Part 15 (2/2)
This removal of the acc.u.mulated mucus from the stomach is probably one of the reasons why taking soup at the beginning of a meal has been found so beneficial.
There is no remedy of such general application, and none so easily obtainable, as water, and yet nine persons in ten will pa.s.s it by in emergency to seek for something of less efficacy. There are but few cases of illness where water should not occupy the highest place as a remedial agent. A strip of flannel or a napkin wrung out of hot water and applied round the neck of a child that has croup will usually bring relief in ten minutes. A towel folded several times and quickly wrung out of hot water and applied over the seat of the pain in toothache or neuralgia will generally afford prompt relief. This treatment in colic works like magic. A physician writes: ”We have known cases that have resisted other treatments for hours yield to this in ten minutes. There is nothing that will so promptly cut short congestion of the lungs, sore throat, or rheumatism as hot water when applied promptly and thoroughly.
Pieces of cotton batting dipped in hot water and kept applied to sores and new cuts, bruises, and sprains, is the treatment adopted in many hospitals. Sprained ankle has been cured in an hour by showering it with water poured from a few feet. Tepid water acts promptly as an emetic, and hot water taken freely half an hour before bed-time is the best cathartic in the case of constipation, while it has a most soothing effect on the stomach and bowels. This treatment continued for a few months, with proper attention to diet, will alleviate any case of dyspepsia.
=Water Pollution Remedy.=--According to Dr. S. S. Kilvington, the Mississippi River received during the past year 152,675 tons of garbage and offal, 108,550 tons of night-soil, and 3,765 dead animals from only eight cities; the Ohio 46,700 tons of garbage, 21,157 tons of night-soil, and 5,100 dead animals from five cities; and the Missouri 36,000 tons of garbage, 22,400 tons of night-soil, and 31,600 dead animals from four cities. Doctor Kilvington urges the cremation of most of the refuse, and 23 out of 35 health officials consulted by him favored the plan.
=Whooping-Cough.=--Mr. W. A. Stedman, superintendent of the Rochester Gas Works, gives his opinion:--
”The fumes of the substance used to purify gas are generally recognized as a specific for this disease.
”The composition used for purifying gas is composed of wood shavings, iron filings, lime, and sometimes copperas. This substance cleanses the gas of the ammonia and sulphur it contains. If a child with the whooping-cough is allowed to breathe the fumes of the purifier after it becomes foul, immediate relief will be experienced. The fumes of the lime after it has been taken out are particularly beneficial. The lime, after it is taken out, begins to heat and throws off fumes strongly impregnated with ammonia. After breathing these fumes for a short time the cough seems to loosen, and two of these visits will generally cure the most obstinate case.
”In Newport one winter, when I was superintendent of the gas works there, there was an epidemic of whooping-cough, and I treated over 200 cases, with the happiest results. I had so many patients that I was forced to put benches in the purifying-room. Once in awhile there are people affected with whooping-cough to whom this gas treatment gives no relief, but they are the exception rather than the rule. In nearly every instance it gives immediate relief and effects a positive cure. I know of many physicians who send all their whooping-cough patients straightway to the gas works. I know that it is a sure cure from personal experience, and we would be happy to extend the courtesies of our purifying-room to any person who is suffering from the disease.”
=Yellow Fever.=--The yellow fever is one of the varied forms of the typhus, the name being derived front the hue of the victim, while the Spanish call it _vomito negro_--the black vomit--from one of its symptoms. Its home is tropical Africa and tropical America, but it is never found in India and China, hot as the climate may be. The cause of this difference, however, has never been explained. Its greatest prevalence is on the sea-coast or banks of navigable rivers. Its ordinary duration of attack is from 36 to 48 hours. The yellow tinge first appears in the eye and then spreads over the face, gradually reaching the extremities and often becoming dark brown. The rate of mortality varies in a striking degree, for in some places one-third of the cases prove fatal, while in others the mortality reaches two-thirds, and then at other times it has not exceeded three per cent. Treatment varies more in this disease than in any other, which is a proof that thus far it has baffled the best pract.i.tioners. Like all other forms of pestilence, it not only walketh in darkness but destroyeth at noonday.
The disease itself is not as dangerous as typhoid fever when properly handled. It is a continuous fever, lasting 72 hours. The premonitory symptoms are a pain in the back of the head and in the loins, followed by a slight chill. The pulse and temperature then rise rapidly, the former attaining usually about 110 beats to the minute, and the latter 104 degrees in a few hours. On the second day the pulse begins to drop and continues to do so slowly until the normal is reached, while the temperature remains steady, and this peculiarity is the one pathognomonic symptom of the disease, as ascertained by experts who have studied many epidemics. Toward the third day the temperature is often up to 105. This is a grave symptom, and unless it can speedily be reduced, ”black vomit” or gastric hemorrhage appears, or the kidneys refuse to act on account of acute inflammation and destruction of tissue. The famous black vomit is not fatal in more than 50 per cent of cases well treated, but when alb.u.men appears in the urine death almost inevitably follows. Nursing is everything. The treatment of the disease is wholly expectant. A hot mustard foot-bath and a large dose of castor-oil are preliminaries. After this nothing is given but orange-leaf tea, to promote perspiration, and sometimes a little extract of jaborandi.
Champagne in small quant.i.ties is found to be the best preventive of black vomit, and dry cupping and blisters are resorted to in case of a tendency to kidney trouble. The nurse does more than the doctor in yellow fever to effect a cure, and in New Orleans nearly all the black ”mammies” are experts in handling the disease, which undoubtedly accounts for the very low mortality in that city's epidemics. To watch the patient, be quick to start a fire if a north wind comes to chill the air, to keep the clothing adjusted, see that no talking is allowed, and be familiar with the symptoms forerunning black vomit or kidney trouble, and know how to treat them promptly--these are necessaries in nursing yellow fever, and in these the darkey women of New Orleans are more familiar than are the doctors in other towns.
On the third day after the attack, when the fever heat subsides, the patient is left in a weak and horribly nervous condition, and for many hours is subject to immediate relapse upon the slightest provocation.
Then it is that the tolling of a bell, the sudden shock of a cannon fired by silly authorities, the slightest indigestion or exposure to cold or excitement, will do murder. The stomach is left raw, and for many days only milk, gruel, and crackers are given, doled out in miserly quant.i.ty.
SUPPLEMENTAL.
The following important items do not appear under their regular alphabetical heading, but are none the less efficacious.
=Blindness.=--_A Simple Remedy That Often Will Prevent This Dreadful Misfortune._--It is distressing to learn that out of the 7,000 persons blind from their birth in this country, who owe their loss of sight to inflammation of the eyes, at least two-thirds might now have been in the enjoyment of their sight but for the ignorance or neglect of their earliest guardians. It seems that the remedies for the infantile inflammation which causes blindness are both many and simple. Thus, says the London _Figaro_, it cannot be too widely made known that the eyes of the newly-born child, if inflamed, should be washed with pure warm water, and that then a single drop of a 2 per cent solution of nitrate of silver should be instilled into each with a drop-tube. In Germany midwives are enjoined to adopt the above remedial treatment, under oath, and since this has been done the decrease in the number of blind children has been most appreciable.
_Increase of Blindness._--Dr. Lucien Howe says blindness has increased in the State of New York during the past five years thirteen times as fast as the population; and the State Charities Commissioners state that the excess in the increase of the insane in the State over the increase in the population for the last nine years has been forty-four per cent.
These figures are most startling, especially when it is considered that the modes of treating the eyes and brain are supposed to have been so much improved of late years.--_Ex._
=Hiccough.=--_A Mechanical Cure._--Procure a gla.s.s of water and pour a little of it down the patient's throat. While he is drinking the water he should press a finger on the orifice of each ear. By this method you open the glottis, and in five seconds the thing is done. Should you by any chance meet with an obstinate case, you may rest a.s.sured that the throat and ears were not closed at one and the same time; either the water was swallowed before the ears were thoroughly stopped, or the water was not sufficient to fill the throat. Another precaution is to keep the chin well up. This cure was obtained by the writer from an old Indian medical officer who had experimented for some years to discover a method of relieving the terrible stage of hiccoughing in yellow fever, and this cure was the outcome.--_Pharmaceutical Journal._
=Hydrophobia.=--Dr. Bokai, a professor at the Klausenburg University, Hungary, claims to have discovered an absolutely certain remedy for hydrophobia and for destroying the virus at the seat of the bite. The remedy consists of a solution of chlorine, bromine, sulphuric acid, and permanganate of potash, with oil of eucalyptus. The above was received in the United States as a press dispatch, from Vienna, February 3, 1890.
=Intemperance.=--”We believe,” says the Canada _Health Journal_, ”that there is no better direct remedy for intemperance than strict vegetarianism. Sir Charles Napier tried a vegetable diet as a cure for intemperance in twenty-seven cases, and the cure was effected in every case, the time varying from thirty-six days to twelve months.”
=La Grippe.=--_How to Prevent It._--A Boston physician has a novel preventive of the influenza, which has been named la grippe. He orders a small quant.i.ty of the flour of sulphur to be put in an envelope and worn in the bottom of shoes. ”Only this and nothing more.” Patients who complied with the conditions laid down, escaped the influenza. This particular physician evidently has some knowledge of human nature. If he had told his patients, in a general way, to keep their feet warm, they would have paid no attention to his directions. But there was an odor of a drug store in the sulphur prescription, and they followed it. Perhaps that was the easiest way to keep the feet warm.
=Teeth.=--_Extraction Painless._--By spraying the region of the external ear with ether, Drs. Henoque and Fridel, of Paris, render the dental nerves insensible, and extract teeth without pain or general anaesthesia.
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