Part 7 (1/2)

[26] Kolbany, Beobacht. uber den Nutzen des lauen und kalten Wa.s.sers im Scharlachf. Pressburg, 1808.

[27] Reuss, d. Wesen der Exantheme. Nurnberg, 1818. Vol. III.

[28] A. Edler von Frohlichsthal, Abhandl. uber d. kraftige, sichere und schnelle Wirkung der Uebergiessungen &c. im Faul-, Nerven-, Gallen-, Brenn- und Scharlachfieber. Wien, 1842.

[29] L. Hesse, in Rust's Magaz. Vol. XXVII. 1.

[30] R. Steimmig, Erfahr. und Betracht. uber d. Scharlachfieber und seine Behandl. Karler., 1828.

[31] P. ex. Reich, who kept the sick-room quite cold, and made his scarlet-patients walk out in any weather; he a.s.sures us that he cured his patients in five days, an interesting fact, for the correctness of which, however, the Doctor alone is responsible.

[32] A visit at my establishment of a gentleman, a short time ago, whom I treated for scarlatina anginosa in the city of New-York in February, 1851, reminds me of the sensation caused among his friends by our walking out together on the tenth day in a snow-storm, to take dinner at a restaurant's, where we consumed a partridge and sundry other articles, after which we took a further walk of half an hour. Some physicians of my acquaintance told me ”I was killing the man,” to which I replied, I would let them know, when he was dead. However, he never experienced the slightest inconvenience from his early exposure; on the contrary, he felt bright and strong on coming home, and has been in pretty good health ever since. He saved, last year, the life of a nephew, who had been given up, by packing him, in scarlet-fever, whilst two of the patient's sisters were allowed to die soon after--unpacked!--Their uncle had been compelled to leave the place of their residence, and the parents had neither courage nor confidence in the water-cure to repeat the process, though their son--whom I saw a few weeks afterwards in vigorous health,--had been saved by it. They had more confidence in drugs which had done nothing for him.

[33] Mr. Rossteuscher, who became afterwards proprietor of a water-cure-establishment near Ca.s.sel.

[34] ”And something may be done by way of gargles, to correct the state of the throat, and to prevent the distressing and perilous consequences, which would otherwise be likely to flow from it. A weak solution of the chloride of soda may be employed for this purpose; and if the disease occur in a child that is not able to gargle, this solution may be injected into the nostrils and against the fauces, by means of a syringe or elastic bottle. The effect of this application is sometimes most encouraging. A quant.i.ty of offensive sloughy matter is brought away; the acid discharge is rendered harmless; the running from the nose and diarrhoea cease, &c.”

”From several distinct and highly respectable sources, _chlorine_ itself has been strongly pressed upon my notice, as a most valuable remedy in the severest forms of scarlet-fever.” Watson, Principles and Practice of Physic.

Dr. Watson also recommends a _drink_, prepared of a drachm of _chlorate of pota.s.s_ to a pint of water, and has found great improvement from the use of a pint to a pint and a half of this solution daily.

Brown gives his scarlet-patients the pure _liquor calcii chloridi_, or the _aqua oxymuriatica_ in quant.i.ties of one teaspoonful every two or three hours and considers this remedy as almost a specific. A solution of the same remedy may be used as a gargle, and also as a wash; and if used internally, I would rather recommend it in preference to the pure liquor, in the hands of persons not used to medical practice. In putrid cases, also the packing sheet may be dipped in a thin solution of chloride.--From an aversion to drugs--very natural in a hydriatic physician--I have never tried medicated sheets, getting along very nicely without them, but I think they must have sufficient virtue to recommend themselves to physicians and parents, who would like to try them.

[35] Captain Claridge, who communicated the above case to the English, and by reprint also to the American public, erroneously reported it a case of _measles_. How he could have made the mistake, I do not know, as the word ”Scharlachfieber” in German does not resemble ”measles” at all, the latter being called ”Masern” in my mother-tongue; but the thought that many a case, which had a bad issue, might have been treated, these twenty-one years, after my method, and many a life might have been saved, but for the mistake of C. C., has often distressed me.

[36] Nothing is more dangerous to the interest of an establishment, where many people are promiscuously collected, than a case of contagious disease, such as small-pox, scarlatina, measles, typhus, &c. I remember a hydriatic establishment in Pennsylvania being broken up entirely, and the physician deprived for a time of the means of subsistence, by his honest and well-founded confidence in the hydriatic treatment of small-pox, and by the generous steps he took in taking a friendless patient, afflicted with that dreaded disease, to his own house, to cure him. He antic.i.p.ated the pleasure it would procure him to show how quickly and how safely he would dispose of the case, and exulted in being able to communicate the fact to his patients. Alas, he little knew, how feeble their confidence in the water-cure was as yet, and how much more they thought of their own safety, than of the water-cure, their physician and the life and health of a poor dest.i.tute fellow-creature. They all left him--part of them came to Florence--and long before he had cured his small-pox patient, he had not one of his old patients left to witness the cure! However impolitic it may appear, I cannot but express my admiration of Dr. S.'s n.o.ble conduct on the occasion, who proved himself not only an honest adherer to our excellent mode of treatment, but also a kind and generous man, worthy of more encouragement than he received at the time.

With that event before me and with a number of some thirty-five or forty patients in the house, I, of course, tried to make them as easy as I could, and confiding in the power of my treatment, sent my own two children, _Paul_, about eight and a half, and _Eliza_, about four years old, to play with the little scarlet-patient, to show how little I was afraid of the disease. In doing so, I, at the same time, satisfied my own heart, by insuring the possibility of treating my darlings myself for scarlatina, which I might not be able to do, were I to let the opportunity escape. Both were taken by the disease, and finding their reaction rather torpid, and the whole process of the disease not without danger, I was glad--when all was over--that I had been able to treat them myself.

I am happy to declare, that none of _my_ patients were frightened away, and that all those who were attacked by the contagion, came off in a very short time and without the least bad consequences. The only exception, in the case of a person who was not a patient, and who came under my hands, after other remedies had been tried on him, I shall communicate hereafter.

PART III.

113. TREATMENT OF OTHER ERUPTIVE FEVERS.

The treatment as prescribed for scarlatina in this pamphlet, is applicable also for other eruptive fevers, such as small-pox, varioloids, chicken-pocks, measles, miliaria, urticaria, zoster, rubeola, erysipelas, erythema, &c., its princ.i.p.al feature being the wet-sheet pack, which may always be safely employed, even by an inexperienced hand. It is not the object of this treatise to discuss all these different diseases in full: I shall do so in a larger work on the water-cure, which I intend to publish in English as soon as I find leisure enough to finish it. But I shall give, in the meanwhile, a few hints sufficient to guide the reader in their treatment.

114. SMALL-POX.

_Small-pox_, by far the most dangerous of them, has found a barrier in its destructive progress in Dr. Jenner's discovery. Vaccination is an almost sure prophylactic against it; but, notwithstanding, many, with whom the preservative was neglected or with whom it proved powerless, have fallen victims to its ravages. There is no remedy in the drug-stores to diminish the danger to which the life, health and appearance of those afflicted with this terrible disease are exposed.

The only safe remedy is the wet-sheet pack.

The water for the sheet should be between sixty-five and seventy degrees, and the bath after the pack, from 70 to 75. Colder water is only applicable before the appearance of the eruption, which may be favored by frictions with bare hands dipped in it. These frictions may be repeated twice a day for the first two days. On the third day a long pack will call forth the eruption. If the patient can be kept in it, he may stay from three to five hours; adults even longer. No harm can be done by it, as the patient produces comparatively little heat, and the longer the pack the surer it will be to bring out the pocks. A short pack will have little effect.