The world of minerals is beautiful and attractive, miraculously arising as a result of collisions of celestial bodies or evolutionary processes in the hot bowels of the Earth.
But it turns out that sometimes minerals grow like trees, almost literally. We are talking about the so-called petrified trees, when the organic matter of wood, buried under a layer of sediment without air access, turns into amazingly beautiful minerals over millions of years. The most famous deposit of such trees is the dream of every nature lover - Petrified Forest National Park in the American state of Arizona, where our author was lucky enough to visit.
Petrified trees are found in Permian and Carboniferous sedimentary and volcanic deposits throughout the world. As a rule, in zones of increased magmatic activity, where volcanic eruptions occurred near forest areas. Deposits of petrified trees have been discovered in Belgium and Canada, Greece and Brazil, New Zealand and Madagascar. In Russia, stone trees are found in the Vologda and Novgorod regions, as well as in the Urals, Central Siberia, Kamchatka and Primorye.
The most famous petrified “forests” have the status of natural monuments or national parks, the most famous of which is rightfully considered the American Petrified Forest ( Petrified Forest). It was here at the end of the 19th century. An expedition under the command of Lieutenant E. Whipple discovered the first placers of petrified wood, recognized as the best in the world for the beauty of its color and design.
Before this fossil site was declared a national park in 1962, it suffered a lot from spontaneous tourism and rare hunters. At the end of the 19th century. A “camel” trail was first laid across the territory of the future park, and then a railway and a highway. And although at the beginning of the last century Petrified Forest was recognized as a natural monument, for about half a century its lands were used as pasture. It is said that passing tourists would load "souvenirs" directly into the carriages, and the huge stone trunks were sometimes blasted to extract the crystals of semi-precious stones into which the wood had turned.
Now taking samples out of the park is considered a crime; it is surrounded by a wire fence and is closed to visitors in the evening, and on its territory there is only a small museum, the Rainbow Forest, and there is not a single tourist campsite. Despite this, Petrified Forest is now visited annually by more than half a million tourists, who are attracted not only by the unique fossils, but also by the striking landscapes of the “colored desert”, as if painted in watercolor, as well as ancient petroglyphs - traces of the presence of primitive man.
Petrified Forest National Park ( Petrified Forest - The Petrified Forest is not the largest, but one of the most unusual national parks in the United States. It is located in the northeast of Arizona near the city of Holbrook, and its total area is 380 km 2. The park territory is divided into two zones - southern and northern. In the northern territory there is the so-called “colored desert” with multi-colored badlands (from the English. badlands- “bad” lands), special forms of dry relief in the form of a network of pointed hills separated by ravines. But the main attraction of the park is an amazing “forest” of fossils, into which the remains of ancient representatives of conifers, ferns and cycads, which grew here about 220 million years ago, turned. The fossilized remains of these plant giants, under which dinosaurs once walked, are reborn by the action of wind and water from the thickness of the sedimentary deposits that buried them.
In the forest of dinosaurs
Our long-awaited trip has finally taken place. It’s a frosty December morning, the sun is rising, and ice crystals sparkle on the thorns of dried bushes, sharp stones covering the hilly desert, and huge trunks of stone trees lying everywhere. In winter, there are few visitors to the park, and the security is not very zealous: you can wander not only along the “official” hiking trails, but also through the “wild” areas and even climb the hills rising above the colorful desert.
The view from these hills is amazing: among the rocky expanses, here and there covered with stunted winter grass, lie logs more than a hundred million years old! If you close your eyes, you can imagine that once upon a time warm waters splashed here, and these trees were living green giants, under which huge dinosaurs roamed...
At least nine species of trees have been identified among the fossils discovered within the park. The most common type Araucarioxylon arizonicum, the Latin name of which (“Araucaria wood”) reflects the relationship of these Paleozoic representatives of gymnosperms with modern Araucariaceae, which belong to coniferous species. Also identified are fossils of several species of ferns, lycophytes and other Paleozoic plants and, of course, fossil animals - giant relatives of crocodiles, dinosaurs, mollusks and insects.
But still, the main thing you see around are the huge fossilized remains of the so-called “araucaria”. These trees at one time grew to almost a hundred meters in height, and today their trunks, devoid of branches and twigs, are scattered across the desert, like ordinary logs left over from a long-standing logging operation. Most of the logs are split into fragments of different sizes, the largest of which reach a thickness of 1–3 m and a length of 60 m. On the sections of many of them, annual rings and characteristic fibrousness are clearly visible, but the very first touch destroys the illusion - to the touch it not “warm” wood, but cold stone.
How did such amazing natural exhibits come into being? About 200–250 million years ago, this desert was a river floodplain with a mild tropical climate, covered with dense forests. River floods caused by storm rains washed mud and other sediments into the lowlands. Huge trees, dying, fell into water and accumulations of mud, where they were covered with clay, sand and volcanic ash. In such oxygen-free conditions, the decay of wood was delayed, and as a result of complex physicochemical processes, it slowly turned into stone, maintaining its original “living” form.
As a result, deposits of petrified trees were “preserved” in a 240-meter thick layer of compressed layers of sedimentary rocks, which millions of years later, as a result of the uplift of the lithosphere, ended up on a hill. Gradually collapsing with the formation of multi-colored hills and ravines, they again bring once buried trees to the surface.
How a stone flower is born
The processes of turning wood into stone are well studied today. As is known, under normal conditions, dead wood is destroyed by insects and microorganisms (bacteria and fungi), but if it falls into conditions that exclude rotting and carbonization, then the slow process of turning plant tissue into stone begins. By the way, talking about “transformation” in this case is incorrect - we are talking about substitution, in other words, the formation of a so-called pseudomorphosis.
When wood is buried as a result of a landslide, flood, volcanic eruption or other catastrophic events, oxygen access to it is cut off and the process of low-temperature metamorphism begins. As a result, under the influence of a saturated mineral solution seeping through sedimentary deposits, the carbon of the tissues is replaced by other elements, such as silicon or calcium. The resulting pseudomorphoses, as a rule, almost completely retain their original organic form. All these fossilized twigs and bark, annual rings and traces of insect activity are a source of unique scientific information.
Today, several dozen minerals are known to occur in wood fossils, but the most common, as in the case of the petrified trees of Petrified Forest, are siliceous species—dense microcrystalline quartz, opal (microcrystalline fibrous quartz), and chalcedony (amorphous hydrated silica). Less common is marbled wood, in which the main replacement minerals are not silica, but silicates such as dolomite and calcite. The replacement minerals in petrified wood found in Russia and the Novgorod region are pyrite, and amethyst is found in it in the Vologda region.
Due to impurities, fossilized material can have a wide variety of colors: carbon gives a black color, iron oxide - from red to brown, manganese - orange or pink, copper and cobalt - green or blue, etc. Moreover: areas that differ significantly in structure and coloration can be found on a single fossil, resulting in a cross-section resembling landscape jasper.
Petrified wood, which has become an oxide mineral, is quite hard (the degree of hardness depends on the replacement minerals). This property, as well as the rich range of colors, variety of textures and patterns, predetermined its use as a unique and very decorative ornamental material. In addition, it is easy to cut, grind and polish, which emphasizes the color and gives the product a glassy shine.
It is not surprising that petrified wood jewelry was worn in Ancient Rome and the ancient states of Mesopotamia. The demand for them does not fall even today. Varieties with small contrasting patterns are used for making jewelry, with large spotted patterns - for large decorative items - vases, candlesticks, boxes. A stone with clearly defined lines of growth rings is especially valued. Remarkably beautiful and no less expensive countertops are made from large trunks: the best one I saw cost about 400 thousand dollars.
In ancient times, home amulets were made from petrified wood in the form of figurines of gods or animals, which were supposed to protect a person’s home from fires, lightning and floods, and rings and bracelets were worn to protect against thieves and robbers. Petrified wood has long been attributed special medicinal properties. Beads made from it were worn as a guarantee of longevity, as it was believed that they help resist stress and normalize blood pressure.
Mongolian healers applied plates of petrified wood from the Gobi Desert to sore joints. It’s hard to say whether such a tree helps with joint pain and against thieves, but it’s probably a good idea to relieve stress while feasting on a sparkling multi-colored stone table. And yet, to relieve nervous tension, there is nothing better than traveling to stone “forests”, where you can touch frozen time with your own hands and look at the world around you with different eyes.
Reading time: 8 minutes.
There is no need to rush to treat a cough in a baby without fever. It is necessary to determine its cause, to make sure whether it is an infection, or whether a foreign body is stuck in the nasopharynx. To do this, you need to visit a doctor.
Causes of cough
Coughing in an infant is a way to remove obstructions to breathing. For small children it can be different:
- physiological nature;
- viral;
- non-infectious.
Cough of physiological nature
Infants do not have a developed mechanism for removing mucus that forms in the respiratory organs. To clear the passages, the child coughs.
A healthy baby coughs up to ten times a day. Doctors call this cough physiological; it does not require treatment. But only a doctor can determine the nature of the cough, including physiological.
Non-infectious cough
The baby has not yet learned to live in the outside world, to dry air, irritating impurities in it, especially in winter.
A baby coughs as a result of:
- allergies;
- parched air A;
- subject entered into the respiratory system from the outside.
♀ If this symptom appears as a result of an allergic factor, you need to contact a pulmonologist-allergist. In this case, you cannot self-medicate.
If your baby coughs due to dry air, humidification with special devices or wet cleaning will help ease breathing.
♂ Cough may occur when milk or saliva is inhaled. It appears due to weakness of the respiratory tract muscles or when trying to remove a foreign object.
Infectious cough
☝️ The reason for the baby’s cough is caused by ARVI, a viral cold. The baby breathes through his mouth, and this leads to drying out of the mucous tissues of the larynx. Snot flows along the walls of the nasopharynx into the respiratory organs, irritating their mucous membranes, causing a cough reflex.
A similar effect causes otitis media.
Types of cough
There are two types of cough syndrome: dry and wet.
Dry
It usually occurs with viral diseases, and is very similar to barking syndrome, with whooping cough, for example. After infection with the virus, a child first develops a dry cough without fever, and after a few hours all the symptoms of ARVI are already evident. This is due to irritation of the walls of the respiratory organs. ♨️ Dry nature effect occurs during asthma or allergy attacks. A two-month-old baby, a month-old baby or a newborn often coughs when feeding if mother's milk gets into the larynx. They still don’t know how to eat properly.
Wet
Such a small child cannot be treated independently. And treatment should be prescribed depending on the causes of such pathology.
Dry cough medications
There are different medications prescribed for babies. Their use depends on the type of pathology. If the cough is severe and barking, it is necessary to prescribe medications by a doctor.
Antitussives
These medications reduce the activity of the cough focus. They are prescribed only for a strong dry cough, when the baby begins to bark. But medications of this class are not combined with expectorants. Medications prescribed for this pathology include:
- Herbion plantain herb syrup (available only from 2 years of age);
- Eofinil syrup;
- Taisa syrup (allowed from one year old);
- Gedelix, produced in syrup form and approved even for newborns;
- Alteyka (from 2 years old);
- Mucaltin (soluble tablet, approved from 3 years of age);
- Isla-Moos and Eucabal (babies like the latter due to its sweet taste and aroma, allowed from 6 months);
- Pertussin (in the form of syrup, from 3 years);
- Tussamag (in the form of drops, from one year old);
- Erespal.
Sinekod (care should be taken, since the drug has many contraindications).
Most syrups are approved for use from 2 months.
Antibiotics and other drugs
If the pathology is accompanied by an increase in temperature, the doctor prescribes antibiotics. If there is a temperature, the doctor orders a bacterial culture test to determine the type of virus. And then antibiotics or macrolides may be prescribed, which actively help treat infections.
When a 👱 baby is diagnosed with asthma, he is prescribed glucocorticosteroid hormones.
For obsessive children's cough, with frequent attacks, drugs that act on the brain, etc. are prescribed.
For wet cough syndrome
The doctor recommends expectorants in this case. ☘️ Their action is to facilitate coughing up mucus. For this purpose, small children are prescribed Gedelix and Prospan syrups, which can be given even to a newborn. They also prescribe Linkas, ivy-based syrup Gerbion, a drug with licorice root (from 5 months of age), Bronchipret.
Mucolytics
These medications make sputum less viscous, which facilitates its separation. Of the mucolytics allowed for infants, the most often prescribed are:
- Ambroxol (it is prescribed more often because there is extensive experience in its use safely and effectively);
- Bromhexine with Acetylcysteine;
- Fluditec in Villa Syrup.
Mucolytics are given to an infant only with a doctor's prescription Antihistamines and aseptic agents
The doctor prescribes antihistamine medications for allergic coughs. Antibiotics are prescribed for viral infections that manifest as coughing, such as pneumonia or sore throat.
There are also combined drugs that contain several components, for example, Bronchipret contains extracts from thyme and ivy. It is prescribed to children from 3 months.
Physiotherapy
In addition to medications, physiotherapy is used in the treatment of infants; 
- Inhalations.☁️ They are made using steam or a nebulizer. But they do this extremely carefully to prevent burns. In a nebulizer, only saline solution can be used for the procedure without a doctor’s permission.
- Drainage massage. ☔️ This procedure is performed on babies only if they do not have a fever. Moreover, it is prescribed not from the first day of the disease, but from about the fourth, in order to facilitate the separation of mucus. When performing manipulations, the baby’s head is placed slightly lower than the entire body. First, the back is rubbed, and then the chest. At the end of the massage, the baby is wrapped up and placed in bed.
ethnoscience
☘️ A runny nose and cough in a baby are sometimes treated with folk remedies. For this purpose, decoctions of herbs, cakes with honey, and rubbing with badger or goat fat are used. When treating pathology, medicinal herbs are combined in different mixtures. They include marshmallow with anise, coltsfoot with licorice, plantain with oregano and other plants. But doctors recommend using one plant during complex treatment to avoid allergies.
It is most often used in the form of tea, decoction for inhalation.
For tea, pour a tablespoon of dried flowers into a glass of boiling water and cover with a lid. After 10 minutes, after straining, this tea is given three times a day, thirty minutes after feeding, in an amount of 30 ml to children from the first month.
Tea recipe for newborns Brewed flowers ☘️ of a dried plant are infused for 40 minutes, then boil 1 liter of water and pour infused chamomile into it. After this, they bring the baby to the saucepan with the infusion, and he breathes in the steam for 5 minutes.
It is impossible to cure pathology with chamomile or any other method.
Rubbing
Rubbing is recommended for children from 6 months. For younger infants, the procedure is performed only under the strict supervision of a doctor. Camphor oil is allowed from one year onwards. They also use ointments that can be bought at the pharmacy, for example, Pulmax baby. The folk method is represented by products made from liquid honey or lard, goat fat with propolis. But if the baby is not a month old or even six months old, it is better not to use such a procedure in therapy.
Perform manipulations in the evening, before going to bed. The movements should be light, circular, in a clockwise direction. It is unacceptable to rub the baby with ointments in the area of the nipples and heart.
After rubbing, the baby is wrapped warmly, wearing socks.
But in order for the baby to be cured, great care is needed.
The famous pediatrician Komarovsky believes that an infant coughs not always due to illness. This is a natural reaction of the body to foreign objects or substances entering the respiratory system. If this occurs in a baby, Komarovsky advises contacting a specialist rather than giving the baby medicine.
If signs of an allergy appear after using the medicine, you must stop therapy and consult your pediatrician.
There are many reasons for cough in an infant. The most common cause is infection, and usually increases. However, bronchospasm is quite possible, as well as the entry of a foreign body or liquid into the respiratory system, and possibly a neoplasm. With such wide variations in causes, it is better for parents not to figure out the causes and effects on their own, but to consult a pediatrician.
A cough at one month is enough to attract close attention from parents. At this age, the main causes may be an infectious process or breast milk getting into the lungs.
If the baby produces phlegm, this cough is considered wet. In the absence of such a sign, the cough is called dry. However, in very young children this division is relative, since examining the discharge of sputum in them presents certain difficulties.
Often parents notice a baby’s night cough, and it is a rather serious symptom that can signal enlargement of the intrathoracic lymph nodes and other serious damage to the child’s body. A fairly simple method to relieve such a cough is to give the child some warm liquid, which he should drink in small sips. However, without identifying and eliminating the underlying cause, it is impossible to completely eliminate this cough.
Without a doctor’s opinion, you cannot purchase or give any medicine to a small child. And even consultations at a pharmacy cannot be completely trusted, because a pharmacist is still not a practicing doctor.
Even if you are planning to use folk remedies, which often do help, they should be used only after consulting a doctor. They are not universal drugs.
Radish is a relatively safe remedy. To use it on a black radish with a tail, cut off the top and cut out the inside by about a third. A little honey is placed in the formed depression, leaving room for the juice to stand out. The radish is placed in a glass of water with the tail down. The juice will accumulate in three to four hours, then you should drink it and add honey again. However, honey can cause allergies in a child, and active consumption of radish can cause stomach pain.
Compresses are not used to treat cough as a combination of symptoms.
They can help, which are carried out using a special device. They can be carried out without age restrictions, but among all the varieties you need to choose exactly the device that suits you better than others.
You should also not prescribe mustard plasters or other warming procedures on your own; there are many cases when such procedures are contraindicated.
When coughing, mother can drink a decoction of coltsfoot and licorice root, carrot juice with milk, lingonberries and cabbage. However, you will still need to consult a doctor.
For better sputum discharge, they also make special ones, but it is important not to overdo it, especially with premature babies.
According to normal indicators, the cough lasts up to a month after the infection.. It can sometimes be provoked by long-term use of medications. Just stop taking the medications and everything will return to normal.
If an infant coughs, treatment should begin by calling a doctor. The baby's body is very delicate, metabolic processes in it are accelerated. A moderate inflammatory process sometimes quickly turns into an acute state. When deciding what and how is correct, it is necessary to determine the cause of its occurrence. The most common cause of cough can be:
- ARVI;
- Allergic reaction;
- Inflammation of the larynx;
- A foreign body entering the respiratory tract or becoming clogged with liquid;
- Bronchospasm.
After the pediatrician determines the nature of the cough, he can advise parents to combine the use of traditional therapy and treatment with traditional methods. This speeds up the healing process and does not have many side effects.
Traditional methods of treating cough in children under one year of age
Inhalations for baby
You can alleviate the condition of a child under 2 months of age who has a dry cough using passive inhalation. It's done like this. Boiling water is poured into the bath and they wait for the room to warm up with steam. A coughing infant is inhaled for about 5 minutes. If the aroma of eucalyptus essential oil does not cause an allergic reaction in the child, then you can add a few drops of this oil to the water.
Massage
In addition to decoctions, compresses and inhalations, the use of massage is effective - the child’s chest and feet are massaged with gentle patting and tapping. Massage using herbal balms will increase the effectiveness of treatment. The use of massage improves mucus discharge.
Take the baby in your arms and gently pat the back - this also improves bronchial drainage.
The little baby was only recently born and is already sick and coughing. First, let's define what a cough in a one-month-old baby is, what could be its cause, and how parents should act in this situation.
Cough - a protective reaction of the body that clears its respiratory tract of foreign particles, such as sputum, foreign bodies, dust, and various microorganisms.
Essentially, a cough our defender , because, if it weren’t for it, any throat infection, going down, would turn into pneumonia. Of course, if a month-old baby’s cough is productive and wet, this is good, but what to do if the cough is barking, dry, because of which the baby cannot sleep and eat?
To begin with, it is worth understanding that cough itself does not exist as a disease; it is a sure symptom that some kind of reaction is occurring in the child’s body.
A cough in a one-month-old baby may be a symptom :
- onset (ARVI),
- (tracheitis, bronchitis, ),
- inflammation of the ENT organs (tonsillitis, exacerbation of tonsillitis, laryngitis),
- foreign bodies entering the bronchi or trachea,
- reactions to outdoor air,
- allergies,
- too dry air in the apartment.
As you can see, causes of cough in a month old baby can be a lot, and parents should be sure to call a pediatrician so that he, as a specialist, can advise the correct treatment. Treat the child yourself, and also give some medications at your discretion it is forbidden , this may do more harm than good, because parents will not be able to make a diagnosis “by eye”. The child’s doctor must prescribe a treatment regimen and cough medicine.
Pediatrician Komarovsky E.O. warns parents : “Cough suppressants have strict indications. Any self-medication without a doctor’s examination, without carefully listening to the lungs, without clarifying the diagnosis can seriously harm the child!”
If your baby is prescribed to take cough suppressants , then parents should know that they can be divided into three main groups :
- mucolytics thin sputum,
- Expectorants make cough worse.
- sedatives reduce the activity of the cough center.
Some drugs have a combined effect - both mucolytic and expectorant. The purpose of using such drugs is to transfer the cough from a dry state to a wet one so that the baby begins to cough up phlegm.
