Part 3

Look also well to the warming of COLD FEET (see), and see that the whole skin be cleansed daily with soap lather (see Lather and Soap) and stimulated with olive-oil rubbing.

Aconite.--Often in cases where our treatment fails to cure, the failure is due to the patient taking aconite as an allopathic remedy. Used homoeopathically, it may be harmless, but if taken in considerable doses, even once a month, it prevents all cure. It gives relief in heart palpitation, and in case of extreme sensibility, but its other poisonous effects far outweigh the temporary benefits. A gentle, kindly soaping with soap lather (see Lather and Soap) over all the body will relieve extreme sensibility far better than aconite, and can be frequently repeated without injury. Aconite must be avoided if our treatment is to be effective.

Action, Balance of.--An excellent guide to the proper treatment of any case is to be found in the distribution of heat in the patient's body. Hot parts are to be cooled, and cold parts warmed, often both at the same time, so as to restore the proper balance of vital action. Gentle progressive measures are always best in this, especially with children. Cold feet are warmed by BATHING (see) and FOMENTATION (see). A heated head may be cooled with COLD TOWELS (see) or with soap LATHER (see). This principle of seeking a proper balance should be borne in mind throughout all our treatment. Its importance can hardly be exaggerated, as the restoration of this balance alone will frequently effect an almost magical cure where drugs have been wholly ineffective.

After Pains.--See Child-bearing.

Air.--The Black Hole of Calcutta is an object lesson of how necessary to life is the renewal of the air supply. Few people, however, reflect that a deficient supply of fresh air may affect the health, though far short of what will cause death. Many hospitable people will invite so many friends to their houses that the amount of air each can get is less than 1-20th of what the law insists shall be provided for the prisoners in our gaols. Superabundant provision is made for the wants of the stomachs of these guests, but none at all for the more important organ--the lungs. The headaches and lack of appetite next morning are attributed to the supper instead of the repeatedly breathed air, for each guest gives off almost 20 cubic feet of used-up air per hour. No one would ask their guests to wash with water others had used; how many offer them air which has been made foul by previous use? Everyone knows that in our lungs oxygen is removed from the air inhaled, and its place taken by carbonic acid gas. Besides this deoxydizing, the air becomes loaded with organic matter which is easily detected by the olfactory organs of those who have just come in, and so are in a position to promptly compare the air inside with what they have been breathing. The exhilaration produced by deep breathing of pure air is well known. What, therefore, prevents everyone enjoying it at all times? Simply the fear of "cold"--an unfortunate name for that low form of fever properly called catarrh, and a name which is largely responsible for this mistaken idea. "Colds" are now known to be infectious, being often caught in close ill-ventilated places of public assembly. Most people suppose that it is the change from the heat to the cold outside that gives them "cold," whereas the "cold" has been contracted inside. There is no lack of evidence that wide open windows day and night, summer and winter, so strengthen and invigorate that colds are rarely taken, and when taken, generally in a mild form. This also applies to influenza. If delicate consumptives can stand, without any gradual breaking-in to it, unlimited fresh air, and can lie by day and night in open sheds, no one need dread at once to adopt the open-window system. Although few will believe it, until they try it, a wide open window does not produce a draught as does one slightly opened, and it is safer and pleasanter to go in for abundant fresh air than to try what might be called a moderate course. Many think that with an open window the heat of the fire is practically wasted. They do not know that the radiant heat of the fire will warm the person it falls on even though the temperature of the room is very low. The Canadian hunter before his fire is comfortably warm, though the air around him may be a long way below zero. Extra clothing may be worn if any chilliness is felt. While the body is warm cold air has an invigorating effect on the lungs. Indeed, the body soon gets accustomed to the colder air, and those who practise keeping open windows winter and summer find that they do not require heavier clothing than those who sit with windows shut. A slight or even considerable feeling of coldness, when due to cold air and not to ill-health, will not harm.

This is no new idea. Dr. Henry McCormac, of Belfast, father of the eminent surgeon, Sir William McCormac, wrote forty years ago:--"The mainly unreasoning dread of night air, so termed, is a great impediment to free ventilation by night. And yet day and night air is the same virtually, does not differ appreciably. The air by night, whether damp or dry, is equally pure, equally salubrious with the air by day, and calls not less solicitously for ceaseless admission into our dwellings. Air, ere it reaches the lungs, is always damp. Quite dry air is irrespirable. It needs no peculiar or unusual habitude in order to respire what is termed night air. Exposure to contact with the day air equally prepares us for exposure to the contact with the night air. We can multiply our coverings by night with even greater ease than we can by day, and with the most perfect certainty of producing and obtaining warmth. Good heavens! How is it that people are so wildly mistaken as if the great wise Deity, as he does by every exquisite and perfect adaption, did not intend that we should make use of the purest, sweetest air day and night always? The prospective results of breathing purest air by night are so infinitely desirable, the immediate enjoyment is so great that it only needs a trial to be approved of and adopted for ever.... Reasonable precautions--that is to say, adequate night coverings--being resorted to, no colour of risk to the lungs, even of the most delicate, can possibly ensue. For, it is stagnant air, air pre-breathed only, and not pure unprerespired air that makes lungs delicate. Although air, warmth, food, and cleanliness be cardinal conditions and essential to life, still the most important of all health factors is air--air pure and undefiled alike by day and by night.... The constant uneasy dread of taking cold, which haunts the minds of patients and their friends, is doubtless the one great reason why fresh air is thrust aside. And yet cold will not be caught, were it in Nova Zembla itself, by night, if only the sleeper's body be adequately covered.... The pulses or puffs of air that comes in ceaselessly, winter and summer, through open windows by night inspire just as if one slept in the open air, a sort of ecstasy. Gush follows gush, full of delightfulness, replacing the used-up air and purifying the blood. It has oftimes been said to me, 'I open the windows the moment I get out of bed;' to this I have uniformly replied, 'the moment to open the window is before you get into bed, not when you get out of it.' You cannot otherwise with entire certainty secure the benefit of an ever ceaselessly renewed night air so all essential to the blood's renewal and the maintenance of health.... With abundant night coverings there is no shadow of risk. There is none of rheumatism, none of bronchitis, in short no risk whatever. The only, the real risk, which we incur, is that of closing our sleeping chamber windows, of debarring ourselves of pure air during our repose."

Appetite.--Should be an indication that food in general or some certain kind of food is needed by the body. Thus the appetite is the natural test of the amount and kind of food required. Over-eating and indulgence in stimulating foods and drinks, insufficient mastication and bolting of the food (see Over-eating, etc.) give us a false appetite, thus causing over-eating once more. A return to a simple and moderate diet will restore the natural appetite.

Air Bath.--This may with advantage to the health of the skin and body in general, be indulged in every morning during some of the toilet operations, such as shaving, or preferably, dumbell exercise or Swedish gymnastics. If exercises are done in a nude condition the utmost freedom for the muscles is obtained. In a short time a notable change will be observed in the skin, which will lose its pasty appearance, and become soft flesh and of a healthy colour. If possible have the bedroom with windows facing the morning sun, so that the sunlight can also shine in. There are many sanitaria on the Continent and in America where this form of "bathing" is practised. Indeed, one of the great benefits of sea-bathing (overlooked in this country) is the exposure of the skin to air and light. Consequently if the weather and social custom permits, as much time as possible should be spent after immersion, lounging on the sand. A child's natural instinct leads it to play about after its bath in the sea instead of coming at once to be dressed.

A young infant will enjoy lying on a rug on the floor without any clothing and with the window open. Older children will benefit by running about the garden in summer time in bare feet, and with only one garment, say a cotton frock.

It is a great mistake to clothe children too warmly, indeed, the same may be said of adults. Garments should always be loose and porous, so as to allow of the beneficial action of the air on the skin. One of the objections to corsets is that they do not fulfil these conditions (see Tight Lacing, Skin, Care of.)

Air-tight Covering.--The covering of oiled silk, or guttapercha, so frequently placed over wet bandages when these are applied to any part of the body, is not only useless, but often positively hurtful. It is true that the waterproof covering retains the moisture in the bandage, but it is also true that great heat is developed, and the waste products in the perspiration are retained on the surface of the skin. The effect of this is injurious in a very high degree. A little soft old linen for the wet bandage, with a piece of double new flannel over it, will leave all the pores of the skin open, and allow all waste products to pass away freely, while the heat and moisture are retained as much as necessary.

In other cases two folds of moist flannel next to skin, and two folds of the same, dry, above the moist ones, will make an excellent bandage. This applied all over the abdomen, in case of abdominal dropsy, will have a most beneficial result.

The reason why we often say new flannel is simply that few know how to wash it so as to retain its soft and porous nature as it is when good and new. That softness and porousness may be retained in a very easy way. When you have put your soiled flannel through two good washings with soap in the usual way, dip it in clean boiling water, and finish cleaning it with that dipping. You will have it white and fine as when new.

M'Clinton's soap, being made from plant ashes and not from soda, is much less liable to shrink and harden flannel; in fact, it is best for all fine washing.

Alcohol.--This, in various forms, as brandy, whiskey, rum, wine, cordials, beer and stout, is a frequent prescription in many troubles. In no cases have we known good effects from its use, which is most strongly to be condemned. Various reasons for this statement will be found under the heading of troubles for which alcohol is prescribed. Here we simply give the fundamental truths as to its action on the system.

In our system of treatment we ever seek to nurse and stimulate those nerve-masses which constitute the sources of vital action. Every drop of alcohol does so much to weaken and destroy these. A certain quantity, if taken by the strongest man, will kill that man as surely as a bullet in the brain. Half the quantity will only render him insensible. Half that, again, only renders him incapable of controlling his bodily movements. Half that, again, only slightly disturbs the system; but it affects him in the very same manner in which the fatal dose affects him, though not in the same degree. It is a narcotic, and like all such, it always reduces vital action, while nothing is more important in all healing than to increase it. Hence alcohol is the deadly foe of healing, and one chief preparer of the system to fall before disease. The so-called stimulating action of alcohol has been thoroughly explained by the author of these papers in other writings, and shewn to be simply an indirect and temporary effect, obtained at the price of a considerable reduction of the general vitality of the nervous system.

Young ladies, as a class, are subject to a terrible danger. Great numbers of mothers actually make their daughters drunkards by ever and again dosing them with brandy. This is done in secret, and imagined to be a most excellent thing. For instance, if the bowels get lax, as is the case in certain stages of disease, brandy is given as a remedy. How little do those who give it know that it is lessening vital energy and making cure impossible! But it is doing nothing else. We have many times over seen the dying sufferer restless and ill with nothing but the effects of constant small doses of brandy, or alcohol in some other form.

In looseness of the bowels we give a teaspoonful of lemon juice in a little hot water and sugar. That has as much effect as is desirable, and it has no bad effect whatever. Or enema injections may be employed. (See Diarrhoea, Dysentery, Enema). Even infants are treated with "brandy," till we cannot help believing they die of the drink, and would survive if it were put away. Gradually the cruel folly of all this will, we doubt not, dawn upon the general mind.

Amputations.--These are often performed in cases in which proper treatment on the lines of these papers, would save both life and limb. By all means, before consenting to such an irrevocable act as amputating a limb, let the treatment with fomentations, hot water, and acetic acid be well and thoroughly tried. Many limbs which were medically condemned have been thus saved within our personal knowledge. In some cases the disease may be obstinate; but at least let a fair trial be given to our treatment before giving up a limb. The treatment will be found under the headings of the various troubles and parts affected (see Armpit Swelling; Bone, Diseased; Knee-swelling; Pains, etc.)

Angina Pectoris.--In a variety of cases, more or less severe spasmodic pains are felt in the chest. Angina Pectoris (literally, agony of the chest) is one of the worst of these. All these pains, as a rule, may be removed completely by treatment such as the following:--

Prepare a bed (long enough for the patient to lie at full length upon his back), with a large thick sheet folded on the lower part of it. Spread over this sheet a blanket wrung out of hot water, so as to be both moist (but not wet) and warm (see Fomentation). See that the blanket is not so hot as to burn the patient and add to his pain. It must be tested with the back of the hand, and be just as warm as this can well bear. On this let the patient lie down, and wrap him up tightly in it from the feet up to above the haunches. Have two or three towels folded so as to be about six inches broad, and the length of that part of the patient's spine above the hot blanket. Wring these out of cold water. Place one over the spine, so as to lie close along it; on this, place a dry towel to keep the damp from the bed, and let the patient lie down on his back, so as to bring the cold towel in close contact with the spine. When this towel becomes warm, another cold one must be put in its place. After about half an hour's pack and eight changes of the cold towel, the pain in the chest should be subdued for the time. If the cold towel does not heat in five minutes, the patient's vitality is low, and a hot cloth should be placed along the spine, and renewed several times, and then another cold one; but as a rule this will not be required. When taken out of the pack, let the skin be washed with SOAP (see) and warm water; then a slight sponge of nearly cold water, and a gentle rubbing with olive or almond oil. Rub the back first, and gently "shampoo" all the muscles; that is, knead and move the muscles under the skin so as to make them rub over one another.

If the pain in the chest be of an inflammatory nature, the cold towels must be applied over the place where it is felt, instead of on the spine (see Inflammation.)

Ankle Swelling.--When long continued in connection with disease or accident, this sometimes leads to a partial withering of the limb up to its very root. In such a case it is best to deal first with the roots of those nerves which supply the limb, which are, in the case of the legs, in the lower part of the back. It is important to apply light pressure to these roots by gently squeezing the muscles of the lower back. This raises a feeling of gentle heat, which slowly passes down the limbs even to the toes. Then the gentle pressure and squeezing must be carried all down the limb, avoiding any degree of pain, until all its muscles have had their share. While progressing down the limb with his rubbing, let the rubber be careful that the individual strokes of his hands be upwards, towards the hip. The blood will thus be propelled towards the heart, while the stimulus of rubbing is conveyed along the nerve trunks towards the foot. The squeezing should be done with a grasping movement of the hands, the limb being held encircled in both hands, thumbs upwards. Warm olive oil is used in this squeezing, and also, if the skin be hard and dry, soap lather (see Lather).

Even slight displacements of bones will disappear under such treatment, if patiently continued day after day, as the patient can bear it without fatigue. In such gentle remedies, perseverance plays a large part. (See Abscess; Diet; Exercise).

Ankle, Twisted or Crushed.--Place the foot as soon as possible in warm water, as hot as can comfortably be borne; keep it there until free from pain, or for an hour, or even more if necessary. If the flesh be torn, dress with cloths wrung out of vinegar or weak acetic acid before placing in the water.

When the bath has done its work, and the limb comes out of the water alarmingly swollen, good and skilful bandaging will do excellent work. If you have at hand an old shirt, or some such thing, tear it into strips about three inches wide, till you have as much material as will swathe the whole limb from behind the toes up to the top of the thigh. This need not be all in one piece, but only so that you may apply it in such a way as to bring a very gentle pressure on the whole surface of the injured limb. It is important that the bandaging should be comfortable. The way in which bandaging is sometimes done is cruel in the extreme. Cases that are a disgrace to humanity are constantly coming under our notice, in which limbs are lost for life by the treatment they receive in this respect. Skilful surgeons do it in the most gentle manner; they even swathe the limbs in soft loose cotton before they apply the bandages, so that a perfectly equal and comforting pressure may be secured. Lay the limb to rest, well and softly supported in a horizontal position. When the swelling falls, gently tighten the bandage from time to time as required. Each time the bandages are removed for this purpose, sponge the limb with warm vinegar or weak ACETIC ACID (see). When the swelling subsides, the ankle may be put again in the hot bath for half-an-hour, and then, if any bones be broken, is the time for setting them right. The ankle will probably turn black. If so, do not apply leeches, but allow the black blood to be absorbed by natural process.

A twisted or bruised wrist or hand is to be treated in the same way. The swelling may also be removed by gentle rubbing upwards along the limb, so as to help the blood in its course.

Armpit Swelling.--Often this comes as the result of a chill, or of enfeeblement of the system from various causes. In the early stage, such a swelling should not be treated so as to develop a sore. Treatment with iodine is to be avoided.