ident. If, in spite of this care, the
skin seems anywhere to be red or chafed, it should be sponged over with
brandy or with sweet spirits of nitre before powdering. Real bed-sores
must be seen and treated by the doctor.

The warm bath is a great source of comfort to the sick child, and in all
cases of feverishness, of influenza, or threatening bronchitis, it
should not be omitted before the child is put to bed, or must be given
towards evening if the child has not been up during the day. The bath
may be either warm or hot, the temperature of the former being 90 deg. to
92 deg., that of the latter 95 deg. to 96 deg.. The temperature should always be
ascertained by the thermometer, and the _warm_ bath only should be
employed, except when the _hot_ bath is ordered by the doctor. The warm
bath relieves feverishness and quiets the system, and promotes gentle
perspiration; the hot bath is given when the eruption of scarlet fever
or of measles fails to come out properly, or in some cases of
convulsions at the same time that cold is applied to the head, or, in
some forms of dropsy when it is of importance to excite the action of
the skin as much as possible. It is not desirable that a child should
remain less than five or more than ten minutes in the bath, and
attention must be paid by the addition of warm water to maintain the
bath at the same temperature during the whole time of the child's
immersion.

Now and then infants and very young children when ill seem frightened
at the bath, and then instead of being soothed and relieved by it they
are only excited and distressed. If the bath is brought into the room,
prepared in the child's sight, and he is then taken out of bed,
undressed, and put into the water which he sees steaming before him, he
very often becomes greatly alarmed, struggles violently, cries
passionately, and does not become quiet again till he has sobbed himself
to sleep. All this time, however, he has been exerting his inflamed
lungs to the utmost, and will probably have thereby done himself ten
times more harm than the bath has done good. Very different would it
have been if the bath had been got ready out of the child's sight; if
when brought to the bedside it had been covered with a blanket so as to
hide the steam; if the child had been laid upon the blanket, and gently
let down into the water, and this even without undressing him if he were
very fearful; and then if you wish to make a baby quite happy in