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 principal 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 deg.. 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.
As soon as the pocks appear, rubbing
must be avoided till the scabs are entirely gone.
The patient should be packed two, three, and even four
times a day, according to the condition of the skin
and the height of the fever. There is nothing
able to relieve the patient as much as the dampness
of the wet pack. During the period of eruption
and efflorescence, the patient should spend the greater
part of his time in the wet-sheet, which not only
relieves the general symptoms, but especially the
inflammation of the skin, and makes the poison less
virulent, by constantly absorbing part of it, and by
communicating part of its moisture to the small ulcers.
To protect the face, a kind of mask
may be made of several thicknesses of linen, covering
the whole of it, leaving openings only for the mouth,
nostrils and eyes. The latter may be covered separately.
This compress should be covered with one or two thicknesses
of flannel, to keep its temperature as even as possible,
for which purpose it should be changed as often as
it becomes uncomfortably warm.
To draw the poison away from the face
and eyes, it will be a good plan to put a thick wet
compress on the back of the neck and between the shoulders,
and cover it thickly, so as to create a great deal
of heat in that region. It will bring out the
pocks densely. It should be changed only when
it becomes dry.
The stomach should be covered also
with a wet compress, as that organ is almost always
in a bad state during the whole course of the disorder.
If pus is received into the blood, the thick matter
which is filtered through the kidneys frequently causes
retention of urine. In that case the wet bandage
should go around the body, and the patient should drink
a good deal of water to attenuate the blood and the
urine, and favor the discharge. In case of need,
a sitz-bath of 75 deg. -- or with weak
patients of a higher temperature, 80 to 90 deg. -- will
remove the difficulty.
During convalescence, the baths should
be made gradually colder, to invigorate the skin and
the rest of the organism, and prepare the patient
for going out, which may safely be permitted on the
tenth or twelfth day. The packs ought to be continued
for a week at least after the drying and falling off
of the scabs.
By following this treatment, the patient
will be safe from any bad consequences of the disease.
I have never seen any of the usual sequelae after
packs.
115. VARIOLOIDS AND CHICKEN-POCKS.
Varioloids and Chicken-pocks,
are treated in the same manner, but require less treatment.
If well attended to, neither small-pox, nor
varioloids or chicken-pocks, will leave
any marks.
116. MEASLES.
Measles, which may be easily
distinguished from scarlatina, by the symptoms I have
given under 29, are to be treated like the mildest
forms of scarlet-fever, and, in most cases, require
no treatment at all. Nervous affections are treated
like those of scarlet-fever (92, &c.). -- As
measles are more dangerous to adults than to children,
whose skin is much more active, they had better take
packs, without waiting for an increase of the symptoms.
117. URTICARIA, ZOSTER, RUBEOLA.
Urticaria, Zoster and
Rubeola, are treated in the same manner as
measles: the main feature, however, is the pack.
118. ERYSIPELAS.
Erysipelas being commonly the
reflexion of an internal disease with a peculiar tendency
towards the skin, should not be treated locally alone,
but with due regard for the original disease.
If possible, the patient should perspire freely in
long packs, whilst a wet compress relieves the local
inflammation. The compress, without the pack,
would be apt to cause a metastasis to a vital organ.
Sometimes a derivative compress, as mentioned under
small-pox (114), will draw the inflammation away from
a very painful and dangerous spot. It is advisable
to try it, if the seat of the inflammation is the
face or head. The water for the sheet, compress
and bath should not be lower than 65 deg..
I know several cases of rapid cures of erysipelas,
by throwing a profusion of cold water on the parts
affected. But, although I do not remember any
harm done by such a process, I can scarcely recommend
it, as long as there are milder and safer remedies
at our disposal.
119. ERYTHEMA.
Erythema may be considered
an exceedingly mild form of erysipelas, and yields
to gentle treatment, as it is given in measles.
120. ADDITIONAL RULES FOR THE
TREATMENT OF ERUPTIVE DISEASES.
In all these eruptive diseases, especially
small-pox, all I have said, in speaking of scarlatina,
about ventilation, air, diet, &c., ought to be duly
observed. In small-pox, a constant renovation
of the air is indispensable, as the morbid exhalations
from the body of the patient are most offensive, and
the contagious poison most virulent.
121. The temperature of the room,
however, should be a few degrees higher than in scarlatina,
as none of these other eruptive diseases shows the
same degree of fever and heat. This is particularly
advisable in the treatment of measles, when exposure
is very apt to cause the rash to disappear, an occurrence
which is dangerous in any eruptive disease.
122. CONCLUSIVE REMARKS. -- OBSTACLES.
Before concluding my article, I shall
attempt to remove a few objections and obstacles,
which are usually raised against the practice of the
hydriatic system in families.
123. WANT OF WATER.
One of the obstacles is the want
of a sufficient quantity of water in some houses,
and the difficulty of procuring it.
This obstacle is easily removed.
If you cannot procure water enough
for a half-bath for there cannot be a difficulty
in procuring a pailful for wetting the sheet give
your patient a dripping sheet instead, which,
in most cases, will do as well; or, should there be
a want of a wash-tub to give it in, a rubbing sheet
may supply the bath.
124. DRIPPING SHEET, SUBSTITUTE FOR THE HALF-BATH.
To apply the dripping sheet,
a tin bathing hat or a large wash-tub is placed near
the patient’s bed, and a pail of water on the
brim of the hat, or close by the tub. Dip a linen
sheet into it, and leave it there till you wish to
take the patient out of his pack, but dispose it so
that you can easily find the two corresponding corners.
As soon as the patient steps into the hat or tub,
seize the sheet by these corners and throw it over
his head and body from behind, and rub him all over,
head and all, whilst somebody else is supporting him,
or whilst he is supporting himself by taking hold
of one of the bed-posts. When the sheet becomes
warm, empty part of your pail over the patient’s
head, by which means the water in the sheet is renewed,
and rub again. Then repeat the same operation,
and when all your water is gone, before the body of
the patient is sufficiently cool, take water from the
hat or tub and use it for the same purpose, till he
is quite cooled down. Then dry him with another
sheet, or a towel, and put him to bed again, if necessary.
125. RUBBING SHEET, SUBSTITUTE FOR THE HALF-BATH.
It cannot be difficult to procure
a wash-tub. Should you be so situated, however,
as not to be able to procure even this, you will be
compelled to make shift with a rubbing sheet.
For that purpose, a sheet and a pail of water are
all you need. The sheet is wetted in the pail
and slightly wrung out. The patient steps on
a piece of oil-cloth or carpet, and you throw your
wet-sheet over him and rub, as before indicated.
When the sheet is warm, you dip it in the pail again,
and repeat the process, and thus you go on, till the
patient is sufficiently cooled.
If you can have two pails of water,
it will be better than one, as the water becomes warm
after having changed the sheet a couple of times.
126. WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS A WAY!
I have been frequently compelled to
resort to these milder applications, when there were
no bathing utensils in families or boarding-houses,
or no servants to carry the water for a bath; and
they have always answered very well. In cases
where a sitz-bath or a half-bath is indispensable,
to save the life of a patient, you will find the means
of procuring bathing utensils and the necessary quantity
of water.
Where there is a will, there is
a way! I am sure that when once your
mind is made up to use the treatment, it will not be
difficult for you to find the means for it. There
is always water, and there are always hands enough,
where there is resolution. And who would
mind a little trouble, when he can save a fellow creature’s,
perhaps a darling child’s life and health?
As for the rest, the few days’ trouble, which
the hydriatic mode of treatment gives, is largely
recompensed by the much shorter duration of the disease,
and by the immediate relief the patient derives from
almost every application of water.
I have generally found that those
parents who had confidence in the treatment, had also
the courage to resort to it. Confidence and courage
create resolution, and when once you have begun
to treat your patient, you will be sure to persevere.
Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte,
as the French say: only the first step is difficult.
127. PREJUDICE OF PHYSICIANS AGAINST THE WATER-CURE.
The greatest, and the most serious,
difficulty lies in the prejudice of physicians against
the Water-Cure. This prejudice, although in the
treatment of the diseases before us, it is founded
on no other reasons but ignorance, lack of courage
and the habit of travelling the old trodden path the
same regular path which thousands and millions
have travelled not to return neither you,
dear reader, nor I, shall be able to conquer by words.
But we may succeed by actions. Take the matter
in your own hands, before it is too late. Do
not plead your want of knowledge and experience:
a whip in the hand of a child is less dangerous than
a double-edged sword in the hand of a fencing-master.
I have known many a mother to treat her child for
scarlet-fever, measles, small-pox, croup, &c., after
my books, or after prescriptions received in Graefenberg
and other hydriatic establishments, and I scarcely
remember a case of accident, whilst those treated in
the usual mode by the best physicians would die in
numbers. I repeat it: there is no danger
in the wet-sheet pack, and should a patient
die under the treatment prescribed by me, you may
be sure, he would not have lived under any other mode
of treatment.
128. REBELLION!
This is preaching rebellion!
I know it is, and it is with great
reluctance that I preach it, as I am by no means in
favor of taking medical matters out of the hands where
they belong, to place them into the hands of such as
have had no medical education. I despise quackery,
and I wish physicians could be prevailed upon to take
the matter in their own hands. But, the following
anecdote will enable you to judge what we may expect
in that quarter, and whether I am justified in preaching
rebellion against the old routine for I
deny going against science and the profession and
for a new practice which has proved to be safer than
any hitherto adopted.
129. FACTS.
In 1845-46 there was an epidemic in
Dresden, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, where I then
resided. Its ravages in the city and the densely
peopled country around it, were dreadful. We had
excellent physicians of different schools, who exerted
themselves day and night to stop the progress of extermination,
but all was in vain. Dying children and weeping
mothers were found in some house of every street, and
whenever you entered a dry-goods store, you were sure
to find people buying mourning. At last, as poverty
will frequently produce dispute and quarrel in families,
there arose, from similar reasons, a dispute between
the different sects of physicians in the papers, which
became more and more animated and venomous, without
having any beneficial influence upon the dying patients.
Sad with the result of the efforts, and disgusted
with the quarrel of the profession, I gathered facts
of my own and other hydriatic physicians’ practice,
by which it was shown that I alone, in upwards of
one hundred cases of scarlatina, I had treated, had
not lost a patient, and that, in general, not a case
of death of scarlet-fever treated hydriatically was
on record. These facts, with some observations
about the merits of the respective modes of treatment,
I published in the same papers, offering to give the
list of the patients, I had treated, and to teach
my treatment, gratis, to any physician who would give
himself the trouble of calling. -- What do
you think was the result of my communication and offer?
The quarrel in the papers was stopped
at once; not a line was published more; no one attempted
to contradict me or to show that I had lost patients
also; all was dead silence; and of the one hundred
and fifty physicians of the city, one called,
and, not finding me at home, never returned.
And the patients? Well, the patients were treated
and killed after the occurrence I thought
I had the right to use the word as before,
and the practice was continued in every epidemy afterwards.
Perhaps my communications would have had a better result in America, where
physicians, though much less learned upon an average, are more accessible to new
ideas?
130. I have tried, several years
ago, to have an article on the subject inserted in
one or two of the New-York papers, which have the largest
circulation in the country, but, although there were
at the time 150 deaths of scarlet-fever per week in
the city, they had so much to say about slavery and
temperance that there was no room for my article, and
when I published it in the Water-Cure Journal, it was,
of course, scarcely noticed. -- Scarlet-patients
have continued to be treated and to die as before,
and when I published a couple of months ago an extract
from this pamphlet in the Boston Medical World, there
were thirty cases of death per week from scarlatina
in that city.
These are facts, upon which you may
make your own comments. But the following are
facts also:
131. MORE FACTS!
I have been treating several hundred
cases of eruptive fevers during twenty-one years,
and except the one mentioned above (111.) never lost
a patient. I have known similar results, in the
practice of other hydriatic physicians who employed
a similar method. I scarcely remember a bad result
of hydriatic treatment undertaken by the parents and
relations of the patient, without the assistance of
any physician at all. I know of several cases
of death, in scarlatina, where physicians attempted
to employ Currie’s method, without packing;
and I have frequently seen the learning of regular
physicians interfere with our simple practice and
produce different results, whilst people without medical
knowledge, by strictly adhering to my prescriptions,
would always be successful. I have been so successful,
and am so confident in the treatment, as described,
that I have not only neglected to vaccinate my children
(till last year, when it was done by a friend in my
absence), but that I have sent them to a scarlet-patient
to take the disease, in order that I might be able
to treat them myself, and know them to be protected
in future.
132. CONCLUSION: HELP YOURSELVES,
IF YOUR PHYSICIANS WILL NOT HELP YOU!
And I am none of your water-enthusiasts,
who pretend to cure everything and any thing with
water. My confidence in the hydriatic treatment
of eruptive fevers, however, is almost unlimited,
because it is founded on an experience of many years
of happy results with scarcely any exception, and
on the fact that no other method can show a similar
result.
I have always been considered an honest
man, dear reader, and always anxious to serve my fellow-men;
and what selfish view could I have in thus attempting
to persuade you to save your children’s lives
by adopting my method of treatment? I shall neither
make friends with the members of the profession by
thus exciting you to rebel against the old routine,
nor shall I augment the number of the patients of my
establishment; for we cannot very well carry patients
with scarlet-fever and small-pox to a distant institution.
Believe me, I have no other object in publishing this
pamphlet, than that of saving the life and health
of as many human beings as possible, which otherwise
would perish. In publishing this pamphlet, I
intend to perform a sacred duty, without any regard
to making a pleasant or unpleasant impression upon
my brother physicians, and consequently without any
regard to my own interest.
The fact that I exposed my own youngest
children, the pleasure, and the support in spe,
of my declining age, to the contagion of scarlatina,
during an epidemic which had rather a malignant character,
proves more than any thing my honest confidence in
my own remedy. Ask your physician, if he is adverse
to the hydriatic method, whether he knows a remedy
in which he has so much confidence as to be willing
to imitate my example. There is no such remedy
in the apothecary’s shop, and there is no physician
who would expose his own children to the contagion
of scarlatina from the confidence he has in the curative
or protective powers of any drug.
I hope, my brother-physicians will
believe me, when I assure them, that I do not mean
any disrespect to the profession, in thus introducing
a new sound method for the weak old routine.
Perhaps, my exposition of the principles of my practice,
and the attempt at a systematic arrangement of the
materials at my disposal, may gain a few converts.
If I am not mistaken, this pamphlet is the first that
treats the subject systematically and to some extent.
I am aware that it might be better written and more
perfect. But, I trust that it will do some good,
and hope it will pave the way for a better production,
based on a more extensive practice and enriched with
new discoveries on the part of American physicians,
whose genius and activity are not inferior to those
of any other nation.
When the Hydriatic System becomes
more and more a part of the practice of educated and
enlightened practitioners, it will become a much greater
benefit to the human race, not only with regard to
the cure of eruptive fevers, but of that of all diseases
to which it can be adapted, beside the happy reform
it will assist in bringing about in our effeminate
and luxurious way of living, which, at all times,
has been a source of ruin for individuals, families
and nations.
But as long as the profession continues in its old routine, I can give you no
other advice than that of following my prescriptions and of helping yourselves:
“Aide-toi, et le ciel t’aidera!”