lowed to leave his own yard. The average duration of the disease is
usually six weeks. The child should have an abundance of fresh air,
should spend much of his time out of doors, and while in the house
should avoid dust of every kind; at night he should not be exposed to
drafts. Call the physician early in the case and he may attempt to
thwart the progress of the disease by certain administrations of
vaccine medication.

In very bad cases, where a young child cannot catch his breath and
gets blue in the face--which, fortunately, is uncommon--he should be
slapped in the face with a towel wet in cold water; or, he may be
lifted into a tub of warm water, then quickly in cold water, then back
into the warm, etc. Hygienic measures should prevail, such as keeping
the bowels open, the skin clean, and the use of the usual throat
gargles and nasal sprays. Do not be misguided by the old-time thought
that whooping cough must run its course; for, if medical aid is
promptly secured, the disease may often be cut short and the severe
paroxysms greatly lessened.

EYE INFECTIONS

Not long ago while in North Dakota near Canada, we took a trip one day
just over the border to visit several villages of Russian peasants. We
found the boys and girls of nearly the entire village suffering from
trachoma--a dangerous, infectious disease of the eyes which spreads
alarmingly from one child to another.

We saw the disease in all of its varying degrees among the children.
Some of them had swollen, reddened lids. A discharge of pus was coming
from the eyes of others, and they could not look toward a light or the
sun. This disease is spread in a hundred different ways--through the
common use of wash basins, towels, handkerchiefs, tools, toys, door
knobs, gates, etc., and that is the reason why these isolated villages
of foreign people who could neither read nor write the English
language were nearly all so sorely afflicted.

The ordinary condition of "catching cold in the eye" ("pink eye") is
just as infectious as the trachoma which we have mentioned, although
it is more of an acute disorder and nothing like so serious.

In all such cases a physician is to be called immediately, isolate the
patient, and give strict attention to carrying out the doctor's
orders.

Another form of inflammation of the eye which was mentioned in a
previous chapter, is the inflammation of the eye of the newborn.

In most civilized districts at the present, espe