3. Even though the child has finished urinating, he or she still feels like doing more.
4. There may be a fever, and the child may perspire a great deal.
5. The urine, instead of being clear, looks cloudy. That’s because it contains germs and pus cells.

Luckily, almost all bladder infections can be cleared up quickly if the child stays in bed, drinks large amounts of liquids, and takes the antibiotic medication that the doctor tells him to take. But even after the bladder is all better, it is important to drink lots of water for several weeks afterward. That will prevent the infection from coming back.

A hernia in the bellybutton is called an umbilical hernia. It is recognized by the way the bellybutton bulges out, especially when an infant cries or strains. Beneath this bulge, one can sometimes feel a little opening in the muscle of the abdominal wall. Many umbilical hernias get smaller as the child grows during the first year of life, but other umbilical hernias stay the same size or grow larger. If an umbilical hernia is larger than a dime or nickel, and remains that way even after the child has passed his first birthday, it will probably not go away of its own accord.

Inguinal hernias, or hernias in the groin, can be very serious if a loop of intestine is caught in the hernial sac. Such hernias should always be repaired surgically. Hernias occur most frequently in the groin, because at this site there are gaps in the abdominal wall for blood vessels and the genital cord.

Doctors used to place a penny or dime in the opening of a hernia of the bellybutton, would strap it there with adhesive tape, and would leave it in place for several weeks at a time. They thought that this might make the hernia heal by itself. We now know that this doesn’t do much good. If an umbilical hernia is going to heal, it will heal even if we leave it alone.

An umbilical hernia can easily be cured by having a surgeon fix it. This is a simple operation, carried out in a hospital. It is not a painful operation because the child goes to sleep before it is performed. Afterward, there might be slight pain for a day or two, but it is not enough to keep the child in bed. Youngsters get out of bed the day after this type of surgery and they go home from the hospital a day or two later.

A hernia in the groin is called an inguinal hernia. Inguinal hernias are just as common as hernias of the bellybutton. When a hernia appears in one groin in a child under one or two years of age, there is a good chance he w develop a hernia in the other groin, too. Every once in a while an inguinal hernia will clear up by itself by the time a baby reaches the age of a year or a year and a half. However, most of them II do not clear up and have to be operate upon.

It is a good idea to operate on inguinal hernias, because there is a tendency for intestines to stick through the bulge of the hernia. When this hap-I pens, a child may get sick to his stomach and have pain in his abdomen. And, once in a while, a piece of intestine gets caught in the bulge of the hernia and doesn’t go back into the abdomen where it belongs. When this happens a child gets truly sick and must go to the hospital at once.

Most doctors recommend that inguinal hernias be repaired soon after they appear. If they appear at birth, they can be repaired when the child is a few weeks old. If they appear for the first time when a boy or girl is five or six years of age, they are repaired then.

The operation to cure an inguinal hernia is just as simple as the one to fix a hernia of the bellybutton. The child feels no pain during the surgery, as he goes to sleep beforehand. There is some discomfort in the groin for a day or two after the operation, but it doesn’t prevent the child from getting out of bed and walking around his hospital room. About two or three days after repairing an inguinal hernia, the child can go home.

After any operation for hernia, a child must take it easy for a few weeks so that the tissues heal solidly. This means that he may not be able to run and play, to roughhouse or to ride his bicycle for a few weeks. However, he can go back to school just two or three weeks after surgery. When the wound of the operation has healed solidly, he can do everything that he did before he was operated on. The bellybutton and the groin, after a hernia operation, are just as strong as they would have been if no hernia had existed.

Sometimes, in some hospitals, a mother may stay overnight with the child who goes in for a hernia operation. This depends upon the rules of the particular hospital to which the child goes.

1. Try to go to the bathroom at the same time each morning. Many children go after breakfast, while others prefer to go before breakfast. Either is all right, if the bowels function properly.
2. Always leave plenty of time for taking care of the bowels. If a child is late for school, he will hurry and may not perform his duties the way he should. This will lead to poor bowel habits.
3. Don’t sit on the toilet for longer than necessary. Ten to fifteen minutes should be the limit. Some children like to read while on the toilet. When they do that, they frequently forget why they are there. It is perhaps best just to do one’s job and to get on with the day’s activities.
4. Don’t strain too hard if it is difficult to move the bowels.Straining can cause a scratch in the delicate tissues in the anal region. If you can’t do your business, let your mother know, and she will give you a medicine to make it easier for you.
5. If the bowels are too loose, it is also a good idea to let your mother know. She may give you some medicine to correct the condition. Of course, she will notify your doctor if the loose bowels continue for more than a day or two.
6. Make sure to clean yourself thoroughly before leaving the bathroom. The delicate tissues get irritated very easily if they are unclean. And some irritations in the anal area may last for quite some time and cause a great deal of unpleasant itching.
7. Be sure to wash your hands, too, before leaving the bathroom.
8. Tell your mother if it is very painful to move your bowels. Normally, the process shouldn’t be painful. Pain is most often caused by constipation, with very hard stools.
9. Tell your mother if you ever notice blood on the paper. This may mean that there is a scratch in the membranes, or it may mean that there is an inflammation of the large intestines or rectum.

The body’s system for absorbing nutrients from food and getting rid of solid waste products begins in the mouth and ends in the bowels. To keep the system in good working order, we must develop regular bowel habits.

Children who neglect their bowels and are irregular about the time each day that they go to the bathroom often become constipated. Constipation is nothing to get excited about when it happens once in a while, but if a child always finds it difficult to move his bowels, it is a matter for concern.

A child who is always constipated may not have as much energy and pep as a child who is regular. Furthermore, children who are constipated sometimes don’t have very good appetites, and they may lose valuable weight. The best treatment for constipation is to drink plenty of water and eat those foods which are most likely to lead to regular movements. These foods include fresh fruit and fruit juices like prune juice and orange and grapefruit juice, plenty of fresh vegetables like lettuce and tomatoes and celery and cabbage and string beans, and plenty of cereals and breads. Foods like whole- wheat bread and cereals contain bran, and bran helps to keep the bowels regular.

Foods that promote regular bowel function are fresh fruits and fruit juices, fresh vegetables. and whole-grain cereals and breads. Wholewheat breads and cereals contain bran, which is very helpful in keeping the bowels regular.

If a child is constipated only occasionally, he may be given a laxative or an enema to clear up the condition. However, it is not a good idea to give a child laxatives or enemas regularly. It is a much better ides for the child to develop good bowel habits. That will solve most problems of constipation it is not natural for youngsters to have loose stools all the time. (Loose stools mean diarrhea.) If they do, it may mean that their diet is poor and needs to be improved. Perhaps they are getting too few vitamins in their diet, or perhaps they are eating foods to which they are allergic. One child once had diarrhea for many weeks until it was discovered that he had unexpectedly become allergic to milk. When he stopped drinking milk, the loose stools disappeared.

In some instances, diarrhea is caused by an infection or inflammation within the small or large intestine. If this is the cause, a doctor will give medicines to control it. Any child who has loose stools for I more than a day or two should not neglect to tell his or her mother. Diarrhea can be cleared up much more quickly if it is treated early.

The appendix is about as long as a grown-up’s little finger and is shaped something like a worm. It is about as thick as a lead pencil. The appendix connects with the large intestine but, so far as we know, it has no function and isn’t really needed by our bodies at all.

When the appendix becomes infected, it swells and fills with pus. A child with appendicitis not only will feel pain in the abdomen, but when a doctor examines the area with his hand, it will feel very tender. Appendicitis causes fever and an increase in the number of white blood cells in the blood. The increased number of white cells helps to fight the germs that have produced the infection.

Because appendicitis often starts out like an ordinary upset stomach, a child is sometimes given a laxative or an enema. These are not good ways of treating appendicitis, and in many cases, it makes the condition worse. And so, there is a rule that almost all mothers know: Never give a child a laxative, an enema, or even food or liquid, when he has a stomachache.

The normal appendix Is three to five inches long and pinkish gray with a glistening coat. The inflamed appendix is much thicker, is altered in color, and contains pus.

An appendectomy is considered a routine operation in which a structure of no value to the body is removed. There are no problems unless the appendix is ruptured.

There are a couple of good ways to tell appendicitis from an ordinary upset stomach. Stomachaches caused by an upset stomach usually clear up by themselves within a few hours, while the pain of appendicitis continues in the belly and often gets worse if something isn’t done to treat it. Also, a child with a stomachache caused by an upset stomach will usually develop loose stools and diarrhea, while those with appendicitis are constipated or don’t move their bowels at all.

Once a doctor has decided that a child has appendicitis, he will recommend that he go to the hospital. Occasionally, a mild attack of appendicitis can be treated at home by giving antibiotics, but most cases will require that the appendix be removed by a surgeon in a hospital. It has been discovered that a child who has had one attack of appendicitis, even if it was very mild, will eventually get another attack. Therefore, the sensible thing to do is to remove the appendix with the first attack. Then the child will never have appendicitis again!

The operation for removal of the appendix is called an appendectomy. It is not a very serious operation, unless the condition has been neglected for a day or two. In the ordinary case, the child goes to sleep in the operating room and the appendix is removed in about fifteen to twenty minutes. The cut to remove the appendix is only about two to three inches long and is located in the lower right side of the abdomen.

After the operation, the child will have some pain where the incision was made, but in most cases the pain is not severe enough to prevent him from getting out of bed the day after the operation. The appetite may be poor for a few days after the appendix has been removed but it returns to normal within about a week’s time.

On the sixth or seventh day after an appendectomy, the stitches are removed. And, if the temperature is normal, in all probability, the child will be able to go home from the hospital.

Some youngsters worry about pam from removing stitches. Actually, it is not very painful at all. It takes less than a minute to cut them, and all a
child feels is a slight sticking sensation. Rarely does it cause enough pain for a child to cry.

Children who have had their appendix removed usually stay home from school for about three weeks. This period of time is necessary for the cut to heal solidly. Of course, a child could go back to school earlier, but then he would have to be very careful not to run or play too hard with his classmates. And it isn’t always easy to do that, is it?

About two months after the appendix has been taken out, the wound has healed so solidly that children can resume all their activities, such as bicycling, tennis, swimming and diving, dancing, baseball, and all other sports.

Upset Stomach
One of the most frequent causes of a pain in the belly comes from eating too fast and not chewing thoroughly. When we do this, we swallow a lot of air with our food and drink, and this for a big gas bubble that stretches our stomachs and gives us pain. Also, if we don’t chew slowly and thoroughly, th stomach must contract and wonk harder to churn up the food into small pieces. Hard contractions of the stomach can be painful, too.
Overeating is another -cause for stomachache. If we stuff our stomach, it will have to stretch to hold all the food and will have to contract harder to chop it up into small pieces. Sometimes, these hard contractions and the stretching of the muscles of the stomach can give us an awful pain.

If we eat foods that are spoiled or infected with germs, we can get a terrific stomachache, along with nausea and vomiting. Our stomachs are pretty smart organs, and they seem to know when spoiled or poisoned foods are swallowed. It doesn’t take long for the stomach to refuse to handle this kind of food, and bingo—the stomach goes into reverse, like an automobile. Then, instead of contracting to push the food further along into the small intestines, the stomach contracts in the opposite direction so that we throw up the rotten food we have accidentally eaten.

We can easily get a stomachache if we eat when we are very upset or nervous about something. In order to do its work properly, the stomach must work slowly and steadily. And when we are very unhappy, or very angry, or very sad, the stomach may not work smoothly in churning our food. It may just let the undigested food lie where it is in the stomach, and after a time, this will give us a stomachache. Or, the stomach may contract violently, or in the wrong direction, causing us to throw up.

The abdominal cavity contains all of the intestinal tract except the esophagus. Also within its confines are the liver, spleen, pancreas, and, in the female, Fallopian tubes, and ovaries. Behind the abdominal cavity lie the kidneys and adrenal glands. The abdominal cavity is lined with a thin, smooth sheet of cells known as the peritoneum.

About one out of ten children has some sort of food allergy. This means that a particular food disagrees with him and may cause the lining of the stomach to be irritated and swollen. When this happens, the stomach will try to get rid of the food by vomiting or by hurrying up its churning so that the food is passed on to the intestines before it is ready to go there. Allergies sometimes cause stomachache because of the violent stomach contractions.

Stomachs can handle proteins and sugars more easily than they can handle fats. But some children, especially overweight ones, like to eat greasy, fried, fatty foods. Then, when they eat too much fat or fried foods, their stomachs rebel and try to get rid of the stuff. Of course, this gives a stomachache.
Once in a while, a child will get an inflammation of the lining of his stomach from a virus. When the lining of the stomach is inflamed, pain can result. In addition, the child will probably lose his appetite for a few days.

Gastroenteritis
When the stomach is upset by spoiled or infected food, even though it may have gotten rid of most of it by vomiting, a certain amount of it will pass down into the small intestines. The small intestines act the same way toward this food as the stomach did. They contract very hard and quickly in order to get rid of it. These hard and rapid contractions can cause a very severe pain in the belly. And when the small intestines pass the food on quickly toward the large intestines, the child soon develops loose stools, or diarrhea.

In most cases in which the stomach lining is inflamed by a virus infection, the lining of the small intestines is affected, too. There is a big, long name for this condition. It is called gastroenteritis. Really, all it means is that both the stomach and the intestines are affected. But there is no reason to worry; the stomachache and the diarrhea caused by gastroenteritis will last only a few days and will clear up completely.

Constipation
Constipation means that we are unable to move our bowels as often and as completely as we should. It also means that when we do move them, the stool is harder than it ought to be. Most children have a bowel movement once or twice a day, but others only have one every second or third day. And in some cases, constipation can lead to pain in the belly.

The quadrants of the abdomen are the four regions into which the abdomen may be divided for purposes of physical examination and diagnosis.

Most children who are constipated get that way because they are careless about their bowel habits. Instead of trying to move their bowels at the same time each morning after breakfast, they rush out of the house without going to the bathroom. And, it is often impossible to take the time out of the classroom to have one in school As a result, they let their movement go until the next day. However, they then discover that it is much more difficult to have a movement the next day as the stool has become very hard.Also, it may be somewhat painful to have a movement when the stool is exceptionally hard. A child who is always constipated soon finds out that he gets frequent pain in his belly, especially when the large intestines try to get rid of the stool.

Inflammation of the appendix
Appendicitis is an inflammation of a little structure attached to the beginning of the large intestine called the appendix. Appendicitis is discussed in the next chapter. We can’t help getting a stomachache once in a while, but there are certain things we can do to.avoid getting them too often:

• Eat slowly and chew thoroughly before swallowing.
• Do not overeat.
• Don’t eat too many greasy, spicy, fried, or fatty foods.
• Don’t drink too many sodas. The gas in them may give you a stomach- ache.
• Don’t eat any food that has been lying out in a hot sun for hours, especially salads that have salad dressings.
• Don’t eat too much when you are nervous or upset.
• Don’t eat strange new foods unless your parents tell you it is O.K. to do so.
• Don’t eat anything you think you might be allergic to.
• Eat very little when you have diarrhea.
• Go to the bathroom regularly each morning after breakfast to move your bowels.

Rheumatic fever is caused by a particular type of streptococcus germ. Nowadays, we have extremely powerful antibiotic medicines that can kill these germs. As a result, we don’t see many children who develop rheumatic fever after a streptococcus infection. In the days before the wonderful antibiotic drugs were discovered, a child might have an attack of tonsillitis or strep throat, or would have scarlet fever, and a few weeks later, he would develop rheumatic fever. Today, a child with tonsillitis or scarlet fever or strep throat is given antibiotic medications. The germs that would have caused the rheumatic fever are killed by these medications before they can do any serious harm, and the child never gets rheumatic fever.

If a child is unlucky enough to get rheumatic fever, he must stay quietly in bed for several weeks. During that time, he will be given large doses of antibiotics to kill the streptococcus germ. He may also be given large doses of aspirin or some similar medicine to get rid of the pain and swelling in his joints. In some cases, a medicine known as cortisone is also given to control the rheumatic fever.

If a child is obedient and stays quietly in bed and takes his various medicines without too much fuss, the chances are good that no damage will occur to his heart or lungs, or to his nerves or muscles or joints.

It is thought that some cases of rheumatic fever are influenced by infected tonsils that contain a streptococcus germ. Therefore, when a child has fully recovered from an attack of rheumatic fever, the tonsils are removed. But that is not enough to prevent another attack of the disease, because the streptococcus germ may be growing in other places in the body. To prevent another attack of rheumatic fever, children are often given antibiotic medicines every day for months, or even years, at a time.

The mitral valve lies between the atrium and ventricles on the left side of the heart. The normal mitral valve is strong and tightly closed.

The mitral valve shown here has been weakened and damaged by disease. Its muscles cannot relax or contract completely. As a resuit, it has become a leaky valve that wont function normally.

Some types of pneumonia come on suddenly with a high fever, a chill, a cough, and a pain in the chest. In many cases, the patient has had a cold or other infection for a few days before the symptoms of the pneumonia begin. Within a few hours after the onset of pneumonia, the patient begins to breathe more rapidly and may feel short of breath. Next, he may begin to cough up mucus that is pink-colored or contains little streaks of blood. Usually, someone with pneumonia loses his appetite and may vomit if he attempts to eat too much.

When a doctor examines the chest of a patient with pneumonia, he will hear abnormal sounds through his stethoscope. And, if he X-rays the patient’s lungs, he will see an abnormal shadow in the infected part of the lung where the pneumonia is located. And, finally, when a blood count is taken, it will show an abnormally high white blood cell count.

Many different kinds of bacteria, and viruses too, can cause pneumonia. The bacteria shown in this picture are called pneumococci, and they produce a very common type of pneumonia. This type of pneumonia can be cured with antibiotic medications.

One effect of pneumonia is that the lungs - become congested with fluid, which the doctor can detect by listening o a child’s chest with stethoscope. Most cases of pneumonia can be cured by the giving of antibiotic medications

Here are some of the things that are done in treating pneumonia:

1. Rest in bed. Often, the patient is more comfortable sitting up, rather than lying down flat.
2. Large amounts of fluids are taken, including water, fruit juices, and eve soda.
3. Antibiotic medicines are given. The particular antibiotic that is will depend upon which germ is causing the pneumonia and how sensitive the germ is to the particular antibiotic drug. Although pneumonias caused by a virus are not cured by giving antibiotics, the antibiotics are given anyway. This is done so that bacteria (which can be killed by the antibiotics) do not attack the lungs that have already been weakened by the virus infection.
4. Oxygen is sometimes given if the patient is very short of breath.
5. If coughing is severe and is interfering with rest and sleep, a cough medicine is given.
6. If the patient is constipated, as frequently happens in cases of pneumonia, a laxative or an enema is given.

Children usually get over a pneumonia caused by bacteria within a week or two. Pneumonia caused by a virus may take several weeks before it completely clears up. However, no matter what kind of pneumonia the patient has had, it will usually take several weeks or even a couple of months before all his or her strength and pep are regained. Children are sometimes anemic after pneumonia, and they may require iron and vitamin pills to help them to feel as strong and energetic as they did before the attack of pneumonia. And, of course, during the period of recovery, children should take it easy and not do strenuous exercise. Also, they should be sure to get plenty of sleep each night.

Most children who take good care of themselves when they have a cold don’t get bronchitis. However, if a child is anemic, or too thin, or neglects to stay in bed and do what he is told when he has a cold, he is more likely to develop bronchitis. Also, youngsters with allergies seem to get bronchitis more often. Wintry, damp weather also makes it easier for the viruses and germs to infect the bronchial tubes.

Bronchitis is an inflammation of the air passages leading to the lungs. It causes fluid to collect in the bronchial tubes and air cells, and it not treated, may result in pneumonia.

Here is how a doctor knows that a child has bronchitis:

1. There is a great deal of coughing, often bringing up large amounts of mucus or pus.
2. The temperature goes up, sometimes as high as 102° to 103°.
3. On listening to the chest with a stethoscope, the doctor will hear squeaky sounds called rhonchi.

It is important to take special care of a boy or girl who has bronchitis because, if not treated properly, pneumonia (an infection of the lungs) may develop. This is the way most cases of bronchitis are treated:

1. The child should stay in bed until his temperature has been normal for at least two days.
2. A good deal of the time in bed should be spent in a sitting or semi sitting position. This makes it easier to cough up mucus and pus from the bronchial tubes.
3. The air in the bedroom should be kept warm and moist. Dry, cold air tends to irritate the bronchial tubes.
4. Cough medicines are given to help the child bring up and get rid of the mucus or pus.
5. Aspirin, or some other drug with the same effect as aspirin, is given to relive aching pains and to bring the temperature down to normal.
6. Antibiotic medicines are frequently given if the fever isn’t controlled by giving aspirin, or if the bronchitis lasts longer than a few days. By giving antibiotics,, the child is often protected against developing pneumonia.

Children with severe cases of bronchitis may take a couple of weeks, or even more, to fully recover. And if we want to do our best to prevent another attack of bronchitis, here are some things that should be investigated:

1. If a child has a sinus infection, it should be treated. Sinus infections quite often lead to bronchitis.
2. Infected tonsils and adenoids should be removed because they may lead to an attack of bronchitis.
3. Allergies should be controlled as best as possible. As mentioned before, allergic children are more apt to get attacks of bronchitis.
4. If a child is underweight or anemic or doesn’t have enough vitamins in his diet, these situations should be corrected. Lowered resistance results from being anemic and underweight, thus making it much easier for viruses or germs to invade the bronchial tubes.

There are 4 pairs of nasal sinuses, as shown in the diagram above. These sinuses are air spaces within the skull. Their main purpose is to lighten the weight of the skull and to give resonance to the voice. They are also a frequent site of infection.

There are eight sinuses in the head, and each one of them has an opening that connects with the inside of the nose. Each sinus is lined with a membrane much like the membrane that line the inside of the nose. These membranes normally secrete a little watery mucus that keeps the sinuses and the inside of the nose from becoming too dry.

When someone has a cold, the membranes of the nose become inflamed and swollen. Most such colds are caused by viruses rather than by bacteria (germs). If the cold is taken good care of, in all probability the infection will not spread into the sinuses. But if the patient is careless and gets overheated or overtired, or dives and swims a lot under water, the membranes of the sinuses may get inflamed, too. And although most colds are caused by viruses, in neglected cases germs such as streptococci and staphylococci may take hold and cause an infection within the nearby sinuses.

A child can get a sinus infection without first having a cold. One of the commonest ways to get a sinus infection is to dive and swim underwater in a pool or lake where the water is not to clean. Then the contaminated water gets into the sinuses and creates Infections. Also, youngsters with allergies such as hay fever seem to get sinus infections more often than those who have no allergies.

Here are the ways we know there is trouble in one or more of our sinuses:

1. A cold may last much longer than usual and the nose stays stuffed for two or more weeks after the start of the cold.
2. A child may develop headaches with his cold. These headaches are worse when the head is down and the child bends over.
3. The voice sounds flat and nasal.
4. Mucus keeps draining out of the nose and down the back of the throat. This often causes a great deal of coughing, especially when the child is lying down.
5. There is pain when pressing over the sinuses at the sides of the nose or on the bones over the eyes.
6. If the infection is severe, the patient will have fever and will feel generally sick.
7. In many cases, X rays of the sinuses will show that they are infected.

Here are some things the doctor may prescribe in order to cure a sinus infection:

1. Rest in bed for a few days until the temperature is normal and the child feels better.
2. Apply warm compresses to the face, using a washcloth or towel. This may relieve some of the pain and might help to drain out some of the pus that has collected in the sinuses.
3. Breathing in steam, either from a faucet, a steam kettle, or a steam inhaler, often helps to get the mucus and pus to drain out of the sinuses more easily.
4. Special nasal sprays or nose drops are sometimes given to shrink the inflammation of the membranes and thus allow the mucus and pus to drain better.
5. Antibiotic medicines are given to kill the germs that have gotten into the sinuses.

Most sinus infections will clear up within a couple of weeks, but there is a tendency for them to come back again if people aren’t especially careful when they get their next cold. To prevent this from happening, when the next cold rolls around, here are some things I to do:

1. The cold should be treated by rest in bed until everyone is absolutely sure that there is no temperature for at least two days.
2. If there is any fever, antibiotic medicines might be given. This will not cure the cold, but it may prevent a sinus infection from developing.
3. Drafts and cold air should be avoided.
4. No one should ever blow his nose too hard, even if it means that some of the mucus stays up in the nose. Hard nose-blowing may force some of the infected mucus to go from the nose into the sinuses.
5. If the child has allergies, these should be treated by a specialist who knows how to control them, thus lessening the chances of a sinus infection

One of the commonest ways to get a sinus infection is to dive and swim underwater in a pool or lake where the water is not too clean. When contaminated water is driven up into the sinuses, it can create a sinus infection.

Every once in a while, no matter how careful we are, we do get a cold. But if we follow certain good rules, we won’t get colds very often. Here’s what all of us, grown-ups as well as children,should do:

1. Don’t kiss or hug anyone, big or small, who has a cold. Colds are so contagious that one hug or kiss may cause you to catch it.
2. Stay as far away as you can from someone who is sneezing or coughing because he has a cold. Actually, people who have colds should stay in their own rooms as much as possible.
3. If you can help it, never walk around with wet or damp feet. Put on your rubbers or boots before going out in the rain or snow. And if you accidentally get caught in the rain or snow without your rubbers or boots, head for home where you can dry out. Remember, you can miss a lot of fun and good times by catching a cold unnecessarily.
4. Another thing that seems to bring on a cold is getting chilled, especially after being overheated from playing. Don’t forget that clothing gets damp and wet from perspiration. And many children, instead of going home to change into dry clothing, hang around in wet clothes and get chilled. Cooling off too quickly after being overheated, especially in cold weather, may lead to a cold.
5. Getting part of the body in a cold draft seems to bring on colds in some people. It is odd, but exposing the entire body to wind and cold, as we often
do on wintry days when we go outdoors, does not seem to cause a cold nearly as often as when only part of our body is exposed to cold or wind.
6. Of course, a child who doesn’t dress warmly enough when he goes out in chilly or cold weather takes a great chance of getting a cold. Mothers and fathers are pretty smart when it comes to knowing what their children should wear, and it is a good idea to take their advice when they tell you how to dress. All too often, when youngsters refuse to put on a sweater or coat in cold weather, they punish themselves by getting colds.
7. Many doctors believe that people catch more colds when they neglect to eat the right foods. For example, we should always eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. This will supply us with most of the vitamins we need. Those who have a vitamin deficiency seem to catch colds very frequently.

A good way to avoid catching cold is to never walk around with wet or damp feet and clothing. Always wear proper clothes when you have to go out in the rain or snow. And if you do get caught out in the rain without protection, head for home, where you can dry out.

If we are unlucky enough to catch a cold, we certainly don’t want to give it to other members of our family, or to our playmates. Here are some good ways not to spread colds:

1. Always cover your mouth with your hand when coughing. This will help to stop the spread of the cold viruses.
2. When sneezing, always sneeze into a tissue or handkerchief. A tissue is better than a handkerchief because it can be thrown away.
3. If a sneeze comes on very suddenly and there is no time to get a tissue or handkerchief, sneeze into your hands and cover your nose.
4. Don’t kiss or hug anyone until your cold is all better.
5. Don’t play in the same room with anyone while you are still sneezing or coughing from a cold. Your mom or dad will know when you have recovered sufficiently to play with others.
6. Go to parties or play groups or to school only after your cold is better. This may take as long as four or five days if it is a bad cold.

Scientists who study contagious diseases are able to tell when and where epidemics of influenza can be expected to break out. For example, if there is an epidemic of influenza in Europe or Asia, these scientists can usually guess when the disease will strike the United States, and what part of the country will be hit hardest. They can also forecast fairly accurately how many people will catch the disease. In some epidemics, one out of every three or four children can be expected to get the disease. Luckily, in most cases, the condition is mild, especially if one has been vaccinated beforehand.

Epidemics of influenza don’t come every year. For some peculiar reason, the virus doesn’t attack many people one year but may hit extremely hard another year. But to be safe, people should do their best to prevent the disease each year by getting influenza vaccine injections. Since the condition comes most often in the winter and early spring, it is wise to get your flu shot late in the fall.

Magnified by an electron microscope, Asian influenza virus particles can be seen as round dots. The long lines are bacteria. These germs can be seen only with the aid of a powerful microscope that magnifies them tens of thousands of times.

Here are some of the symptoms of influenza:

1. Fever. In some cases it may go as high as 104°.
2. Marked aches and pains in the muscles and joints throughout the body, especially in the back and thighs and legs.
3. A runny nose with discharge of tubes as well.
4. Cough, with the bringing up of yellow or greenish mucus.
5. Weakness and tiredness with lack of pep and energy and a strong desire just to lie in bed and do nothing, not even to look at television.
6. Headache, and sometimes a sick- to-the-stomach feeling.
7. When the doctor has a blood count mucus from the throat and bronchial taken, it is usually found that there are fewer than the normal number of white blood cells.

The severe symptoms of influenza last for five to six days, but it takes another couple of weeks before the patient begins to feel normal again. During the time he or she is sick, the influenza patient must be kept away from friends and family members, because influenza is so terribly contagious. The disease is spread by coughing or sneezing. It is therefore important to teach everyone with the flu, and also those who just have a simple cold, to cover his mouth when he coughs and to cover his nose when he sneezes!

Most youngsters recover from influenza without complications, but here are things to do to make sure everything goes well:

1. Stay in bed until temperature has been normal for three days.
2. Aspirin, or a similar medicine, should be taken to relieve the aches and pains, and to help bring down the temperature to normal.
3. Large amounts of water, fruit juices, and other liquids should be taken. This will help to flush the poison from the influenza virus out of the body and will aid in getting rid of the fever.
4. Room temperature should be comfortably warm and the air in the bedroom should be moist. This will help the patient to bring up the mucus when he coughs.
5. If coughing is severe, a cough medicine is given.
6. In order to prevent complications like an ear infection or pneumonia, antibiotic medicines are given. Unfortunately, the antibiotics aren’t very effective in killing the influenza virus.

Of course, it is much smarter to prevent influenza than it is to cure it once it has infected a child. To do this, doctors recommend that children be given influenza vaccine. The vaccine should be given a month or two before the epidemic is expected to strike. It would be nice if the vaccine always worked, but it is thought that it protects against influenza in only about seven out of ten people who take the shots. But the three who get influenza anyway, even though they received the vaccine, will probably get mild cases.

Children who are allergic to eggs cannot be given flu vaccine, because the vaccine is manufactured by growing it in chicken eggs. Therefore, if they were given the vaccine, they would get an allergic reaction. Many doctors think it is wise to keep children who have not received the vaccine, because of their allergy, home from school during an influenza epidemic.

Influenza vaccine has proved to be effective In protecting children from the disease. To prepare vaccine, viruses are injected into chicken eggs that are placed in incubators to promote viral growth. Eventually, the virus is removed from the eggs and processed to yield vaccine.

Muscle sprains and sprained or torn ligaments or cartilages are very painful when they happen. The best first-aid treatment for such an injury is to keep the arm or the leg as still as possible and not to move it. Certainly no one should try to walk on an injured hip, knee, or ankle. If he does, he may make the injury a lot worse. A good deal of bleeding beneath the skin usually takes place when a muscle or ligament is torn. As a result, there will be a great deal of swelling in the area. Soon after the tear one may sometimes notice that the skin around the area is taking on a bluish color. This is caused by bleeding that has taken place under the skin.

The only sure way to know whether a bone is broken is to take an X ray, and this, as we know, must be done either in a doctor’s office or in a hospital. If a bone is found to be broken, the doctor will see whether the broken parts are separated and out of line. If the broken parts are out of place, the doctor “sets” or “reduces” the fracture. This means that he puts the broken parts back into their normal position. To set a fracture, the patient is usually given an anesthetic so he can go to sleep and feel no pain while the bones are being handled and put back in place. Occasionally, it is possible to set a fracture just by giving an injection of a local anesthetic, like Novocain, into the area of the break. In these cases, the patient feels no pain, either, but does not go to sleep.

After putting the broken bones back into their proper position, the doctor must make sure that they stay that way until they are completely healed. He does this usually by putting on a plaster cast. A cast is a bandage that is wet when first put on but later dries out and becomes hard and stiff. The stiffness and hardness of the cast protects the broken bones and keeps them from moving out of position. Once in a while, when the bones are broken in several places or are far out of position, the doctor will have to operate to put them together again. When he has done that, he sometimes keeps them in place by wrapping a wire around them or by putting in a metal plate from one part of the broken bone to the other. Naturally, these operations are done under anesthesia while the patient is asleep

If the X rays show that a bone is broken but the broken paris are not out of place, then a cast is applied while the patient is awake. It is not painful to put on a cast. Also, it doesn’t hurt when a cast is removed, although the electric machine they use to cut a cast makes an awful racket.

A cast should be put on so that it prevents movement of the broken bones. To do this, the cast must cover the joints both above and below the break. As an example, if someone breaks a leg, the cast must cover the foot, ankle, and the knee. If someone breaks an arm, the cast may have to go from the hand all the way up to the shoulder.

Casts stay on anywhere from three weeks to three or more months, depending upon which bones are broken and how badly they are broken. Naturally, if the broken bones are not out of place, a cast will not have to stay on nearly as long as when the bones are badly broken and are far out of their normal position.

Plaster casts are sometimes used for arms and legs when there is a severe muscle or ligament tear, even if no bone is broken. As mentioned before, some muscle and ligament injuries cause just as much trouble and take just as long to heal as some fractures. Casts are also applied in certain cases where the back has been badly injured. In these cases, the cast is applied to the entire body from the chest down to the hips.

There are certain rules everybody with a cast should follow:

1. Don’t allow a cast to get wet in a bath or shower. It won’t make much difference if it gets wet in the rain, as it will dry out quickly. Also, if we accidentally spill something on it, no great damage will be done.
2. No one should walk or put full weight on a cast unless the doctor has given permission to do so. Some casts can have special walking attachments put on, and then, it is O.K. to walk on them. People should know that walking or placing weight on a cast without the doctor’s permission may cause the cast to crack or break. Then, the fractured bone may get out of position. And even if that does not happen, it may become necessary to put on a new cast to replace the damaged one.
3. Don’t try to trim the edges of a cast by yourself. If necessary, the doctor will do it.
4. If there is a lot of itching beneath the cast, ask your doctor what to do about it. Don’t go poking things beneath your cast; you may scratch your skin or get a skin infection, and they might have to remove the cast before it is ready to come off.
5. It is perfectly O.K. to have your friends write or draw pictures on your cast. That won’t hurt it.

A sprained or torn muscle, ligament, or tendon may be painful for several days, or even weeks. Most broken bones, however, stop hurting within a couple of days after a cast has been put on. The reason a bad sprain or tear of a ligament or muscle hurts longer than a fracture is that there are many sensitive nerves in muscles and ligaments, but bones do not have so many nerves.

Did you know that people have more than two hundred bones in their bodies, and that the chances are very great that they will some day break one of them? But we shouldn’t worry too much when we do break a bone because when it heals, it is as strong as ever! And even if the arm or leg looks funny when the cast comes off, it will look normal again in a few weeks’ or months’ time. Children, especially, should not worry if an arm or leg looks a little crooked after recovering from a fracture. Children’s’ bones straighten out as the child grows older, even if they looked strange right after the cast came off.

Do you know what a muscle spasm is? Well, when a muscle has been over worked from hard play and exercise, or has been strained, it may contract very strongly and not be able to relax. In other words, it tightens and can’t loosen itself. This is called a spasm, and if it keeps up for very long, it can be extremely painful. Some people call muscle spasm “muscle cramps.”

Growing pains are not so severe that we have to do much about them. Perhaps we should be a little more careful how we play and run, but certainly, we shouldn’t stop our play activities just because we get pains once in a while. If the pains are severe, lying in a nice hot tub for twenty minutes to a half hour usually relives the problem.

The bronchial tubes are narrowed due to spasm in an asthmatic attack. To release the spasm and to permit free breathing, it is frequently necessary to give injections of special medications or to breathe in medications through the mouth.

Usually there are just a few things at irritate them and cause them to have an allergic reaction. For example, we knew a child who was allergic only to shrimp, and to absolutely nothing else in the whole world. Or, children may have no food allergies at all, but may be allergic to a pollen or a dust that they breathe. And finally, some children may be able to eat and breathe everything without developing an allergic attack, but they cannot wear nylon or Dacron or wool without breaking out in a skin rash.

There is an old saying, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” This is very true insofar as allergies are concerned. A perfectly wonderful thing like cow’s milk may make a particular allergic child terribly sick. That same child may be able to drink goat’s milk without any bad effect at all!

As we all know, it is healthier to live in the country where there is fresh air to breathe, free from pollution. But, if a child is allergic to the pollen from certain grasses and trees and weeds, he may develop a very serious allergy.

That particular child might be happier living in the middle of a big city where there is a great deal of air pollution but less pollen from weeds and grasses and trees. We call the things to which a person is sensitive, allergens. Most doctors agree that the tendency to have allergies is inherited from one’s parents or grandparents. There are, however, children who develop an allergy even though their parents and grandparents don’t have any. But allergies are much more commonly seen among children whose parents or grandparents are allergic.

A pretty cat is not to be sneezed at, but baby does it when the cat is close, he may be allergic to animal hair dander

These are some of the things to which people may be allergic:

Things we breathe
These include pollens, mold spores, animal hairs, dust, smoke, and perfumes.

Pollen is a fine, powdery, yellowish substance produced by grasses and weeds and plants and trees when they are flowering. This pollen is carried through the air from one place to another where it drops onto other grasses and weeds and plants and trees, and causes them to form seeds. The seeds are thus fertilized and can form new grasses and weeds and plants and trees.

Mold spores are much like pollens except that they cause funguses, rather than grasses and plants and trees, to multiply and grow.

In almost any place we live, we breathe in pollens and mold spores and tiny bits of animal hairs and dust and smoke. We can be allergic to none of these things, or one or more of them eats or drinks, but those most responsible for allergies are: milk, eggs, wheat, fish and seafood, chocolate, nuts, strawberries and other kinds of berries, and spices.

Medicines and drugs
A child can be sensitive to almost any medicine, but perhaps the most frequent allergy is to medicines like aspirin and penicillin. Children may also be sensitive to some vaccines, especially if they happen to be allergic to eggs.

Contact substances
These are things that cause an allergic reaction when we touch or wear them. For example, we may be allergic to poison ivy or other plants, or to rubber, plastics, metals, various dyes, furs, cosmetics, leather, or chemicals.

Infectious substances
Children may be allergic to contact with certain bacteria or viruses or funguses or parasites.

Insect bites
Everyone gets an allergic reaction to the sting of a mosquito or fly or bee or Yellow jacket Vespula maculifrons wasp or hornet or scorpion. The itchi nes and swelling from the bite of an insect is an allergic reaction.

Physical allergies
can cause allergies like hay fever or rose These are allergies due to exposure to fever or asthma or allergic reactions of extreme heat or cold.
other kinds. The reactions most often seen when someone is allergic depend upon the Foods we eat cause of the allergy. Some of these Anyone can be allergic to any food he symptoms are:

1. Itching of the skin.
2. Hives, or other skin rashes.
3. Swelling of an eyelid or lip some other place on the body.
4. Tearing and redness of the eyes.
5. Sneezing.
6. Stuffed up or running nose.
7. Coughing and wheezing.
8. Trouble with breathing.
9. Headache.
10. Nausea and vomiting.
11. Pain in the abdomen and charrhea.

Parents are pretty bright when it comes to recognizing when their child is having an allergic reaction. Perhaps the first time they may not recognize it, but when the same things happen every time a child eats fish, or every time a child plays with a cat, or every time a child takes an aspirin tablet, the parent comes to understand the situation.

The best way to treat an allergy is to remove the allergen from the child’s environment. In other words, if a child is allergic to fish, parents should see to it that the child never eats fish; if a child is allergic to aspirin, he should never be given aspirin; or if a child is allergic to cat fur, he should not own or play with a cat.

Children can be allergic to anything they eat, smell, wear, or touch. Very often it is the simplest thing that will cause itching, hives, sneezing, wheezing, or any of the other allergic manifestations. Any child who has an unusual reaction to new or old contacts should be examined for possible allergies.

Unfortunately, a parent can’t always protect a child from every type of allergy. For instance, if a child is allergic to a mold or pollen in the air, the parent can’t get that child new air to breathe. Of course, the child will feel somewhat better if he or she stays indoors in a house where air-conditioning gets rid of me of the molds and pollens in the air. But children can’t always stay indoors, can they?

The next best thing to removing the allergen is to take the child to a doctor who specializes in treating allergic conditions They are pretty smart in find- out exactly what the child is allergic to, although many tests may have be given first. They also are pretty successful in treating children with certain medicines and injections to make them less sensitive to the things which give them allergic reactions.

These pollens often cause hay fever in sensitive children. Pollens are fine, powdery substances produced by flowers and trees and grasses. They are carried through the air to fertilize the seeds of other plants and thus form new ones.

Here are some of the main allergic disorders and what is done for them:

Hay fever
This is a condition in which there is inflammation and redness and itching and tearing of the eyes, a stuffed-up, clogged, or running nose, and itching of the nose and throat. Also, with this, there is an awful lot of sneezing. Hay fever comes in the springtime and summer when the pollens are flying in the air from grasses and trees And hay fever comes in the late summer and fall from the pollens of ragweed and mold spores of funguses. After the child breathes in these pollens or mold spores, his trouble begins.

The treatment for hay fever is to give injections of tiny, tiny amounts of the pollen until a child builds up a resistance to the allergen. By giving the injections, a child can become so much less sensitive to the pollens and mold spores that he gets very few symptoms of hay fever. If a child does have the inflammation of the eyes, the runny nose, and the other signs of hay fever despite these injections, then the doctor will probably advise that he or she be given antihistamine tablets. These will clear up many of the symptoms and make the child feel much better.

Asthma
Some children don’t get hay fever from the usual allergens we have mentioned, but they do get bronchial asthma. Asthma causes great difficulty in breathing, and during an attack of asthma there is a dry cough, wheezing, and trouble with getting rid of the air breathed in. In an allergic child, an attack of asthma can be brought on by breathing an unusually large amount of pollen or mold spores. Or, it may be brought on by an infection like a cold or flu, or it can even be brought on by a child being very upset about something. Asthma is also treated by finding out what allergen is causing the trouble and by giving injections to make the child less sensitive to the irritating substances. Sometimes, in a severe attack of asthma, a child must be taken to the hospital to get special treatment with medicines like adrenalin and cortisone.

Food allergies
To treat food allergies successfully, one must first discover the foods to which the child is allergic. Once this has been done, never let the child eat the food again! If a child breaks out into hives, or a rash, or has an upset stomach after accidentally having eaten something to which he or she is allergic, antihistamine medications should be given. These medicines may help somewhat, but it may take quite a few days for full recovery from a particular food allergy.

Drug allergies
Medicines and drugs cause the same kind of reactions as food allergies, and are treated in the same way. Of course, every parent knows that it can be dangerous to give a child again a medicine that once produced a bad reaction. A severe attack of a drug allergy may require that the child go to a hospital for treatment with antihistamine medicines, or even treatment with more powerful medicines such as adrenalin and cortisone.
Children who know that they are allergic to certain medicines should carry that information with the wherever they go.

Contact or skin allergies
Skin allergies are caused by contact of some part of the body with an irritating substance or allergen. Perhaps of the best known contact allergies due to touching the poison ivy plant. I can also be caused by hundreds of r substances that come into contact with our bodies. The first thing to do with contact allergies is to discover exactly what the child is allergic to. Is it certain clothing, or a certain detergent or soap, or a certain plastic? Sometimes, it is not too easy to find a contact allergen; other times it is simple. But once we know, we try to keep that thing away from our bodies.

The rashes of a skin allergy can be very troublesome and may cause a great deal of itching. To relieve it, we apply certain medications. Also, it is frequently advisable to take antihistamine medicines. Once in a .while, if the rash continues for a long time even though it has been treated with antihistamines and local medications, it is necessary to give the child cortisone drug.

Mold spores may cause marked allergic reactions and symptoms similar to those of certain forms of hay fever. Fortunately, the unpleasant symptoms resulting from mold allergies can be greatly relieved by appropriate injections.

Insect bites and stings
People almost always know what kind of insect bites them. Therefore, they almost always know how to treat the bite. The swelling and itching of an insect bite is best treated by applying a cold compress to reduce the swelling. Also, if the swelling and itching are severe, an antihistamine medicine can be given. Some children are especially allergic to the stings of bees and wasps and hornets. If such children are going to amp, or live in an area where there are great many bees or wasps or hornets, why should be given a series of injection to make them less sensitive to the stings of these insects.

A child who gets enough rest is not so likely to show allergic symptoms as a child who is often fatigued.

Physical allergy
Children who are especially sensitive to heat or cold may break out in hives, or they may get an attack of asthma, or break out in hives may even faint. There are three ways to treat physical allergies:

1. If the patient can move somewhere that isn’t too hot or too cold, the allergy will disappear.
2. The acute attack is treated by antihistamine medicines and by taking the person with a heat allergy into a cooler place, or by taking the person with a cold allergy into a warmer place.
3. Some physical allergies can be overcome by making the patient less sensitive to the allergen. For example, the cold allergy is treated by giving the patient daily baths with cooler and cooler water until he eventually gets accustomed to the cold. The person with a heat allergy is given baths with warmer and warmer water until he eventually gets used to the heat.

Allergies sometimes last for a lifetime, but most people learn how to handle their condition so that they don’t suffer too much. As children grow older, they learn what brings on allergic attacks and what to do to avoid them or to treat them before they become severe.

When we say that the blood has insufficient iron, we really mean that there is too little hemoglobin in the red cells. Hemoglobin gives blood its red color, and it is the hemoglobin within the red cells that carries the oxygen from the lungs to all the tissues of the body. To have a sufficient amount of hemoglobin, we must have a sufficient amount of iron. It is the iron that makes the hemoglobin.

Every cell, every organ, every tissue in the body, requires an adequate supply of oxygen in order to work properly. If there are too few red cells circulating in the arteries, or if the red cells don’t contain enough iron, then the organs and tissues won’t receive the necessary amount of oxygen.

People used to think that a well- nourished, heavy, or overweight child couldn’t be anemic. But we now know that even the huskiest child may be anemic if his diet contains too few vitamins or too little iron or other important minerals. It is simple for a child to stuff himself with candy and cake, or other fattening foods, yet neglect to eat the proper amounts of meats and vegetables and fruits that are so full of vitamins and iron and other necessary minerals. People also used to believe that a child had to look pale in order to be anemic. We now know that lots of children can look healthy and still be anemic. Aiid some youngsters can look pale and not be anemic at all.

Many girls and boys can have a mild anemia without even knowing it. It is only when the anemia continues without treatment that a child begins to lose energy, shows weakness in his muscles, loses his appetite, tires easily, and seems to lose interest in his schoolwork and playmates. We must remember that the brain needs tremendous amounts of oxygen to function at its best, and if a child has a severe anemia, the brain is just not going to get all the oxygen it needs.

Anemia can be diagnosed simply by pricking the finger with a needle and performing an examination of a little blood under a microscope. Doctors call this examination a blood count. It includes testing to see if there is enough hemoglobin in the red cells and a count to see if there are the right number of red blood cells. Other tests are done, too, in order to distinguish one type of anemia from another. This is important because the treatment will depend upon what type of anemia is present.

Here are some of the various forms of treatment that might be carried out to cure an anemia:

1. If a child is anemic because he has lost a great deal of blood in an accident, a blood transfusion may be given. As we have mentioned elsewhere, the bone marrow manufactures new blood very rapidly. Within a few days, a child may regain all the blood he requires, and it is therefore necessary to give a transfusion only when really large amounts of blood have been lost.

2. If the anemia has resulted fro some long-lasting illness, it can be cured only when the long-lasting illness has cleared up. For example, if a chil has had a serious kidney infection tha has kept him in bed for several wee he will probably develop anemia. Tha anemia will only disappear when the kidney infection is cured.

3. Certain kinds of anemia occur children who suffer from repeated atItacks of diarrhea (loose bowel move : The diarrhea interferes with the absorption of substances that are necessary to form iron and red blood cells. This type of anemia will not clear up until the diarrhea is cured.

4. The commonest type of anemia is due to insufficient iron in the red cells. It is treated by making sure the child eats a proper diet, including plenty of foods rich in iron and other minerals. It can also be treated by giving the child iron pills or, once in a while, by giving injections of iron. Children should remember that liver, meats, green vegetables, and certain fruits contain iron.

5. There are several rather rare kinds of anemia that are present from the time a child is born. For some of these anemias, treatment is difficult. There are certain anemias that require repeated blood transfusions to keep the child healthy; others are often benefited by removing the spleen. One of the spleen’s functions is to destroy old red cells, and it has been found that sometimes the spleen destroys healthy red cells as well.

6. Occasionally, a girl will develop anemia when she reaches puberty and starts to change from a child into a woman. Because of this tendency, it is pretty important that older girls make sure to get plenty of iron in their diet when they approach the teen years.

The red blood cells of a person suffering from anemia (right) are a very light pink when stained, and they are often less round and full when viewed under a microscope. The round, plump bodies of normal red blood cells (left), when stained, are a bright pinkish-red. Hemoglobin is the substance that gives normal cells their bright color.

A boil has only one opening, or “head.” It is an infection caused by bacteria, most often a staphylococcus germ, and can appear anywhere on the body. A child should not attempt to open a boil himself—this could cause the infection to spread. Boils should be drained by a doctor when the pus is ready to come out.

Some bacteria and viruses are so powerful that unless we are vaccinated against them, no matter how good our general health, they will enter the tissues and the bloodstream of our bodies and we will get sick. For example, unless we take injections against measles, the measles virus can get into our bodies and give us the measles; unless we take injections to protect us against the diphtheria bacteria, we are likely to get this disease.

A child’s resistance and ability to fight off an infection can be poor if that child is undernourished and lacks the proper amounts of proteins and vitamins. If a child is anemic and has too few red blood cells, it will be more difficult to fight off an infection. And, finally, if a child has a disease in an organ such as the kidneys or the liver or the bone marrow that manufactures white blood cells, the child is more apt to have trouble keeping infections from entering the body and causing illness. The commonest types of skin infections are called pimples, boils, and abscesses. They can appear anywhere on the body. Pimples are usually no bigger than the size of a pea; a boil may grow to the size of a grape, or a prune, or even larger. Some abscesses are small, while others can grow to the size of a lemon, or even larger.

Pimples, boils, and abscesses are filled with pus, usually cream-colored or a light green color. These infections hurt quite a lot before they are opened by a doctor—or sometimes open by themselves. Then, when the pus comes out, most of the pain disappears within a few hours.

There are certain things that children should remember about pimples, boils, and abscesses:

1. If the infection causes fever, the child should stay in bed. Pimples don’t often cause temperature, and many boils don’t, either. However, large boils and abscesses do cause fever, and bed rest is important until the temperature returns to normal.

2. Pimples, boils, and abscesses should never be squeezed. This will cause them to spread and grow. Sometimes, if a child squeezes a pimple, it will become a boil. Squeezing a small boil may turn it into a large, spreading abscess.

3. The best way to hurry up a pimple, boil, or abscess so that the pus is ready come out by itself, or ready to be punctured—or lanced—by a doctor, is apply nice, warm, wet compresses to the area. (A compress is made of a piece of gauze, or a washcloth, or a towel that has been soaked in warm water.) Frequently, a doctor may recommend that some salt be mixed with the warm water before it is applied to the infected area.

4. Doctors sometimes recommend that children be given an antibiotic medicine to overcome a large boil or the pus will be absorbed by tile body instead of draining to the outside.

5. A pimple, boil, or abscess should never be opened until it is “ripe,” or until the pus is ready to come out. Many pimples burst by themselves and the pus runs out, but most boils and larger abscesses have to be opened by the doctor. To do this, he gives a little abscess. Antibiotics aren’t needed for ordinary pimples. But antibiotics may make a boil or abscess disappear, and freezing spray to the area and quickly sticks a knife into the boil or abscess. It is over so quickly that there isn’t much pain.

6. Germs that cause pimples, boils, and abscesses can spread to other members of the family, so it is very important to wash your hands thoroughly after touching or treating such an infection. Also, washcloths, towels, handkerchiefs, and other things that might have pus on them should be boiled so that all the germs are killed.

A carbuncle is a deep-seated infection of the skin, and is different from a boil in that it has more than one “head,” or opening. In order to cure a carbuncle, each of the parts of the underlying abscess must be drained. The patient must then rest, drink plenty of liquids, and take antibiotics.

When someone has a boil or abscess, lymph glands nearby may get enlarged and tender. As we mentioned earlier, the lymph glands help to prevent the germs, or the poisons the germs produce, from getting into the blood and spreading the infection to other parts of the body.

Although viruses can cause many infections that affect the whole body— like measles, German measles, chicken pox, and other childhood diseases— they don’t cause pimples, boils, and abscesses. The bacteria that cause most pimples, boils, and abscesses are the staphylococcus germ and the streptococcus germ. Unfortunately, vaccination against these germs doesn’t work very well, and as a result we can get infections with these germs over and over again.

Do you know the best way to avoid pimples, boils, abscesses, and other infections? Well, the best way is to keep ür resistance high by eating a good diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables and milk, and by getting plenty of sleep. And one more thing: We should keep our bodies clean so that the germs are washed off our body surface frequently. Children who are always dirty and don’t wash their hands often and don’t bathe regularly are much more likely to get infections.

Two germs which may cause infections of the body’s various organs are shown in these photomicrographs. Left: the chainlike formation of streptococcus bacteria. Right: th characteristic grapelike clusters of staphylococcus bacteria.

Broken glass, tin cans, and knives are frequent causes of cuts. When we walk barefoot, it is important for us to know that there are no pieces of broken glass biding in the dirt or sand; when we open a tin can, we ought to be certain we know how to handle the pull ring so we don’t cut our fingers or hand; and when we use or play with knives or other sharp things, we must be specially careful.

Scrapes form scabs in a day or two, and the scabs fall off a few weeks later when the skin underneath is completely healed. You should never pick at.a scab, because that will lengthen the time it takes the scrape to heal.

Did you know that most bleeding can be stopped simply by pressing the cut area with clean fingers for a few minutes? It might be a good idea for us to tell you the best things to do when someone cuts himself:

1. First of all, don’t get too excited about the amount of blood you see.

2. If the cut is dirty, run lukewarm water from a faucet over it for a few minutes. If this doesn’t get rid of all the dirt, take a clean handkerchief or a piece of cotton or gauze, wet it, and gently wipe away the dirt.

3. If the bleeding continues, take the clean handkerchief or cotton or gauze, and put it directly on top of the cut and press down on it firmly and steadily for a few minutes. In most cases, this will stop the bleeding. If it stops, then probably all the cut will need is a Band-aid, or a gauze dressing held in place with some adhesive tape.

4. If the cut still bleeds, it is best to go to a doctor’s office or to the emergency room of the nearest hospital. In one of those two places, the doctor will stitch the wound together, and it will be as good as ever within a few days’ time.

5. Never pour a strong antiseptic, such as iodine or Mercurochrome, onto an open cut. These medicines may burn the tissues. The best thing to prevent infection in a cut is to wash it thoroughly with water and an ordinary soap.

A word about having a cut stitched: it doesn’t really hurt, because when you cut yourself, the edges of the wound become numb and you don’t feel pain very well. Also, if the cut is long or deep, the doctor will inject a medicine such as Novocain under the skin edges of the cut to take away the
pain. This injection doesn’t hurt at all.

Stitches are put in with a needle and thread, almost exactly the way your mother sews a rip in your clothes. Sometimes the stitches are made of black silk, sometimes of nylon, and now there are several new kinds of threads made out of materials that the body can absorb. If this kind of thread is used, the doctor won’t have to bother removing the stitches. They will just disappear by themselves.

Stitches are left in anywhere from four to eight or nine days. The longer and deeper the cut, the more days the stitches are kept in place. Of course, as we just mentioned, the stitches that dissolve are left in place indefinitely until they disappear by themselves. But it hurts only slightly to take out stitches, so no one, even little tots, has be afraid. Sometimes, when the cut or scrape has been caused by something dirty or sty, a tetanus shot is given. This doesn’t hurt much and will prevent tetanus infection from taking hold in the injured area.

Bruises come from a hard bump something, or from being hit hard by a ball or some other solid object that doesn’t break open the skin bruises mean that the fat and the mus1es beneath the skin have been injured and that bleeding has taken place.

Bleeding beneath the skin almost ways stops by itself and requires relatively little treatment. Lots of children bump their heads, or fall on their heads and or are hit on the head, and these injuries can lead to a big swelling that hurts a lot for a while. But, of course, anyone can be bruised anywhere on the body.
Here is some advice on what to do if you should be bruised:

1. Wrap some ice in a napkin or handkerchief or towel and press it firmly against the bruised area for ten to fifteen minutes. The ice may stop the bleeding that is taking place beneath the skin.

2. After using the ice for ten to fifteen minutes, replace it with a cold, wet handkerchief or napkin or washcloth or towel for another ten to fifteen minutes.

A cut can often be cleaned by running lukewarm water over it, although deep dirt may have to be wiped away.

Bruises may take a few days before the swelling goes down and the discoloration of the skin disappears. If your skin is light in color to begin with, it will be interesting to watch the deep purple color of the bruise turn lighter over a few days’ time. As the bruise heals, the skin turns a bluish-green, then a lighter greenish-yellow, and finally the bruise disappears entirely. And if your skin is brown to begin with, the color of the bruised area will be much darker than that of the rest of your skin. But it, too, will lighten and return to normal as the bruise heals.

All children trip and fall and scrape themselves from time to time. It is natural to fall and scrape our skin when we run and play so much, and ride our bikes or skate or ski. And do you know the favorite places to get scrapes? Well, the knees seem to get it very, very often. And sometimes, our elbows or the tip of our noses.

Most scrapes don’t bleed very much, but they do ooze a yellowish substance called serum. Serum is made up of blood without the red cells. Scrapes can get infected very easily unless they are treated properly. And when they do get infected, they sometimes leave ugly looking scars when they heal.

Here are things to do when you get a bad scratch or scrape:

1. Since most scrapes happen outdoors, it is not unusual that dirt gets into the wound. As a result, it is very important to clean a scrape thoroughly so it doesn’t get infected. To do this, we should scrub the scraped area with ordinary soap and warm water for several minutes until it is clean. And would you believe it? It doesn’t really hurt very much to clean a scratch or scrape!

2. After cleaning the scrape, it should be covered with a clean gauze dressing, and the dressing held in place with some adhesive tape. If the scrape happens to be on the nose or face, we shouldn’t cover it at all. It will heal just as well if we leave it exposed to the open air.

3. Scrapes form scabs within a day or two, and the scabs may take a few weeks before they are ready to fall off. They are ready when the skin underneath them has healed completely. It is a very bad idea to pick at a scab. If we do, a new one will form and this will delay the time before it is ready to drop off.

4. If we don’t play with the scab and pick at it, and if we don’t fall again on the scraped area, most scrapes heal without leaving scars. Some youngsters with scabs on their noses have a habit of picking at them and removing part of the scab before it is ready to come off
by itself. Do you know what happens then? A new scab forms! Why, once a boy did this and had a big scab on his nose for almost four months! His friends started calling him “cherry nose,” and for a long time after the scab fell off, he had a bright red scar on the tip of his nose.

Luckily, most children have skin that heals quickly and leaves very few bad scars. Even if it looks bad at first, as the child grows older, most scars disappear and are difficult to find even if we look for them. Therefore, never worry too much when you get a severe cut or scrape. It won’t damage your good looks. And even if it did, there are surgeons—we call them plastic surgeons—who specialize in getting rid of ugly scars.

A cut or scrape should be thoroughly washed with lukewarm water and soap. Any bleeding usually stops after a few minutes of direct pressure on the cut or scrape. It should then be covered with a gauze bandage, or clean handkerchief.

Here is how to tell whether an injury to the head is serious and needs attend by a doctor:

1. Anyone who loses consciousness (faints or passes out) after a head injury should be seen by a doctor. Even if unconsciousness lasts only a few seconds, it should be considered serious enough to call the doctor.
The best thing to do for someone who has lost consciousness from being hit on the head is to keep that person absolutely still, even if he or he wants to get up. The person should then be taken to a nearby hospital, preferably by an ambulance.
2. Of course, if someone loses consciousness and stays unconscious after a blow to the head, everyone knows enough to call an ambulance. In almost every community in the country, the police will get an ambulance for an injured person.
3. A person who has an injury to the head and later develops a severe headache should be seen by a doctor.
4. Anyone whose head is injured and who later begins to see things double, or whose sight becomes blurred, should be seen by a doctor.
5. If bleeding from the nose or ears takes place after a head injury, the patient should be seen by a doctor, as this sometimes is an indication that one of the bones of the skull has been broken.
6. Someone who seems to recover quickly from a head injury but later gets drowsy and falls into a deep sleep must be seen by a doctor, as this may be a sign that there is bleeding inside the skull.

Following a severe head injury, bleeding on the covering of the brain (dura) beneath the skull may lead to the formation of a dangerous blood clot. Bone fragments may be driven into the brain at the site of a blow, causing a brain injury on the opposite side of the skull.

The things we have just described tell us not only that the injury has affected the bones of the skull, but that the brain and blood vessels within the head have also suffered. In many cases, the injury to the brain may be slight and temporary. But our brains are too important to neglect, and it is much smarter to keep a child who has suffered a head injury in the hospital for a day or two to make sure he or she is all right. Within a day or two, everyone can be positive that no serious damage to the brain has taken place.

When a child with a head injury goes to the hospital, they will take X rays to see if any of the bones of the skull have been broken. They will also make tests find out if any damage to the brain resulted from the blow. After they have find out the exact extent and location 1the brain injury, they will know how to treat it. Once in a while, brain surgeon will bore a small hole in the skull to relieve the pressure from the bleed within the skull. This often controls the situation pretty well, and when the round heals, it leaves practically no scar.

Most children recover completely from head injuries, even from serious ones. This is because the bones of the skull are so good at protecting the soft b rain tissue which lies beneath. As we point out in the next chapter, from a cut on the head is seldom very serious. There may be an awful lot of bleeding, but it usually stops by itself sooner or later. And when the cut is stitched, the head is as good as new again.

Here are a few things to do in order to avoid serious head injuries:

1. Always wear a helmet when playing football or riding on a motorcycle.
2. Never dive into shallow water or into strange water where rocks may be near the surface.
3. Never jump off a high place, even if your playmates dare you to.
4. Don’t run or make sudden movements in the dark where you might not see a wall or edge of an open door.
5. If you are in the country, be aware of the possibility of rocks falling down a hill.
6. Don’t play with children who throw stones.