Childhood Fevers

Everybody’s Guide to Nature Cure by Harry Benjamin 1961

Chicken-pox.—Chicken-pox is characterised by slight fever and the eruption of small vesicles. Each vesicle rests on normal or slightly reddened skin, and looks as though a drop of hot water had raised a round blister. The vesicles slowly dry and form scabs, which fall off. They come in successive crops, so that some are drying whilst some are beginning to form, thus differing from smallpox, in which the vesicles are all found in the same period of development. The rash appears over the whole body, particularly the back and shoulders. The period of incubation is fourteen to sixteen days. The cause, as with all other childhood fevers, is persistent wrong feeding of children leading to a natural healing crisis (Nature’s attempt to rid the young body of toxic matter).

Treatment .—-The treatment for chicken-pox is the same as that for Measles (given farther on in the present section, page 112), only in this case there is no need for special protection for the eyes. Care must be taken to see that the child does not scratch the vesicles, which it will be very prone to do, as these are very irritating. (See also Section 13, page 411.)

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