These are some things you need to do:  Look out for bad symptoms; twitching of the tendons, grasping at imaginary things are bad symptoms.  Inform the doctor and soon.  Never allow the patient to sit up in bed.  The stool must be passed lying flat and you must place the bed pan without the patient’s aid.  Bleeding may be started by the least exertion.  I knew of one woman who lost her life through necessity of getting up and passing the stool sitting on a chamber.  Bleeding came on suddenly, and before the doctor could get there she was nearly gone.  Cough and sudden pain in the lungs need prompt attention.  I dismissed a boy on one Wednesday as convalescent.  That night it became suddenly cold and he became chilled.  The mother sent for me the next day, and we pulled him through pneumonia.  Suppose she had waited another day?  She was not that kind of a mother.  Your greatest trial will come in convalescence, when the patient is so hungry.  Be careful or you will kill the patient by kindness.  A minister I knew killed himself by going against the doctor’s orders and eating a hearty dinner.  The doctor was rather profane, and when he went to see the preacher, after the relapse caused by the dinner, he relieved his mind in no gentle manner.  Again allow no visitors in the sick room or one adjacent.  They are an abomination.  Many people are killed by well-intentioned ignoramuses.  Do not whisper; the Lord save the patient who has a whisperer for a nurse.  I cannot urge too strongly proper nursing in this disease.  It is an absolute necessity.  A nurse to be successful must have good sense and also must obey all directions.  A diet is a necessity in this disease.  The patient must not move any more than is absolutely necessary for his comfort.  He must never try to help move himself.  The muscles of the abdomen must remain lax and quiet.  The danger, I think, is in the bowels.  The mucous covering in the interior is inflamed and ulcerated, and there is always some danger of the ulceration eating through the coating into the blood vessels, causing more or less bleeding and even eating the bowel enough to cause an opening (perforation) and the escape of the bowel contents into the abdominal cavity causing inflammation of the peritoneum (peritonitis) and almost certain death.  Walking typhoid is dangerous for that reason.  The food must be of such nature that it is all digested.  It must not leave lumps to press upon the sore places in the bowels causing more trouble there and more diarrhea.

[200 Mothers’ remedies]

Typhus fever, (Filth Disease).—­Typhus fever is an acute, infectious disease, characterized by a sudden onset, marked nervous symptoms, and spotted rash and fever ending quickly after two weeks.  Also called jail, camp, hospital, or ship fever.  Filth has a great deal to do with its production.  There is no real characteristic symptom except the eruption.

Symptoms.—­It generally lasts two weeks.  Incubation period of twelve days or less, marked at times by slight weary feeling.  The onset is usually sudden, by one chill or several, with high fever, headache, pain in back and legs, prostration, vomiting, and mild and active delirium.  Pulse does not have the double beat, often there is bronchitis.