Part 10 (1/2)
=Cholera.=--Dr. Gamaleia, of Odessa, claims to have discovered a prophylactic against cholera, and hopes to win the prize of $20,000 offered for such a cure. He calls his specific Chemical Vaccine, and has tried it efficaciously on apes, guinea-pigs, and pigeons. This is obtained by the successive pa.s.sages of cholera virus through the blood of animals. After each of these pa.s.sages, the virus becomes stronger, and is finally injected into the patient.
A cure which was very effective when the cholera struck America is called the ”Sun Cholera Medicine.” It is also an excellent remedy for colic, and diarrhea, etc. Take equal parts of tincture of cayenne pepper, tincture of opium, tincture of rhubarb, essence of peppermint, and spirits of camphor. Mix well. Dose: 15 to 30 drops in a little cold water, according to age and violence of symptoms, repeated every fifteen minutes or twenty, until relief is obtained. Our own _infallible_ remedy for cholera, cholera morbus, cramps, colic, and diarrhea, is:--
Tincture of opium, 3 drachms.
” ” cayenne pepper, 5 drachms.
” ” ginger, 5 drachms.
” ” camphor, 3 drachms.
Dose: 1 teaspoonful in a gill of cool water for an adult; repeat with half a teaspoonful in 15 minutes if not relieved. For a child 2 years old 1/4 the above dose, and in proportion up to an adult.
=Cleanliness.=--The English upper cla.s.ses are clean, but cleanliness of any high degree is a modern virtue among them. It is an invention of the nineteenth century. Men and women born at the close of the eighteenth century did as French people do to-day; they took a warm bath occasionally for cleanliness, and they took shower-baths when they were prescribed by the physician for health, and they bathed in summer seas for pleasure, but they did not wash themselves all over every morning.
However, the new custom took deep root in England, because it became one of the signs of cla.s.s. It was adopted as one of the habits of a gentleman.
Don't take your pocket-handkerchief to dust off your shoes and the next moment wipe your face and eyes with it; don't carry your _own sheets_ with you on a trip and then sit in the smoking-car for 200 miles for enjoyment; anything added to white castile soap as scenting matter is no improvement and in most cases is detrimental.
We have taken this subject up so carefully in ”bathing” and in the first part that we will say no more here.
=Cold Feet.=--The best prescription for cold or tired feet is to carefully envelop each toe and foot with blank newspaper before encasing the same with sock. First have the feet perfectly dry and warm, then they will remain so all day, if properly protected with easy-fitting, strong boots or shoes. Barbers do this to prevent their feet scalding and heating; stage drivers use this method, and hundreds attest its efficacy.
Many people, especially women and children, suffer the whole winter through with cold feet. This is mainly due to the fact that they wear their shoes too tight. Unless the toes have perfect freedom, the blood cannot circulate properly. People who wear rubbers the whole winter through, generally suffer with their feet. Rubbers make them very tender by overheating and causing them to perspire. They should be removed as soon as one enters the house. They draw the feet, keep them hot and wet with perspiration--then as soon as one goes again into the air the feet are chilled.
=Colds.=--Don't have any fear of night air. That is an unfounded superst.i.tion. Keep your windows open. You will sleep better and the next day you will not catch cold.
Take a good hot lemonade just before retiring; in the morning, immediately on getting out of bed, take a cold bath and rub hard until you are in a perfect glow.
Too much coddling is unquestionably one of the most common causes of catarrh. One who is inured to hards.h.i.+ps is able to endure exposure without injury, while one unaccustomed to like experience quickly succ.u.mbs. Air-tight houses, close and unventilated, overheated rooms, even the quant.i.ty of clothing required, are active causes, preventing development of hardihood. As a result, colds and catarrh are universal maladies among civilized people.
Says a writer in _Woman's Work_: ”Without dwelling on the nature and causes of colds, or on what physicians call the pathology of these disorders, I will say that a low or even starvation diet for a few days, with the free drinking of warm, mildly stimulating teas, is better for a cold than any drug or combination of drugs. If with this a warm bath or a hot foot-bath is taken, little more will be needed. Nine cases in ten of colds can be broken up in this early stage by a hot foot or rather leg-bath, keeping the bath as hot as it can be borne, until perspiration arises. After the bath drink a half pint of hot lemonade and go to bed.”
_A Good Cough Remedy._--The following is from a doctor connected with an inst.i.tution with many children: ”There is nothing more irritable to a cough than a cough. For some time I had been so fully a.s.sured of this that I determined, for one minute at least, to lessen the number of coughs heard in a certain ward in a hospital of the inst.i.tution. By the promise of rewards and punishments, I succeeded in inducing them to simply hold their breath when tempted to cough, and in a little while I was myself surprised to see how some of the children entirely recovered from their disease. Constant coughing is precisely like scratching a wound on the outside of the body. So long as it is done the wound will not heal. Let a person when tempted to cough draw a long breath and hold it until it warms and soothes every air-cell, and some benefit will soon be received from this process. The nitrogen which is thus refined acts as an anodyne to the mucous membrane, allaying the desire to cough and giving the throat and lungs a chance to heal. At the same time a suitable medicine will aid nature in her effort to recuperate.”
=Constipation.=--Regularity in the hour of going to stool and the avoidance of highly-seasoned food are preventatives. See ”constipation,”
first part, per index, for a cure.
=Consumption.=--”What Changes has the Acceptance of the Germ Theory made in Measures for the Prevention and Treatment of Consumption?” is the t.i.tle of an essay by Dr. Charles V. Chapin, of Providence, to whom was awarded a premium of $200 by the trustees of the Fisk Fund. In this essay Dr. Chapin has given an admirable _resume_ of all that has been written about consumption from the time of Hippocrates to the present day. After a careful examination of the literature of the subject, he thinks that we are justified in the conclusion that the acceptance of the germ theory has made no direct or important addition either to the hygiene or medicinal treatment of consumption. He thinks, however, that it should have great influence. It tells us plainly what we ought to do.
We simply do not obey its behests. The germ theory--now no longer a theory in the case of tubercular consumption--tells us that we have to do with a contagious disease. Now there is no theoretical reason why a purely contagious disease like tuberculosis cannot be exterminated. If we can prevent the spread of contagion at all, we can prevent it entirely. The enormous value of preventive measures, isolation, disinfection, and quarantine, is well ill.u.s.trated in history of cholera, typhus fever, and yellow fever in the United States.
By keeping out the virus of these diseases, or destroying it when it had gained access to our sh.o.r.es, we have for a number of years been remarkably free from these diseases, and it is certain that if these precautions had not been taken we should have suffered severely. For obvious reasons, the suppression of tuberculosis is not so easy a matter as the suppression of cholera or yellow fever. Neither is the suppression of scarlet fever or small-pox as easy. Yet whenever the public has been educated to a correct appreciation of the contagious nature of scarlet fever, the number of cases has diminished very much.
Even in small-pox, with its virulent contagion, it is possible, by means of isolation and disinfection, to check its spread even among an unvaccinated population, as has been ill.u.s.trated many times of late in the anti-vaccination city of Leicester, England. We must now put tuberculosis among these diseases, and, though its theoretical suppression is simple its actual extermination is a very difficult problem. It lies largely with the medical profession how long tubercular disease shall decimate the human race. The physicians are the educators of the people in these matters. When the doctor shall teach that tuberculosis is contagious, the people will believe, and will govern themselves accordingly. In combating contagious diseases the preventive measures taken often give discouraging results. This will be particularly so in tubercular disease. Half-way measures secure less than half-way results, and these alienate the support of those who only indifferently believe in contagion and the importance of precautionary measures. Efficient means of suppression are radical, and bear hard on the individual; they are not complied with, and they produce violent opposition. Yet, difficult as it may be, the medical profession should take aggressive action against this disease. We have no right to wait for the discovery of a specific, or the gradual evolution of a phthisis-proof race. We must take the world as we find it, full of men and women predisposed to tubercular phthisis, and with no idea of its contagious nature. What can we do about it? 1. Teach the people the true nature of the tuberculosis, that no one ever has tubercular consumption unless the tubercle bacilli find their way into their lungs. 2. Teach them, also, that, even if it finds its way there, it will not grow unless the conditions are right. Teach fathers and mothers how to rear healthy boys and girls. Tell them what to eat and what to wear, to exercise, to breathe fresh air. This alone would exterminate phthisis.
3. The contagion must be destroyed. Fortunately, in this disease there is no need of isolation. Disinfection is enough. The consumptive patient gives off the poison only in the sputum, or perchance the other excreta, if the disease extend beyond the lungs. The virus is not given off from these while moist. We must therefore disinfect all sputum at once with mercuric bi-chloride. Cloths must be used instead of handkerchiefs, and then burned, or, if the latter are used, they should be often changed, and immediately put in a bi-chloride solution and boiled. Bed-linen should be treated in the same way. Frequent disinfection of the entire person, and fumigation of the apartment, would be safe additions to the preventive measures. 4. Persons who have a marked predisposition to the disease had best not come in close contact with the phthisical. Children should never have tuberculous nurses, wet or dry. In the case of consumptives very great attention should be paid to ventilation, and to the alimentation both of the patient and the attendants. Such measures, if rigidly carried out, would be of enormous service in preventing this disease. But with the increasing prevalence of tuberculosis among domestic animals, something more is imperatively demanded. Active measures should be taken to free the country from animal tuberculosis.
There are some ideas which it is well to observe:--
1. Flies may carry the virus if they are allowed to frequent cuspidors into which consumptives have expectorated. Clean these out often. Do not permit the patient to spit into a handkerchief and then let it lie around to dry. The dust arising may inoculate some person p.r.o.ne to consumption.
2. Be careful about the meat you eat. It can and does convey tuberculosis. Investigations have been made showing that as high as 50% of a herd to be slaughtered in New York City had tuberculosis. Milk may be also infected and often is.
3. Have an abundance of flowers around. They invariably are helpful.