HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1943, Page 5

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

CHICKENPOX PROPER CARE ESSENTIAL (By the Department of Health) Chickenpox has been a little more prevalent than usual lately, and some parents have been alarmed about it. Actually in itself, chickenpox is not a dangerous disease, but it is a disfiguring complaint while it lasts, and proper care must be taken with it if complications are to be avoided. It is thought to be a virus-caused infectious disease, which chiefly affects children between the ages of one and seven years. It can occur in adults, but only occasionally. The most distinctive feature of chickenpox is the appearance of small blisters. These are usually the first warning of the disease. As the rash comes out there may be some fever, but the temperature as a rule returns to normal in one or two days. The rash appears first on the back and face. There follow new and successive crops of pea-sized blisters, rosyred in colour at the base, and containing fluid in the raised part. The first crop is usually from 10 to 15 on the first day; the next day a large crop of the blisters appears, and so on until the disease runs its course.

The burning and itching of the rash are troublesome. The finger-nails of the small patient should be kept short, and in a very small child the hands should be covered with washable mittens. If there is fever, keep the child in bed and on a light diet. If there is no fever, the child may stay up, but he must be kept away from others—and that means staying home from school—until every scab has disappeared from the body.