Buckeye cookery

These hot applications will often relieve a violent, dry cough ina few minutes, and in some forms of croup will cure in half an hour. Patients are often killed by kindness. A spoonful of improper food, or the indulgence of some whim, may prove fatal. A physician’s directions should always be observed with the strictest fidelity. Medicines and things which will be wanted during the night should all be prepared before the patient grows sleepy. Every thing should be done quickly but quietly, and with precision. In talking, sit where the patient can see you without turning his head. Never ask questions when he is doing any thing, and never lean or sit upon the bed. Sick persons generally prefer to be told any thing rather than to have it read tothem. A change in the ornaments of the room is a great relief, and the sick especially enjoy bright and beautiful things. Flowers, which do not have a pungent odor, are always a great delight. In convalescence great care is necessary, and the physieian’s directions should be implicitly obeyed, especially in regard to diet; a failure in obedience often brings on a fatal relapse, A little food at a time and often re-_ peated, is the general rule for the sick. A table-spoon of beef-tea, every half hour, will be digested, when a cupful every three or four hours will be rejected, (In giving a drink or liquid of any kind a moustache-cup will be found agreat convenience.) The sick can rarely take solid food before eleven in the morning, and a spoonful of beef-tea, or whatever stimulant the physician has ordered, given every hour or two, relieves exhaustion. Brandy, whisky, or other alcoholic stimulants, however, should never be ordered in cases where there is a hereditary tendency to use them, or where they have been used as a beverage, or where the associations of the patient in the future would be likely to make an acquired taste for them a temptation. In most cases substitutes may readily be found. Untouched food should never be left at the bed-side. Every meal should be a surprise, and the patient should be left alone while eating. Food for the sick must be of the best quality, and neatly and delicately prepared. The cook should do half the patient's digesting. Keep the cup and saucer dry, so that no drops will fall on the bed or clothing. Beef-tea*contains a certain amount of nourishment, and may be given in almost any inflammatory disease. Eggs do not agree with all patients, but are nourishing food when admissible. Tenderloin of beef, cut across the grain, and broiled on live coals, without smoke, and well cooked or rare, as the physician may direct, is always relished; and a tender lamb-> chop, broiled in the same way, with the fat removed before serving, is easily digested and nutritious. Roasted potatoes, very mealy, are prefer- red to other vegetables. Milk is a representative diet; and, when it agrees with the digestion, is probably better adapted to strengthen the body in sickness than any other single article of food, but it must be fresh and pure. The least taint of sourness is injurious. Butter-milk, however, when fresh, is useful in fevers, bilious diseases and dyspepsia. Cream is even better than milk, and is less apt to turn acid in the stomach. Many patients thrive on Indian-meal mush and cream, and any preparations of Indianmeal are especially good for persons who are suffering from the loss of natural warmth (see Bread-making). Oat-meal, Graham and rye mush, and homemade brown-bread, are important articles of diet, greatly relished by the sick. There are instances of persons recovering from serious illness where a table-spoon of rye mush, and half tea-cup butter-milk, three times a day, were all that could be taken for two or three weeks.