We shall now take up a practical list of subjects, arranged
in alphabetical order. Without any attempt at
egotism, we claim that there are few nontechnical books
extant that contain a superior selection of preventatives and
remedies. Read carefully and judge for yourself. There
are very few common or occasional afflictions which are not
considered to some extent. Why always seek a doctor when
you seem to be somewhat off your physical equilibrium?
You will generally at each visit spend more money than
this book will cost. Learn to provide against constant
medical attention.
Accidents.—In sudden emergencies, either of accident
or sickness, the first great requisite is presence of mind. Be
calm. Endeavor, if possible, to grasp the situation, and
do what is to be done promptly and quietly, until the arrival
of the physician. All hurried and distracted motions,
and all exciting noises, confuse the attendants and
needlessly alarm the sufferer. In many cases, the course of
immediate action is suggested by the circumstances; but
where you do not know what aid to render, it is best to do
nothing, except to make the patient as comfortable, for the
time being, as possible. For all ordinary emergencies, ample
directions are:—
"1. Always look in the direction in which you are moving.
"2. Never leave a car, or other public vehicle, when it
is in motion.
"3. Never put your head or arms out of a vehicle when
it is in motion.
"4. If a horse runs away with you, remain in the vehicle
rather than risk the danger of jumping from it.
"5. In thunder-storms keep away from trees, metallic
substances, doors, and windows. The lower part of a house
is the safer.
"6. Never play with fire-arms. Always keep them beyond
the reach of children.
"7. Avoid charcoal fumes; they are deadly when confined
in a close room.
"8. Illuminating gas; be sure to turn it off. Never blow
it out.
"9. When gas can be smelt in an apartment always air
the room well before striking a match or bringing a light.
"10. When very cold, move quickly. If any part of
the body is frozen, rub it with snow, and keep from the fire.
"11. Change wet clothing as soon as possible.
"12. Carefully avoid exposure to night air, in malarial
districts.
"13. If necessary to go into an old vault or well, first
introduce a burning candle. If the light burns low and
finally goes out, carbonic acid gas is present and the place
is unsafe to enter. Unslaked lime will absorb the gas and
purify the air.
"14. Avoid walking on railroad tracks and icy sidewalks.
"15. When awake, very young children should never be
left alone.
"16. Do not go, with loose hair or flowing garments,
near dangerous machinery.
"17. Never touch gunpowder after dark.
"18. Never fondle a strange dog.
"19. Never light a fire with kerosene.
"20. Fill and trim your lamps in the day-time. Never
trim or fill a lighted lamp.
"21. Keep matches in a closed metallic box.
"22. Have your horses rough-shod as soon as the ground
freezes.
"23. When feeling dizzy or seasick, lie down.
"24. Do not close the damper of your stove too early.
Better waste coal than run the risk of suffocation by gas.
"25. When climbing a ladder, look up and not down.
"26. In railroad traveling take the center of the car, and
the middle car of the train, for safety.
"27. Eat only pure food, drink only pure liquids, think
only pure thoughts, and keep your blood pure.
"28. In going through dry woods or over prairies do not
smoke or cast matches about carelessly. There should be
laws against this often wanton destruction of property.
"29. Look out for spontaneous ignition of oily rags, oil-painted
canvas rolled up, wet iron filings.
"30. In entering mines not used, always try for gas before
venturing into them.
"31. Do not be careless in any way whatever in connection
with fire. The losses in the United States, in 1889, by
fires as a result of carelessness amounted to nearly $100,000,000,
while in San Francisco for the same year we find
that fully 80% of the losses can be attributed to the same
source."
Alcohol.—Felix L. Oswald, M.D., gives some very
good ideas in Good Health on the alcoholic habit. "'Reform,'
says an able political writer, 'is ever unpopular.
All wrongs lie in the consent of the wronged, and what
with the fierce support of those who thrive on the abuse,
and the dull, heavy, ignorant conservatism of the masses,
* * * it is a sad delusion to suppose that the cause is
won when the argument is made.' An unquestionable
preponderance of power, they argue, favors the side of the
liquor venders, and in this world, at least, always finds a
way to assert itself as right. The last link of that syllogism,
however, is a rule with occasional exceptions. No
unqualified evil has ever succeeded in maintaining its supremacy,
and the evils of the alcohol vice are offset by no
benefits. Alcohol has been called 'negative food,' because
its physiological influence torpifies the functional
energy of the digestive organs, and thus, for a time, renders
the toper insensible to the cravings of hunger. The
same effect, however, can be produced by a stunning blow,
and we might as well claim that the interests of political
economy could be promoted by a fierce war, because a
knock-down stroke with the butt-end of a musket is apt to
lessen the appetite of the afflicted soldier. No real benefit
can result from the lethargizing effect of a poison dose, the
retardation of the digestive functions being in every case a
morbid and abnormal process, avenging its repetition by
the fatty degeneration of the tissues and the impoverished
condition of the blood. * * * During the horrible flood
which a few months ago devastated the two richest provinces
of the Chinese Empire, a number of vile marauders
eked out an existence by fishing out wreckage and plundering
floating corpses. The idea of mentioning the profits
of these wretches as a compensating offset to the horrors of
a public calamity would justly consign its propounder to
the custody of a lunatic commission. Yet, by an exactly
analogous line of argument, many of our political economists
continue to defend the legal sanction of the liquor
traffic. Nay, it might be seriously questioned if the total
loss (by fire or water) of a billion bushels of grain would
not be financially and morally preferable to their conversion
into a life-blighting poison. According to the statistics
of the Treasury Department, the alcohol drinkers of
the United States (representing hardly one-fifth of the
alcoholized nations of Christendom) spent during the last
ten years a yearly average of $370,000,000 for whisky,
$58,000,000 for other distilled liquors, $56,000,000 for
wine, and $140,000,000 for ale and beer; together, $624,000,000
a year. That enormous sum has been far worse
than wasted. It has been invested in the purchase of disease.
It has been devoted to the development of idiocy,
crime, and pauperism. It has turned blessings into a concentration
of curses. The general recognition of these
facts will seal the doom of the liquor traffic."
Dr. C. E. Spitka expresses some results of science investigating
strong drinks:—
"Alcoholism among the ancients was therefore mainly
or exclusively known in its acute phases, the drunken
frenzy in which Alexander the Great killed Clitus being a
familiar example. With the introduction of tobacco and
playing cards, the saloon, the cellar-dive, and the bar-room
usurped the place formerly held by the inn. The enlargement
of cities deprived their inhabitants of rustic sports,
and led to their seeking in other and more dangerous channels
an escape from mental and physical strain, and a variation
of routine monotony. It is generally conceded by
those medical writers who are unshackled by prejudice that
a certain amount of alcohol can be ingested with perfect
impunity. That amount has been accurately determined
by Dujardin-Beaumetz in the course of experiments made
in the abattoirs of Paris. Transferring the result of his
experiments to the human species, he concluded that a man
weighing 120 pounds could take the equivalent of two
ounces of alcohol a day for years without injury to any
organ of the body. But when the amount taken daily
exceeds the toleration-point, prolonged abuse is followed by
results which are as sinister as they are insidious. In the
dead-house of the Philadelphia Hospital, Formad found
that, of 250 chronic alcoholists, nearly 99 per cent had
fatty degeneration of the liver, 60 per cent had congestion
or a dropsical state of the brain, the same proportion an
inflamed or degenerated stomach, while not quite 1 per cent
had normal kidneys. Of 17 children of drunken fathers
observed by Voisin, 3 were idiots, 2 confirmed epileptics, 1
suffered from a congenital spinal disease, and the remainder
died in early life with convulsions. Of 11 children similarly
descended, cited by Dagonet, 9 died in the same way.
Of 117 such births recorded in Alsace-Lorraine, 13 were
still-born and 39 died of convulsive disorders shortly after
birth. One drunken father had 7 still-born children in
succession; another lost 8 of 12 by convulsions. It is not
alone as a direct result of inebriety that a defective nervous
system is thus transmitted. Even in his sober intervals, he
whose nervous system has been shattered by alcohol is liable
to have a degenerate or diseased offspring. Of 18
children recorded as born under these circumstances, Voisin
found 8 epileptic and 10 idiotic. As if to prove beyond
the possibility of a doubt that such degeneracy is due to
the alcoholism of the parent, and to that alone, two French
investigators, Mairet and Combemale, performed a series of
experiments on dogs, by which they showed that the same
result which the chronic inebriate is accused of producing
in his offspring, through selfish indulgence, can be produced
at will in the offspring of lower animals by compulsory
induction of the same vice in them."
An English investigation, just completed, puts in tangible
form the effect of the use of alcohol, from observations
covering 4,234 cases in all walks of life. This report shows
that, with men over twenty-five, the intemperate use of
alcohol cuts off ten years from life, those who never drink to
excess, or use no liquor, living, on the average, ten years
longer than those who do. Indulgence, if carried to excess,
doubles diseases of the liver, quadruples those of the kidneys,
and greatly increases the number of deaths from
pneumonia, pleurisy, and epilepsy.
It is not often appreciated how many people die annually
from the effects of strong drink. Dr. Norman Kerr, an
eminent physician of England, believing the statement of
temperance people to be extravagant, that 60,000 people
die annually from the effects of strong drink, began as
early as 1870 a personal inquiry, in connection with several
medical men and experts, expecting to quickly disprove the
same. According to their deductions, the latest estimates of
deaths of adults annually caused through intemperance is,
in Great Britain, 120,000; in France, 142,000; in the
United States, 80,000—or nearly a half million each year
in three countries aggregating a population of 112,000,000.
Excessive Beer Drinking.—In the earlier part of our
work we endeavored to impress on our readers the necessity
of regularity and the avoidance of excesses. The last week
of 1889 in New York City saw two prominent brewers buried,
and two others of the guild were near death. None of
them were, or are, over forty-seven years old. Kidney and
heart disease were the causes of death in the case of the
first two. Similar ailments have marked the other two
gentlemen for the grave. The question arises, Was it beer or
champagne that caused these diseases? In this connection
the statement a physician of Bellevue Hospital once made
is not amiss. These are his words: "The worst cases of
alcoholic ailments coming under our observation are those
resulting from excessive beer drinking."
In appearance the beer drinker may be the picture of
health; but in reality he is most incapable of resisting disease.
A slight injury, a severe cold, or a shock to the body
or mind, will commonly provoke acute disease, ending fatally.
Compared with other inebriates who use different
kinds of alcohol, he is more incurable and more generally
diseased. It is our observation that beer drinking in this
country produces the very lowest kind of inebriety, closely
allied to criminal insanity. The most dangerous class of
ruffians in our large cities are beer drinkers. Intellectually,
a stupor amounting almost to paralysis arrests the reason,
changing all the higher faculties into a mere animalism,
sensual, selfish, sluggish, varied only with paroxysms of
anger, senseless and brutal.
That men are the sex most addicted to stimulating but
injurious habits is sadly growing less true, and women are
finding recourse too often to poisonous invigorators. If one-half
of what the doctors are saying all over the country is
true, there may soon be a greater need of a temperance reform
among the women than there ever has been among the
men. Strong drink, however, is not the monster by which
the women may be enslaved, but a strong and poisonous
drug equally baneful in its effect.
This drug is antipyrine. It is a white powder, slightly
bitter, and soluble in water. Until about a year ago it was
prescribed for fevers only, but a French medical college
recommended it for headaches and other pains and disorders,
and in this way it has gained its grasp on so many
thoughtless and nervous women.
In Chicago and many other places it is said that the
habit is gaining with alarming rapidity, for the women take
it for every ill, and cannot believe that its soothing effect
can have any evil result until the habit is thoroughly fixed
upon them. It produces different results under different
circumstances, and, like many other preparations, varies
according to the size of the dose. In large doses it has been
known to produce complete relaxation, and at the same
time a loss of reflex action, and death. In moderate or
tonic doses it often produces convulsions. Its effect as a
stimulant seems to be very much like that of quinine, and
the physicians say that they do not understand why it
should get the hold on women that it does.
The latest female vice is intoxication by naphtha. It is
not drank. The fumes of it are simply inhaled, inducing,
so the inebriates say, a particularly agreeable exhilaration.
Remedies of Alcoholism.—Without much doubt, the
best way to affect a cure is to regularly reduce one's amount
of liquor each day until the system can do without it. A
systematic decrease can always be carried through if the
will power will back it. We add also some ideas that have
been advanced by good judges: "To dispel as quickly as possible
the effects of intoxicants, one of the most effectual
remedies is a small dose of sal volatile, or volatile salts, in
a wine-glass of water—repeating the dose in half an hour.
A dish of cold broth may answer the same purpose. The
most speedy way, however, of effecting a cure, is by taking
an emetic, following it with the sal volatile and water half
an hour after."
The Russian physician and publicist Portugaloff declares
that strychnine in subcutaneous injections is an immediate
and infallible remedy for drunkenness. The craving of the
inebriate for drink is changed into positive aversion in a day,
and after a treatment of eight or ten days the patient may be
discharged. Even should the appetite return months afterward,
the first attempt to resume drinking will produce such
painful and nauseating sensations that the person will turn
away from the liquor in disgust. The strychnine is administered
by dissolving one grain in two hundred drops of
water, and injecting five drops of the solution every twenty-four
hours. Dr. Portugaloff recommends the establishment
of inebriate dispensaries in connection with police stations.
Appetite.—Happy is the man who always possesses a
good appetite; unhappy is he who does not have this precious
boon. The lack of it results largely from failure of
exercise and the excessive use of condiments. In the first
place, try to take an invigorating bath with a wet towel and
rub hard. If you cannot endure even that, use a dry towel on
the body until the friction brings the blood to the surface of
the skin. Then give the mouth a careful cleansing by rinsing
and tooth-brush. When you sit at the table, do so with
a cheerful mood, eat slowly, partake sparingly of condiments,
using salt mostly, and vinegar for an acid. Preface your
meals with a walk long enough to get up a circulation, if it
is dinner or supper hour, but do not tire yourself, and be sure
to rest the last fifteen minutes before eating.
Asphyxiation.—A practical man, conversant with cases
in which asphyxiation resulted from inhaling carbonic acid
gas, gives some valuable hints for their recovery by simple
remedies always at hand. Fresh air to restore consciousness
is the first important step. Then he gave apples, apple
juice, or vinegar, to neutralize the gas and remove it from
the stomach by eructations. Eggs broken into vinegar
mixed and swallowed made a very effective drink. After
removing the gas from the stomach, the patient was further
relieved by a cup of strong, hot coffee, which speedily restored
him to normal vigor. On two similar occasions,
where a physician was called, he administered injections of
carbonate of ammonia, and the man was ill for eight or ten
days from the effects of the medicine. A little common sense
is often better than physic.
Bathing.—We have already treated this subject to some
extent, but we recommend the careful reading of Dr. C. H.
Steele's ideas, part of which we embody here; also some
other worthy opinions on this matter, of great importance to
health.
"The use of water in the treatment of diseases dates back
to remote antiquity. Savages resort to the surf and sweat-bath,
and Hindoos and Mohammedans bathe because their
religion commands them to do so. References to the bath
may be found scattered throughout the literature of Greece,
and in Rome the magnificent buildings and lavish expenditure
devoted to the public bath show it in the highest stage
of perfection it has ever attained."
"It is only within a few years past that the domestic bath
has been accepted as a necessity. No home in England is
complete without a bath-room, and no Englishman deems
himself well unless he bathes daily. The speaker said that
a thermometer, whose use should be understood, should be
permanently attached to every bath-tub.
"Physiological Action of the Bath.—In considering
the physiological action of the bath, it is first to be accepted
that water of a temperature below that of the body abstracts
heat from the skin, which abstraction continues indefinitely,
only for a time checked by the renewed activity
of the heat centers. In a bath the temperature of which is
from 92° to 95°, the body may remain indefinitely without
any loss or gain of temperature, but after the bath a cooling
takes place, owing to increased perspirations. If the water
is between 77° and 86°, there is, after the first shock, a
positive rise in the temperature of the body. Sixty-five
degrees, and lower, may be borne for a long time."
"Nature adapts herself to the cold bath by a rapid stimulation
of heat production. All the muscles, nerves, and
organs of the body are brought into heightened activity,
and thus it is that to the healthy individual the cold bath is
invigorating. But nature has her limits, and the bath must
be discontinued while this tonic effect is felt, for the heat
centers become fatigued and give rise to a chill which may
continue for days afterward.
"The greatest agency in bathing is the stimulation of
perspiration, and this depends upon the relative dryness of
the surrounding air. Thus, in the dry vapor, or Turkish
bath, a person will easily endure 264°, and lose four pounds
per hour by perspiration. It is this rapid evaporation
from the skin that keeps the body cool. A person may
stand for some time in an oven, beside a roasting rib of
beef. But in the steam or Russian bath the perspiration is
retarded, and a temperature of 120° is hardly bearable. A
temperature of 124° may induce a rise in the temperature
of the mouth to 104° or even 107°, which is seldom reached
in a raging fever. Hence, there is an element of danger in
the Russian bath—a danger to sudden death similar to sunstroke.
This danger is much more pronounced in the hot-water
bath when perspiration ceases altogether, and the
supply of heat from the interior to the skin is excessive.
The temperature of bathing water should not exceed 104°,
and this hot bath should not be endured more than fifteen
minutes. Even then it is likely to be followed by depression
and weakness." "The circulation being quickened, the
cold bath acts as a good blood purifier, washing away the
poisons of the body through the channels of the veins. In
case of persons troubled with an excess of fat, the bath
must be accompanied by massage, banting, and a liberal indulgence
in outdoor exercise. In the hot bath there is this
same waste of tissue, but no tonic effects, and it is invariably
accompanied with loss of energy and vitality. But the
action of the bath upon the skin is no less beneficial than
upon the interior of the body. It favors the excretory
action of the skin, thus purifying it. The millions of dead
scales, kept to the skin by the clothing, and the cementing
effect of the oil, are washed away, thus relieving the skin,
which is the great sewerage system of the body. The work
of the lungs and kidneys is thus lessened, and the danger of
consumption and Bright's disease, which may be caused by
uncleanness, reduced."
"Effects of Sea Bathing.—Sea bathing is much more
tonic than all other kinds, and the reason is simple. The
salt has a slightly irritating effect on the skin, which is very
beneficial. Besides, sea bathing is always accompanied by
the best of exercise, by relaxation and freedom from the
ordinary cares of life, by a change of climate and scene.
The beating of the waves against the body also has an exhilarating
effect. The bath in the sea should be taken
about three hours after breakfast. There are three stages
experienced in the cold bath—first, that of depression;
second, the tonic stage; and third, the giving out of the heat-producing
powers. This is the same as the one stage of
the hot bath, and is always to be avoided as highly injurious.
"Nevertheless, the hot bath has its value. Its power to
cool the body is admitted, and it is used with effect in cases
inflammation induced by cold. The cold foot-bath is
recommended as a positive cure for cold feet."
"The practice among modern women of taking hot baths
is endangering the health of the race. In a hot bath there
is at first a feeling of oppression and violent throbbing of
the head, followed by prostration, a highly feverish condition,
and a relaxation of the entire system. In case of any
organic disease of the heart or consumption, this bath must
be carefully shunned. The hot bath belongs alone to the
province of the physician. The cold bath, on the other
hand, aside from its tonic effects, renders the body less sensitive
to changes of temperature, and in this climate is,
hence, especially valuable as a protection against catching
cold. This bath is from 68° to 75°, and should be taken in
the morning before breakfast."
"Bleeding.—A sudden and profuse flow of blood is
cause for alarm. First, decide whether the blood comes
from an artery or a vein. If from a vein, the blood is
dark, and oozes or flows evenly; if from an artery, it is
bright red, and spurts in jets. In the former case, the
bleeding may generally be stopped by binding on a hard
pad. In case of a ruptured artery, the flow of blood may
be checked by tying a twisted handkerchief, a cord, or strap,
between the wound and the heart. If the hand is cut, raise
the arm above the head and bind it tightly. In wounds
of the throat, arm-pit, or groin, caused by cuts, and in case
of any deep wound, thrust the thumb and finger into the
bottom of the wound and pinch up the part from which the
blood comes, directing the pressure against the flow. In
cuts of the lips, compress the lips between the thumb and
finger nearer the angle of the mouth than the cut itself. In
scalp wounds, make direct pressure against the bones of the
skull with the fingers, or, better, by means of a compress or
bandage."
"Nosebleed.—Full-blooded persons who are afflicted
with headache and dizziness are most subject to nosebleed.
In such cases, the bleeding should be regarded as a relief to
an overcharged system, and should not be too suddenly
stopped. To stop the bleeding, keep the patient's arms
elevated, apply cold water or ice to the base of the brain,
or inject vinegar or alum water up the nostrils with a
syringe. A thick piece of wrapping paper, placed between
the upper lip and gum, and firmly pressed, will usually
arrest the flow. It acts by compressing the arteries which
supply the Sneiderian membrane. Try plugging with cotton,
or a strip of soft muslin, gently pushed up the nostrils,
thus causing the blood to clot about the plug. If these
remedies fail, the case should have the attention of a physician."
Brain Worry.—"After a good spell of hard work, the
brain worker is often tormented by finding it difficult, all
at once, to turn off the steam. His work-day thoughts
will intrude themselves in spite of every effort to keep them
out. Thackeray generally succeeded in exorcising the
creatures he had been calling into existence, by the simple
expedient of turning over the leaves of a dictionary. A
great lawyer was in the habit, in similar circumstances, of
plunging into a cold bath, and averred that a person never
took out of cold water the same ideas that he took into it.
Perhaps the best mental corrective of this condition is to
employ the mind for a short time in a direction most contrasted
to that in which it has been overworked. During
excessive labor of the brain, there is an increased flow of
blood to the working organ. If this condition of distention
is long continued, the vessels are apt to lose the power of
contracting when mental activity is diminished. Hence
arises the impossibility of fulfilling the physical conditions
of sleep, the most important of which is the diminution of
the flow of blood to the brain. It is certain enough that
the continued deprivation of any considerable part of the
normal amount of sleep will be seriously detrimental to
health. Dr. Hammond, in his work on sleep, mentions the
case of a literary man in America who for nearly a year
restricted his rest to four hours a day, and frequently less.
At the end of that time, the overtasking of his mental
powers was manifested in a curious way. He told the physician
that, though still able to maintain a connected line of
reasoning, he found that as soon as he attempted to record
his ideas on paper, the composition turned out to be simply
a tissue of arrant nonsense. When in the act of writing,
his thoughts flowed so rapidly that he was not conscious of
the disconnected nature of what he was writing, but as
soon as he stopped to read it over, he was aware how completely
he had misrepresented his conceptions."
Breathing.—In each respiration an adult inhales one
pint of air.
A man respires 16 to 20 times a minute, or 20,000 times
a day; a child, 25 to 35 times a minute.
While standing, the adult respiration is 22; while lying,
13.
The superficial surface of the lungs, i. e., of their alveolar
spaces, is 200 square yards. The amount of air inspired in
24 hours is about 2,500 gallons.
Two-thirds of the oxygen absorbed in 24 hours is absorbed
during the night hours, from 6 p. m. to 6 a. m.
Three-fifths of the total carbonic acid is thrown off in the
day-time.
The pulmonary surface gives off about 5 fluidounces of
water daily in the state of vapor.
The heart sends through the lungs 192 gallons of blood
hourly, or 4,608 gallons daily. The duration of inspiration
is five-twelfths, of expiration seven-twelfths, of the whole
respiratory act; but during sleep, inspiration occupies ten-twelfths
of the respiratory period.
There are two good rules to follow given by William
Blaikie:—
"1. To hold the body erect, whether standing, sitting, or
walking, and breathe deeply. This habit gives the lungs
and digestive organs free play. More oxygen is taken into
the blood, and the food is more readily digested and
assimilated. 2. To fill the lungs full at frequent intervals,
holding the air in the chest as long as is comfortable. This
practice will soon improve a disturbed circulation."
Bright's Disease.—Bright's disease is a disorder of the
kidneys which causes those organs to secrete albumen in the
urine, while they fail to extract from the blood the urea, or
effete matter, which they should take up from that fluid.
Urea in the blood operates as a poison, and when accumulated
in large quantities, produces drowsiness, convulsions,
and apoplexy. Intemperance is a fruitful source of
Bright's disease, because excessive drinking tends peculiarly
to the degeneration of the kidneys. The best remedy we
know, or have ever seen tested, is Bethesda water, from
Waukesha Springs, Wis. It should be natural, without
gas; a quart per day will not be too much for an adult.
Bruises.—If the skin is not broken, the best thing for a
bruise, or black and blue spot, as they are often termed, is
a piece of pure copper. It should be thin enough to shape
with the fingers just the curvature or angle of the portion
of the body bruised. In applying it, be very gentle at first,
for if it be a finger nail you desire to preserve, on first application
it will give you quite a severe shock, but by relieving
it every second or two, inside of 5 minutes the pain
will cease, and no black spot will follow. If the skin be
broken, and the blood has ceased to flow, and you desire to
use this remedy, first paste a piece of unprinted newspaper
over the broken part, and then proceed as above; but in
no case ever place a piece of copper on a broken part of
the skin without the above precaution.
Burns.—A correspondent of the Philadelphia Record
vouches for the wonderful efficacy of the common cat-tail
as a remedy for burns. He says: "Take the down, and
with just enough lard to hold it together, make a plaster
and lay upon any burn, and it soothes and heals so soon
that it seems a miracle. Put upon a fresh burn, and in less
than half an hour the smart is gone; if it is an old burn,
the healing will commence in twenty-four hours. 'Cat-tail'
is also the Indian remedy for scrofulous sores or ulcers.
Age does not destroy its healing virtues. It can be laid
away and kept for years without losing any of its remedial
properties." Burns should be bathed with alcohol or turpentine
and afterwards with lime-water and sweet-oil, but
never with cold water. Soft soap or apple butter are
equally excellent for burns.
Cancer.—It is well proved that cancer cannot be successfully
removed by use of the knife. Surgeon John
McFarlane, of Glasgow, mentions the cutting out of eighty-six
cancers without effecting a single cure. For those who
are troubled we would say that there have been and there
are remedies with permanent effects. The writer knows of
a female physician in this city who has been very successful
in achieving lasting cures in numerous authenticated
instances.
Chewing Gum and Other Substances.—Regular
chewing outside of meal hours of any substance is injurious.
It unnecessarily excites the salivary glands, the strength of
which should be reserved for eating. Do not chew the ends
of your finger nails. Little pieces of the nails may be swallowed,
which at some time—possibly quite remote—may
cause you great pain, and even death. This has occurred.
It has also been found by opticians and doctors that hardly
anything will affect the eyes harmfully quicker than gum-chewing.
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 passages of cholera virus through the blood of
animals. After each of these passages, 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 classes 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 class. 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 superstition. 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 hardships
is able to endure exposure without injury, while one unaccustomed
to like experience quickly succumbs. Air-tight
houses, close and unventilated, overheated rooms, even the
quantity 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 institution with many children: "There
is nothing more irritable to a cough than a cough. For
some time I had been so fully assured 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 institution.
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 title 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 résumé 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 illustrated 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 shores, 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 illustrated 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 prone 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.
4. Constant and regular singing with proper care and not
tiring is excellent for consumptive lungs, which should be
done in well-ventilated rooms.
5. Be out in the open air as much as possible, and breathe
through the nose entirely. Continually exercise the lungs
by drawing in long breaths.
6. If possible try fumes of hydrofluoric acid. In glass
factories if workmen are rendered consumptive by stooping
over the grinding machinery, they usually find great
benefit by being allowed to work in the room with the
glass etchers, where so much hydrofluoric acid is employed.
7. Buttermilk is well recommended.
8. Consumptive and bronchial troubles in women are
often due to irregularity of dress about the throat and
lungs. There is danger from wearing décolléte costumes.
So regular have we been in our habits that the throwing
off of a 1-oz. neck-tie for half an hour in the open air will
give us a cold with the thermometer at 70% Fahr.
The ocean cure is well set forth in the following, which
represents the advantages of a long sea voyage:—
1. Perfect rest and quiet, and complete removal from
and change of ordinary occupation and way of life; a very
thorough change of scene, and perfect and enforced rest
from both mental and physical labor.
2. The life in the open air and the great amount of sunshine
to be enjoyed; it is quite possible, under favorable
circumstances, to pass fifteen hours daily in the open air;
and whenever it is possible the traveler by sea is certain to
endeavor to escape from the close and sometimes unpleasant
atmosphere of a small cabin, into the pure air to be
found on deck.
3. The great purity of the air at sea, and its entire freedom
from organic dust and other impurities. In this respect
it has an advantage over the air of an open country,
for the latter is apt to contain the pollen of grasses and
other plants, which, in some persons, excites hay fever and
asthma. The air of the cabins may, of course, be contaminated,
but the air of the open sea is probably the purest to
be found anywhere.
4. The presence in the sea air of a large amount of
ozone, as well as particles of saline matter, more particularly
in stormy weather, from the sea spray, and these may
exercise a beneficial effect in certain throat and pulmonary
affections on the respiratory mucous membrane.
5. The great equability of the temperature at sea. This
refers chiefly to the daily variations, which rarely exceed
four or five degrees Fahr. It must be noted that in a long
sea voyage very considerable variations of temperature are
encountered, and in a swift steamer the transitions are somewhat
sudden.
6. The great humidity of the atmosphere and the high
barometric pressure, which are considered to exercise a useful
sedative influence on certain constitutions. It is said
that the temperature of the body averages one degree
Fahr. less on account of this sedative effect. The exhilarating
and tonic effect of rapid motion through the air; for
by the continuous progress of the ship the sea breezes are
constantly blowing over it, and the passengers are borne
through the rapidly-moving air without any exertion of
their own. The influence of these currents of air on the
surface of the body is, no doubt, important, acting as a
stimulant and a tonic, increasing evaporation from the skin,
and imparting tone to the superficial blood-vessels.
We now give our own cure, which we claim is of great
value, at least it is worth trying, for it cured the author of
consumption of twenty years' standing in one year. This
disease can be cured by "cold packing" the lungs and
throat, and following the rules in general for health stated
in the first part of this work. You must understand a
cold compress or pack, otherwise you are likely to increase
the malady and hasten your death. Some persons cannot
warm one ounce of cold water in twenty-four hours. Such
we advise to go very slowly. First adopt the formulæ for
cleanliness and regularity already given. Then when a
little more blood is infused through the system and hence
more heat exists, commence the cold pack. Use simply a
moistened cambric handkerchief, placed upon the lungs;
envelop with at least two thicknesses of linen and one of
flannel; wrap up warm and go to bed. Do not attempt
to cold pack any part of your body and then expose it to a
moving atmosphere. After one week you can increase the
moisture of the pack at least 50%. Then add to the thickness
and moisture 10% each week, as long as you can succeed
in warming it and causing it to sweat that portion of
the body packed. If you should wake up in the night and
find the pack dry, remove the portion previously moistened
and retain only the dry covering, viz., the linen and flannel.
In the morning, before arising, thoroughly rub the lungs
with a dry linen towel. This, then, is all that is necessary
to get rid of this incurable (?) disease, if you will only
follow the rules already given for health, happiness, and
longevity.
Convulsions, Fits.—When a child has a convulsion,
or what is commonly called "a fit," attention should be given
to the urinary secretion at once. If there is suppression of
urine, the child should be put into a warm bath and made
to sweat as speedily as possible. In many cases in which
children die from a succession of convulsions, the real cause
of death is suppression of urine (a fact which is probably
not so generally known as it should be), so that the
child really dies of poisoning through the retention of the
urinary secretion. When a child is subject to attacks of
this character, care should be taken to dress it warmly in
flannels, so as to keep up a degree of perspiration most of
the time, and hot baths should be administered frequently.
Give a glass of Bethesda water from three to four times a
day, and the disease will disappear.
Corns and Bunions are caused by tight, ill-fitting
boots and shoes. The way of preventing them is, therefore,
manifest. Thrusting the toe into a lemon, to be kept on over
night, will make the removal of a corn easy. Two or three
applications will suffice for the worst cases. Soft corns may
be relieved by dissolving a piece of ammonia, the size of
three peas, in an ounce of water, and applying the solution
as hot as can be borne. It is beneficial to place blank
newspaper between the toes. That will keep them from
scalding, and hence softening, so that corns will easily form.
We have already referred to this paper method for cold
feet. Paper is a non-conductor and thus has the proper
effect.
Croup.—The following prescription, to be used as a
gargle, is not only excellent for croup, but will absolutely
keep anyone from choking to death from phlegm in the
throat, no matter what the cause, so long as they have any
portion of a lung left. It consists of the yolks of two eggs
thoroughly beaten, in half a pint of good cider vinegar,
adding two tablespoonfuls of honey. I have known two
different patients, given up by their physicians, to rally in
thirty minutes under the above treatment, and finally get
well.
Diabetes.—A prominent French physician advocates a
coffee remedy. After having continued to use the remedy
for upward of a third of a century in many hundreds of
cases, he again appeals to the profession to give it a trial in
those cases of liver and kidney troubles which have resisted
all other treatment. His habit is to place twenty-five
grammes, or about three drachms, of the green berries (he
prefers a mixture of three parts of Mocha with one part
each of Martinique and Isle de Bourbon coffee) in a tumbler
of cold water, and let them infuse over night. The
infusion, after straining or filtering, is to be taken on an
empty stomach the first thing after getting up in the morning.
He cites many cases of renal and hepatic colics, diabetes,
migraine, etc., which, although rebellious to all other
treatments for years, soon yielded to the green coffee infusion.
It is worth a trial at any rate.
Bethesda water from the Wakeshaw Springs, in Wisconsin,
will cure three out of every five cases of diabetes and
help the other two. Drink it as you would any good
water.
Diphtheria.—Diphtheria is a malignant and very infectious
disease. It may often be communicated by a kiss,
a touch of the hand, or by drinking out of the same cup
with the sick person. The mildest case should be carefully
isolated. In the family this may sometimes be done by removing
the patient to an upper room, which can be well
ventilated by means of windows and an open fire. The
contagion of diphtheria is not carried far by the atmosphere;
hence, by strict attention to cleanliness and ventilation, it
may be quite possible to isolate a case even under the family
roof. The disease is characterized by soreness of the throat,
pain in swallowing, apoplectic, epileptic, hysterical, or the
result of poisoning. Put a cork between the patient's teeth,
that the tongue may not be bitten. Loosen the clothing,
have plenty of fresh air, and do not restrain the movements
of the patient, except to prevent injury or bruising.
Rub the temples with cologne or spirits, and, as soon as the
patient can swallow, give a little cold brandy and water.
Dr. W. A. Scott, of Iowa, where, in the latter part of 1889,
diphtheria raged, found a valuable and effective remedy for
this dread disease. The recipe can be filled at any drug
store, and used by any person without danger:—
Take ten grains of permanganate of potassium and mix
with one ounce of cold water. As soon as dissolved, it must
be applied with a rag or sponge mop or swab to the whitish
places in the tonsils, and other parts that have the diphtheria
membrane on them. Do this very gently, but thoroughly,
every three hours until better; then every six
hours until well. It does not give pain, but is rather nauseous
to the taste.
If the tongue is coated white, mix one drachm of hyposulphite
of soda and five drops oil of sassafras in four ounces
of syrup made of sugar and hot water, and give a teaspoonful
every 1 to 3 hours, as needed, when awake.
If the tongue is not coated white, I mix 20 drops of tincture
of phytolacca in four ounces of cold water and give a
teaspoonful every 1 to 3 hours, as needed, when awake.
(The phytolacca is the common poke-root of the South, and
as it loses its strength by drying and age, the tincture should
be from the fresh root, or it is worthless.)
It is well to apply a little sweet-oil or cosmoline to the
outside of the throat to protect from the action of the air,
as the patient must be protected from all danger of getting
chilled.
In the beginning of the disease, in mild cases, the above
solution of permanganate of potassium is all I use, and all
that is needed, as the disease is local at first, but rapidly
affects the whole system when seated. In the stinking form
of diphtheria this solution soon destroys all smell, and in
every case destroys the diphtheria membrane without leaving
any bad effect.
M. Roulin, of France, has successfully treated 22 cases
of diphtheria with carbolic acid as an antiseptic. Nasal
douches, consisting of three teaspoonfuls of the crude acid
in a quart of water, were employed every hour by means of
the ordinary irrigator. Tonics were given internally.
Dr. Deriker, of St. Petersburg, who is the head physician
of the Children's Hospital, and has treated no less than
2,000 cases of diphtheria, and tried all remedies, both internal
and external, has found the following a certain cure
for the disease: As soon as the white spots appear on the
tonsils he gives a laxative, usually senna tea. When the
purgative effect has ceased, he gives cold drinks acidulated
with lemons, limes, or hydrochloric acid, and every two
hours a gargle composed of lime-water and milk. Hot
milk was also given as a drink, and the throat well rubbed
with spirits of turpentine. The Academy of Medicine in
France offered a large sum of money for a successful cure
for diphtheria, and this is said to have been it. Equal
parts of liquid tar and turpentine are put in an iron pan
and burned in the patient's room. The dense resinous
smoke gives immediate relief. The fibrinous matter soon
becomes detached and is coughed up.
Clothing.—There are some very important principles
in regard to dress:—
1. If you desire health, do not wear a belt.
2. Avoid tight lacing. Some of the most beautiful
women, including actresses, are giving up this injurious
practice.
3. Do not wear, especially in summer, the constant
black, even if in mourning. If you do someone may be
mourning you too.
4. Use woolens almost entirely for clothing—always for
under-clothing.
5. Have shoes that fit and give the feet an abundance of
room, and not high heeled, but thick soled.
6. Wear sufficiently heavy woolen under-garments so
that you will not be obliged to resort continually to overcoats.
7. In summer, use light outer garments—white flannels
and cheviots are excellent.
The Most Important Function of Under-garments.—It
is a great mistake to suppose that the material of
which a garment is made is the most important consideration
in selecting warm under-clothing. The way in which
the fabric is prepared and manufactured is of more vital
importance as regards heat or coldness of the body than
the actual material. A light garment with large meshes is
more effective against cold than a close, heavy one. Whatever
an under-vest may be made of, its real value as a protector
from cold depends upon its ability to inclose within
its meshes a certain quantity of air. This is indeed the
most important function of under-garments, viz., to encircle
the whole body with an envelope of warm air, and a vestment
that does not keep a continual layer of warm air next
to the skin is of very little use.
We advise the discarding of cotton shirts altogether and
wearing only those of flannel. The best material for an
under-vest, where the shirt worn is flannel, is silk, but by reason
of high cost it is within the reach of a comparatively
few only.
Hence woolen under-vests must be selected. They
should be large and never tight-fitting, for there must be
room for the air to circulate freely beneath them. Good
taste suggests that the outside shirt be of white flannel, and
that also must be large. Nearly all those which are on
sale in stores have collars, but for a small sum added to
the price the dealer will make the necessary changes so that
a linen collar may be worn.
With such under-clothing a man is very well protected
against sudden changes of weather, and is much less liable
to take cold than he would be with a cotton shirt on. Now,
as to chest protectors. If a man is subject to colds during
the winter he should wear a chest-protector. In order for
him to get the full benefit of it it should fit him quite snugly
at the neck and extend front and back to the belt. Dressed
in flannels, as we have recommended, with his chest well
covered by a protector, he will be as well fortified against
cold as under-clothing of a healthful sort can make him.
Dropsy.—It is not generally known that the silk on an
ear of green corn is a powerful and efficient remedy for
dropsy, for bladder troubles and diseases of the kidneys.
In the Louisville Medical News we find an account of the
medical properties of corn-silk and the cures that have
been effected by its use. The way to use it is to take two
double-handfuls of fresh corn-silk and boil in two gallons of
water until but a gallon remains. Add sugar to make a
syrup. Drink a tumblerful of this thrice daily, and it will
relieve dropsy by increasing the flow of urine. Other diseases
of the bladder and kidneys are benefited by the remedy,
which is prompt, efficient, and grateful to the stomach.
The treatment can be continued for months without danger
or inconvenience. Bethesda water is just as good, but both
together are better.
Dyspepsia.—This trouble is often the result of decomposition
of the food before it is digested. Unless this is
remedied death will ultimately follow. A good remedy is
this: Thoroughly brown some whole grain wheat, grind it
in an ordinary clean coffee-mill; eat of nothing else for the
two last meals of the day; carefully masticate it and eat
sparingly for a few days, after that ad libitum; in ten
days you will be well, if all other suggestions regarding
cleanliness are followed.
Ears.—Sapolini of Milan has described a method of his
which he states has been successfully employed in 62 cases
of deafness of old age. It consists in mopping the membrana
tympani with a weak oleaginous solution of phosphorus.
He claims that the treatment diminishes the
opacity of the membrane, increases the circulation, and improves
the hearing.
A writer in a medical journal says: "Beware of too
much quinine. It will produce a congestion of the ear and
irritation of the auditory nerve. The common habit of taking
quinine for neuralgia and other ailments without consulting
a doctor is altogether reprehensible, and may lead
to very serious results. Many cases of deafness are produced
by overdoses and long-continued use of this drug."
Aprysexie is the name Dr. Guye, of Amsterdam, chooses
for inattentiveness, and he quite singularly finds that the
nose is a cause of it. A dull boy became quick to learn
after certain tumors had been taken from the nose, and a
man who had been troubled with vertigo and buzzing in
the ears for twelve years found mental labor easy after a
like operation. In a third case a medical student was similarly
relieved. Dr. Guye supposes that these nasal troubles
affect the brain by preventing the cerebral lymph from
circulating freely.
Elixir Brown-Sequard.—The way Brown-Sequard
uses this medicine is entirely successful. Do not think because
others have failed that the principle is wrong. Most
experimenters, first, are not careful in getting perfectly
healthy specimens of animals from whose vitals the elixir is
made, while, secondly, they expose the liquid and allow it to
become filled or impregnated with microbes and various foreign
elements.
The process of administration is thus described:—
The syringe punctures the cuticle, or scarf-skin, and the
cutis, or true skin, and then enters the subcutaneous or
cellular tissue which covers the muscles, or flesh. Through
all the tissues of the body run the lymphatics, which convey
the injected matter to the lymph channels, these in turn to
the veins, and thence throughout the system. A half ounce
of the fluid will be distributed in from one to three hours.
Sometimes the subject might feel the stimulus very quickly,
and in some cases hours might elapse before any effect was
felt. The human system is able to absorb almost an unlimited
amount of this liquid, if administered properly and
if pure.
Epidemics.—The history of severe plagues is remarkable.
The first great pestilence in a comparatively civilized
nation was the one at Athens about 400 B. C. On account
of being shut up by the Spartans in their crowded city the
Athenians had this terrible experience. It carried off
thousands—nearly two-thirds of the population. In the
reign of the Emperor Justinian no less than 100,000,000
inhabitants died in thirty years from a pestilence that
swept from Persia to Gaul. Later, in the fourteenth century,
the plague of beautiful Florence in Italy killed 80,000
people in six months. In 1665-66 London was a
vast pest-house and during September of 1666 the weekly
death rate reached the number of 8,000. In America the
sunny South has witnessed the blasting effects of yellow
fever during the last fifteen years. In 1878, Florida had
2,649 deaths, and New Orleans 3,977 from yellow fever.
Fully 33% of those attacked succumbed. In the same
year 4,200 people died of it at Memphis. The last important
run of this epidemic was in 1888, at Jacksonville and
Decatur. There the deaths averaged 10% of those attacked.
The duration of the infection stages of various diseases is
thus given by Dr. T. F. Pearse, an English physician: Measles,
from the 2d day of the disease for 3 weeks; small-pox,
from the 1st day for 4 weeks; scarlet fever, from the 4th
day for 7 weeks; mumps, from the 2d day for 3 weeks;
diphtheria, from the 1st day for 3 weeks. The incubation
periods, or intervals occurring between exposure to infection
and the first symptoms, are as follows: Whooping-cough, 14
days; mumps, 18 days; measles, 10 days; small-pox, 12
days; scarlet fever, 3 days; diphtheria, 14 days.
Scarlet fever is at its minimum from January to May,
and at its maximum in October and November. Diphtheria
is more evenly distributed through the year, and is
most dangerous a little later than scarlet fever. Measles
and whooping-cough seem to be somewhat aggravated by
cold weather, but are most fatal in May and June. Hot
weather is adverse to small-pox, and favorable to disorders
of the bowels, particularly in children.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEASLES AND SMALL-POX.—At
the outset of a popular eruption it is often difficult to
decide whether the case is one of measles or of small-pox.
M. Grisol's method of diagnosis is as follows (Medical Times):
"If, upon stretching a portion of the skin, the papule becomes
impalpable to the touch, the eruption is caused by
measles; if, on the contrary, the papule is still felt when the
skin is drawn out, the eruption is the result of small-pox."
Erysipelas.—It has long been known that an attack
of erysipelas exerts a remarkable influence upon other diseases,
and the attempt has been made to cure more serious
maladies by deliberately inoculating the patient with the
virus of erysipelas. In a recent case in Norway, the
growth of a cancer was greatly retarded by this means, and
life was probably prolonged a few weeks or even months,
though no cure was effected.
Exercise.—Ben. Hogan, the reformed pugilist, has advanced
some practical ideas:—
"In every city there are thousands of rich men and women
who are ready to commit suicide because of ill-health.
'What is wealth without health?' they say. 'Nothing,' I
should say; but I do say that, while every man cannot
amass wealth, every man can secure good health. I know
a man who owns a fine horse. He employs two men to
take care of that horse and keep him in condition. He is
exercised, sponged, and blanketed daily. Does the owner
himself have a man to take care of him?—No. He possibly
bathes once a week. He arises at 8 o'clock in the
morning, throws his breakfast down without masticating it,
and madly rushes off to his business. At noon he rushes
into a restaurant and eats his dinner in five minutes. On
he goes, hiring men to look after the health of his horse,
but never stops to think of his own body and its needs.
"A man cannot digest his food unless he eats carefully.
A meal should never be eaten in less than one hour. Gladstone
says he bites each piece of meat he puts into his mouth
twenty times before he swallows it, and that isn't too often.
The men of to-day who throw their food into their stomach
are physical wrecks in fifteen years. The American doctor
studies medicine when he should study nature; instead of
trying to prevent disease, they try to cure. There are many
people who do not take a bath in two years and they prematurely
die from poisoning. The poison that accumulates
under the first layer of skin breeds disease and sooner or
later must come death.
"There are thousands of people dying of consumption
who haven't sense enough to know that they can throw it
off. No man who is lazy can become healthy, for the best
way to bring health is by physical development. I have
seen thousands of young men apparently on the verge of the
grave grow strong by following this daily routine: When
you get up in the morning rub yourself with a rough towel
until the blood is in circulation, and then take a cold bath.
Never take a cold bath without getting the blood in circulation,
for it is dangerous. After the bath rub the flesh for
three-quarters of an hour. Then take a cup of tea and eat
some toast, and start out for a half hour's walk. Don't
plod slowly along the streets, but walk as rapidly as your
legs will carry you. When you return you are ready for
breakfast. Eat rice, mutton chops, and toast, and drink tea.
If you are a business man you are ready for business, but if
you are training for an athlete you will again start upon
the walk and keep it up all day. A man under training is
required to walk at least forty miles every day. When he
returns from his walk he is put under blankets until he has
cooled, and then again put in the bath-tub. He is taken
out and rubbed or manipulated. Then he is ready for dinner.
The athlete or pugilist would be required to eat raw
ham or raw steak without salt or pepper. Pugilists are not
allowed to use pepper, because it heats the blood. For men
who are not undergoing training for pugilists I would advise
a dinner on rare beef, rice, and other vegetables cooked
dry."
Eyes.—A writer in Cassell's Magazine gives the following
rules for the use and care of the eyes:—
"1. Sit erect in your chair when reading, and as erect
when writing as possible. If you bend downward you not
only gorge the eyes with blood, but the brain as well, and
both suffer. The same rule should apply to the use of the
microscope. Get one that will enable you to look at things
horizontally, not always vertically.
"2. Have a reading-lamp for night use. N. B.—In
reading the light should be on the book or paper and the
eyes in the shade. If you have no reading-lamp, turn your
back to the light and you may read without danger to your
eyes.
"3. Hold the book at your focus; if that begins to get
far away use spectacles.
"4. Avoid reading by the flickering light of the fire.
"5. Avoid straining the eyes by reading in the gloaming.
"6. Reading in bed is injurious as a rule. It must be
admitted, however, that in cases of sleeplessness, when the
mind is inclined to ramble over a thousand thoughts a minute,
reading steadies the thoughts and conduces to sleep.
"7. Do not read much in a railway carriage. I myself
always do, however, only in a good light, and I invariably
carry a good reading-lamp to hang on behind me. Thousands
of people would travel by night rather than by day
if the companies could only see their way to the exclusive
use of the electric light.
"8. Authors should have black-ruled paper instead of
blue, and should never strain the eyes by reading too fine
types.
"9. The bedroom blinds should be red or gray, and the
head of the bed should be toward the window.
"10. Those ladies who not only write but sew should not
attempt the black seam by night.
"11. When you come to an age that suggests the wearing
of spectacles, let no false modesty prevent you from getting
a pair. If you have only one eye, an eye-glass will do;
otherwise it is folly.
"12. Go to the wisest and best optician you know of and
state your wants and your case plainly, and be assured you
will be properly fitted.
"13. Remember that bad spectacles are most injurious to
the eyes, and that good and well-chosen ones are a decided
luxury.
"14. Get a pair for reading with, and if necessary a long-distance
pair for use outdoors."
Further rules are:—
Avoid all sudden changes between light and darkness.
Never begin to read, write, or sew for several minutes
after coming from darkness to a bright light.
Never read by twilight or moonlight, or on dark, cloudy
days.
When reading, it is best to let the light fall from above
obliquely over the left shoulder.
Do not use the eye-sight by light so scant that it requires
an effort to discriminate.
The moment you are instinctively prompted to rub your
eyes that moment stop using them.
If the eyelids are glued together on waking up do not
forcibly open them, but apply saliva with the finger. It is
the speediest diluent in the world; then wash your eyes
and face in warm water.
In the selection of books or pamphlets see that the paper
is of a slight orange tint; this shade is the most pleasant
for the eye to look upon.
The following is recommended as an efficient means of
removing particles from the eye: Make a loop by doubling
a horse hair; raise the lid of the eye in which is the foreign
particle; slip the loop over it, and placing the lid in contact
with the eyeball, withdraw the loop, and the particle
will be drawn out with it.
An old locomotive engineer gives the following as an infallible
method to eradicate any foreign substance from the
eye, viz., close the eyes, and rub gently from right to left
with a circular motion the well eye.
Food.—Of all the fruits we are blest with, the peach is
the most digestible. There is nothing more palatable,
wholesome, and medicinal than good, ripe peaches. They
should be ripe but not overripe and half rotten; and of this
kind they may make a part of either meal, or be eaten between
meals; but it is better to make them a part of the
regular meals, says Hall's Journal of Health, a medical authority.
It is a mistaken idea that no fruit should be eaten
at breakfast. It would be far better if our people would
eat less bacon and grease at breakfast and more fruit. In
the morning there is an arid state of the secretions, and
nothing is so well calculated to correct this as cooling, subacid
fruits, such as peaches, apples, etc. The apple is one
of the best of fruits. Baked or stewed apples will generally
agree with the most delicate stomach, and are an excellent
medicine in many cases of sickness. Green or half-ripe
apples stewed and sweetened are pleasant to the taste, cooling,
nourishing, and laxative, far superior, in many cases, to
the abominable doses of salts and oil usually given in fever
and other diseases. Raw apples and dried apples stewed
are better for constipation than liver pills. Oranges are
very acceptable to most stomachs, having all the advantages
of the acid alluded to; but the orange juice alone
should be taken, rejecting the pulp. The same may be
said of lemonade, pomegranates, and all that class. Lemonade
is the best drink in fevers, and when thickened with
sugar is better than syrup of squills and other nauseants in
many cases of cough. Tomatoes act on the liver and bowels,
and are much more pleasant and safe than blue mass
and "liver regulators." The juice should be used alone,
rejecting the skins. The small-seeded fruits, such as blackberries,
figs, raspberries, currants, and strawberries, may be
classed among the best foods and medicines. The sugar in
them is nutritious, the acid is cooling and purifying, and the
seeds are laxative. We would be much the gainers if we
would look more to our orchards and gardens for our medicines
and less to our drug stores. To cure fever or act on the
kidneys no febrifuge or diuretic is superior to water-melon,
which may, with very few exceptions, be taken in sickness
and health in almost unlimited quantities, not only without
injury but with positive benefit. But in using them the
water or juice should be taken, excluding the pulp, and the
melon should be ripe and fresh, but not overripe and stale.
While, undeniably, a mixed diet is the best for man, there is
a mistaken notion, which prevails to a great extent, that
meat should largely enter into the same. As a consequence,
much more is eaten than is needed or can properly be disposed
of in the system. Never eat meat oftener than once a
day, and very sparingly in summer. Men of sedentary
habits might with safety for several days at a time during
that season live on vegetables, fruits, milk, breadstuffs, and
foods of like character, which are easy of digestion. For
those who have good reason to believe that their "kidneys
are weak," a diet largely made up of meat is ill-advised.
Those organs are intimately concerned in its disposal in the
system, and hence are overtasked if it is taken in too great
a quantity.
Reasons Why a Strictly Vegetable Diet Is to Be Preferred
to Animal Food.—The food which is most enjoyed, says a
writer in Longman's Magazine, is the food we call bread
and fruit. In my long medical career, I have rarely
known an instance in which a child has not preferred fruit
to animal food. I have been many times called upon to
treat children for stomachic disorders induced by pressing
upon them animal to the exclusion of fruit diet, and have
seen the best results occur from the practice of reverting to
the use of fruit in the dietary. I say it without the least
prejudice, as a lesson learned from simple experience, that
the most natural diet for the young, after the natural milk
diet, is fruit and whole-meal bread, with milk and water for
drink. The desire for this same mode of sustenance is
often continued into after years, as if the resort to flesh were
a forced and artificial feeding, which required long and
persistent habit to establish as a permanency as a part of the
system of every-day life. How strongly this preference
taste for fruit over animal food prevails is shown by the
simple fact of the retention of those foods in the mouth.
Fruit is retained, to be tasted and relished. Animal food,
to use a common phrase, is "bolted." There is a natural
desire to retain the delicious fruit for full mastication;
there is no such desire, except in the trained gormand, for
the retention of animal substance. One further fact which
I have observed—and that too often to discard it—as a fact
of great moment, is that when a person of mature years
has for a time given up voluntarily the use of animal food
in favor of vegetable, the sense of repugnance to animal
food is soon so markedly developed that a return to it is
overcome with the utmost difficulty. Neither is this a
mere fancy or fad peculiar to sensitive men or oversentimental
women. I have been surprised to see it manifested
in men who are the very reverse of sentimental, and who
were, in fact, quite ashamed to admit themselves guilty of
any such weakness. I have heard those who have gone
over from a mixed diet of animal and vegetable food to a
poor vegetable diet speak of feeling low under the new system,
and declare that they must needs give it up in consequence;
but I have found even these (without exception)
declare that they infinitely preferred the simpler, purer, and,
as it seemed to them, more natural food plucked from the
prime source of food, untainted by its passage through another
animal body.
There are thirty vegetarian restaurants in London, and
a vegetarian hotel is the latest move in the right direction.
The time required to digest different kinds of food:—
| Hours |
| Roasted pork | 5.15 |
| Salt beef (boil'd) | 4.15 |
| Veal (boiled) | 4.00 |
| Boiled hens | 4.00 |
| Roasted mutton | 3.15 |
| Boiled beef | 3.30 |
| Roasted beef | 3.00 |
| Raw oysters | 2.45 |
| Roasted turkey | 2.30 |
| Boiled milk | 2.00 |
| Boiled codfish | 2.00 |
| Venison steak | 1.35 |
| Trout (broiled) | 1.30 |
| Tripe | 1.00 |
| Pig's feet | 1.00 |
| Eggs (hard boil'd) | 3.30 to 5.30 |
| Eggs (soft boil'd) | 3.00 |
The above is taken from Beaumont's "Experiments on
Digestion." Dalton comments on these observations as follows:
"These results would not always be precisely the
same for different persons, since there are variations in this
respect according to age and temperament. Thus, in most
instances, mutton would probably be equally digestible with
beef, or perhaps more so; and milk, which in some persons
is easily digested, in others is disposed of with considerable
difficulty. But as a general rule, the comparative digestibility
of different substances is no doubt correctly expressed
by the above list."
To Ascertain Pure Milk.—Take an extra quart of milk
any day from your milkman and put it in a glass jar, an
ordinary fruit-jar will do; set it away and await results.
The proportion of cream on top shows the richness of the
milk. Let it alone until it turns to clabber, and if there is
any water in it, it will appear between the cream and the
clabber. After fermentation sets in, the water will sink to
the bottom. If there has been no water put into the milk,
none will show. By trying milk from different milkmen,
you can readily see which is the best.
We will add under food that eggs should be kept in oak
or porcelain receptacles, not in pine boxes, as they partake
of the odor of the pine.
Freckles.—A young lady of St. Louis says: "I accidentally
discovered a sovereign remedy a couple of years
ago, which costs next to nothing. One day the plumber
shut our water off, and I could get none in which to wash
my face. I was fearfully soiled, and, looking out of the
window just then, I saw a friend approaching to call on
me. Glancing about me, I noticed half a water-melon from
which the meat had been removed some time before. It was
partly filled with juice, and I hastily washed my face in it.
The result was so soothing that I repeatedly washed my
face in that manner. Judge of my astonishment a few days
later on seeing that there was not a freckle left on my face."
Gargle.—An excellent gargle for general use is:—
Chloras Potass., 3 ounces.
Tannin, 2 drachms.
Dissolve one teaspoonful in half a pint of water, which
will keep for several days. For bronchial trouble or bleeding
at the lungs, gargle the throat often; but for general
cleanliness, gargle a little every morning; for catarrh, not
only gargle but snuff some up the nose.
Hair.—To prevent hair from falling out, headache, neuralgia,
brain fever, etc., the hair should be worn comparatively
short by both sexes, washed and dried every day. To
preserve the hair this is a good recipe: Take a teaspoonful
of dried sage; boil it in a quart of water for twenty
minutes. Strain it off and add a piece of borax the size of
an English walnut; pulverize the borax. Put the sage
tea, when cold, into a quart bottle; add the borax; shake
well together and put in a cool place. Brush the hair
thoroughly and rub and wash well on the head with the
hand; then, after a good hard rubbing, brush the hair well
before a fire, so that it will become perfectly dry. Never
use a fine-tooth comb, as it irritates the skin, and consequently
inflames the roots of the hair.
Headache.—The causes are: "Overstudy, overwork
in-doors, neglect of the bath, want of fresh air in bedrooms,
nervousness, however induced; want of abundant skin-exciting
exercise, the excitement inseparable from a fashionable
life, neglect of the ordinary rules that conduce to
health, overindulgence in food, especially of a stimulating
character, weakness or debility of body, however
produced (this can only be remedied by proper nutriment),
work or study in-doors, carried on in an unnatural or
cramped position of the body. Literary men and women
ought to do most of their work at a standing desk, lying
down now and then to ease the brain and heart, and permit
ideas to flow. They should work out-of-doors in fine
weather—with their feet resting on a board, not on the
earth—and under canvas in wet weather. It is surprising
the good this simple advice, if followed, can effect.
Health Beverages.—Lemons make the best beverage.
They are very healthy and good, not only for allaying the
thirst, but will cure a multitude of disorders. The juice of
the lemon contains citric acid. Acids, as a rule, decrease
the acid secretion of the body and increase the alkaline.
Citric acid, which is the acid of lemons and oranges, for instance,
will diminish the secretions of gastric juice, but increases
very materially the secretion of saliva. The very
thought of a lemon is sufficient to make the mouth water.
Thirst in fevers is not always due to lack of water in the
blood. It may be due in part to a lack of the secretion of
the saliva. When the mouth is parched and dry, the acid
will increase the saliva. When acid is given for the relief
of dyspepsia it should be taken before eating. Lemon
juice drank before meals will be found very advantageous
as a preventive of heart-burn.
Drinks for the Voice.—Tea, coffee, and cocoa are three
admissible drinks, but none in excess. For the voice
cocoa is the most beneficial. It should never be made too
strong, and those cocoas are the best that have been deprived
of their oil. A cup of thin cocoa, just warm, is
more to be recommended between the exertions of singing
than any alcoholic beverage. Tea must not be taken too
strong, nor when it has drawn too long, for tea then becomes
acid, and has a bad influence on the mucous membrane
that lines the throat. There is always a dry sensation
after having taken a cup of tea that has been allowed
to draw too long. A vocalist had better do without sugar
in tea and only take milk with it.
Hernia or Rupture.—A swelling suddenly appearing
in the abdomen, and especially in the groin, may be recognized
as a rupture, particularly if it puffs out, or grows
larger when the patient breathes or coughs violently. If,
for any reason, the services of a physician cannot be immediately
secured, the patient should lie down on his back,
draw up his knees, and, while he breathes gently, rest his
fingers upon the rupture, and press it in all directions. In
most cases the hernia will slip back when thus treated.
Then apply a bandage to hold the bowels in place long
enough for the person to have a truss fitted to him. During
this period the bowels should be kept regular.
The author of this book was cured of rupture of the
right groin completely. Though having worn trusses of
different patterns for 25 years, the one that effected a
permanent remedy was an electric elastic truss, invented
by Dr. A. T. Sherwood, 408 Stockton Street, this city.
This is no advertisement, but wishing to help others who
are afflicted, we are of the opinion that it will cure
four out of every five cases that exist, provided the patient
will pursue a careful course otherwise. My treatment required
less than 4 months.
Hiccoughing.—Sweet-flag (calamus) is claimed to be
an agent that will relieve and stop persistent hiccough in
almost any case. Chew a small piece of the root.
Hydrophobia.—Rabies, the madness produced by the
bite of mad animals, is often apprehended when there is no
danger. In case the supposed mad creature has been
killed, an important means of information is lost. If possible,
the animal should be secured and closely watched.
If he does not show signs of rabies, the bitten person need
have no fear; but, in any case, when one has been bitten,
the wound should be washed with hot water, sucked, by
some person whose mouth is free from sores, and then
thoroughly cauterized with pure nitric acid or concentrated
liquor of ammonia. The patient's strength should be sustained
by stimulants, and medical attendance should be secured
as soon as possible.
Drs. Valentine Mott and A. F. Baldwin, of the Carnegie
Laboratory; are prepared to inoculate hydrophobia patients
according to the Pasteur system. The first patient was the
seven-year-old son of Dr. Newell, of Jersey City. Dr.
Mott inoculated himself to prove the harmlessness of the
method for a healthy man.
It has been discovered recently that the juice of the maguey
plant is a certain remedy for hydrophobia.
Influenza (La Grippe).—The first symptoms of the
disease are sudden faintness, a chill, and marked prostration,
succeeded by headache and a general feeling of malaria,
followed by acute coryza, pharyngitis, and slight laryngitis,
winding up with bronchitis. Examination shows that the
patients are about as sick as persons with a bad cold. The
duration of the attack is from 2 to 10 days and upward.
An application of 2 parts turpentine to 1 of sweet-oil placed
on the chest over the lungs, and then inhale the steam from
steeped eucalyptus leaves, is the best remedy we know.
Insomnia.—The next time a sufferer finds himself
awake, say 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, instead of merely
trying to banish the painful thought and repeating numbers,
according to habit, let him revert at once to the dream
which was the cause of his awakening, and try to go on
with it. Sleep will come soon. It is stated on good authority
that this experiment, oft repeated, has never been
known to fail.
A correspondent of the Lancet gives the following
method of self-asphyxiation as an effectual remedy for insomnia
in his own case: After taking a deep inspiration, he
holds his breath till discomfort is felt, then repeats the process
a second and third time. As a rule this is enough to
procure sleep. A slight degree of asphyxia is thus relied
on as a soporific agent.
Leprosy.—An interesting report by the Hawaiian
Board of Health is in our hands; incomplete statistics give
the number of lepers in the several islands of the Hawaiian
group on January 1, 1888, as 400. A statement of the
leper population at Leper Settlement at Molokai for the
biennial period ending March 31, 1888, is 749.
The report says: "Accurate statistics as to the number
of lepers still at large in the various communities of this
country cannot be obtained." It is estimated from the best
data obtainable, that there were 644 lepers at large on the
islands on March 31, 1888.
The report says: "The rations furnished each leper at
the Leper Settlement on Molokai are abundant for the support
of any adult Hawaiian."
One of the embarrassing questions the board is called
upon to decide is, how many of the non-leper friends and
relatives of the afflicted ones shall be allowed to go and
live with them at the leper settlement as helpers, or kokuas,
the number of applicants being in excess of the demand.
The great obstacle to be overcome in carrying out the law
of segregation consists in the fact that the Hawaiians do not
appreciate and refuse to be convinced that leprosy is a communicable
disease. It is with them as if devotion to a fatal
sentimentality had bid defiance to every instinct of self-preservation.
Marriages between leprous and non-leprous individuals
are freely contracted, and the intimacies are not prevented
by the fact of potent evidences of the disease. "If
this race is ever to be rescued from the slough into which it
is sinking, the fatal lethargy that stupefies them must be dispelled,
the instinct of self-preservation must be awakened,
and it must be written upon their hearts, as with the point of
a diamond, that to voluntarily contaminate one's self with
leprosy is a crime. In spite of a number of claims to the
contrary, we believe it safe to say that no one has been
able to prove, to the satisfaction of the medical profession,
who very rightly demand full proof in such cases, that a
single unmistakable case of this disease has been definitely
cured." Says the report: "It is necessary always to bear
in mind that the symptoms of leprosy, like those of some
other diseases, have a way of receding or entirely disappearing
for a time, only to show themselves again when
least expected."
Government physicians generally attribute the causes
which are checking the increase of the Hawaiian population
to be leprosy; also the indolent and easy nature of the
natives, which causes them to rest content, provided they can
obtain the bare necessities of life. They are content to sit
idle while their places are being filled with Chinese, and
their lands are gradually passing from their possession.
This apathy causes them to degenerate, both mentally and
physically, and thus leads to the smallness of families and
the general extinction of the race.
The following description of how this terrible disease develops
and affects the patient is taken from the Hankow
(China) Medical Mission report: "Leprosy is common. It
chiefly affects men who work in the field; we have met
with it in brothers; it is occasionally met with in women.
The age varies from ten to fifty years. Often the first
symptom complained of is some localized anæsthesia—which
is sometimes quite accidentally discovered—in the
feet, hands, or face, which are the parts that are most commonly
affected. The sensory nerves are first affected, and
sensation as a rule absent partially or completely. The anæsthesia
is followed by want of free use of affected parts;
the circulation is also impaired in those parts; the hair on
the eyebrows falls out. A peculiar punched-out-looking
ulcer, with a very fetid discharge, is often met in the feet;
sometimes, but not so often, in the hands. As the disease
advances, which it does very slowly—it often apparently remains
stationary for years—the face broadens, becomes
square, glazed, irregular and nodular; nodules are also
found in the mucous membrane of the lips and in the
nerves; perspiration is absent; the natural expression of
the face is completely changed; the patient looks old and
sad. As the disease further advances, the toes and fingers
drop off, and by and by part of the limb. The general
health is never affected. Treatment is not very satisfactory;
symptoms seem to be controlled for a time, but never
cured."
Lockjaw.—Professor Renzi, of Naples, records several
cases of tetanus successfully treated by absolute rest. The
method advocated is as follows: The patient's ears are
closed with wax, after which he is placed in a perfectly dark
room, far from any noise. He is made to understand that
safety lies in perfect rest. The room is carpeted heavily
in order to relieve the noise of stepping about. The nurse
enters every quarter of an hour with a well-shaded lantern,
using more the sense of touch than sight to find the bed.
Liquid food (milk, eggs in beef tea, and water) is carefully
given, so that mastication is not necessary. Constipation
is not interfered with. Mild doses of belladonna or secale
are given to relieve pain. This treatment does not shorten
the disease, but under it the paroxysms grow milder, and
finally cease. Numerous physicians attest to the value of
this treatment.
Marriage.—The Medical Record says the unpopularity
of marriage in England continues unabated, and last
year was the first in recent times in which, while the price
of wheat fell, the marriage rate remained stationary. It is
now 14.2 per 1,000. The decline in the popularity of matrimony
is greatest with those who have already had some
experience of wedded life. Between 1876 and 1888 the
marriage rate fell 12 per cent for bachelors and spinsters,
27 per cent for widowers, 31 per cent for widows.
Another interesting fact is that the births have now
reached the lowest rate recorded since civil registration began.
In 1876 the rate was 36.3 per 1,000; it is now
30.6. This is very satisfactory, and it is also notable that
the illegitimate birth-rate has declined, the proportion, 4.6
per cent, being the lowest yet registered. The worst feature
in the Registrar-General's returns, however, is the fact
that the male births had fallen in proportion to the female;
in the last ten years 1,038 boys were born for every 1,000
girls, and last year the male preponderance had dropped
by 5, and is now standing at 1,033 to 1,000.
M. Huth has recently published a valuable book on
consanguinity. There is no lack of instances of enforced
consanguinity, in the matter of marriage, in isolated communities,
according to M. Huth, to disprove the assumption
that physical degeneration is likely to result from the practice.
An investigation into a number of unions between
uncles and nieces, nephews and aunts, and cousins in the
first and second degree, gives an average of children rather
above than below the general average, though this is attributed
to some extent to the comparatively early age at
which such unions are generally contracted. Breeders inform
us that the results are markedly in favor of consanguineous
unions between healthy, well-bred animals. Unions
between men or animals of widely different varieties, on the
other hand, have a decidedly injurious effect on the off-spring,
and beyond a certain limit are almost absolutely
sterile. Mulattoes and the half-breeds of India and
America are striking examples of the deterioration to
which such racial disparity gives rise. The great point to
bear in mind is that the union of individuals with the
same morbid tendencies intensifies the taint, and that, too,
quite irrespective of any consanguinity. The moral, according
to the author, is that the reasons which have led
to the prohibition of marriages within certain degrees of relationship
are social, and not physiological.
Malaria (Chills and Fever).—Mr. W. S. Green, editor
of the Weekly Colusa Sun, of this State, has made careful
investigations on the malaria question. We quote from
his issue of May 12, 1888:—
"Irrigation and Malaria.—At the irrigation convention
held at Riverside in March, '84, a paper by W. S. Green
was read on the subject of 'Irrigation on Health.' The
writer took a new departure, and combated notions held for
ages; that is, he held that however much the received notions
of malaria might hold good as to other climates, they were
not correct when applied to California, where the air was in
motion pretty much all the while. Mr. Green received the
highest indorsement of his ideas, and they have come to be
accepted as correct. His statement of facts has been verified
by almost all observing men.
"To the Pres. of the Irrigation Convention, Riverside, Cal.—
"Having taken great interest in the problem of irrigation
for twenty years and over, I had intended to be
present at your meeting, but at this date I find it will be
impossible. If a man possesses a mite of knowledge or an
idea on this great subject, it is his duty to give his co-workers
the benefit of it.
"During a residence of thirty-four years in the Sacramento
Valley, I have had time and opportunity to observe and to
study its sanitary conditions, and these observations bear
directly, I think, on the subject of the effect of irrigation
on the health of a country. I am led by these observations
to reject almost in toto the long-accepted theory of infection
by malaria from the atmosphere, that is, so far as it pertains
to California. I will not consume your time with a
technical dissertation, but will state some facts as briefly
as possible, and in plain, homely phrase.
"When I saw people living all along the margins of the
tules, where in summer the water became hot and stale and
full of decaying vegetation, and hundreds of forms of animal
life, and yet remain entirely free from malarial influence,
I began to think there was some mistake in the
accepted theory. I do not pretend to say that all the people
living along the tule margins were or are healthy. All
who occupy some places seem to be attacked by chills,
while the occupants of places close by are never so attacked.
Health is the rule. I saw that all these people, those on
the healthy and those on the sickly places, must breathe the
same air, coming to them from the same hot, stagnant
water and decaying vegetation, and I concluded that
malaria was not in the air. But I investigated further.
"There are clay, or, as some call them, hardpan banks to
the upper Sacramento River, which are from a quarter of
a mile to a mile apart. The river, for some very indefinite
number of centuries, has vibrated between these banks—washing
in on one side and filling in on the other. There
is, then, an old or clay formation and a newer or alluvial
formation; of course, there is alluvium on top of the clay,
but this is not to our purpose. When I first saw the valley
in 1850, this new land, some of it as high as the old, was
covered with pea vines, blackberry vines, and a dense undergrowth
generally, while the other grew wild oats and was
usually as open as our wheat-fields. I began to notice that
those people who built their houses and dug their wells on a
newer formation generally had chills, while the others, as
a rule, had not. Sometimes these sickly and healthy places
would be but a few feet apart. They breathed the same
air, but they did not drink the same water. I began to conclude
that these people, both along the river and around
the margins of the tules, drank the germ of disease and did
not breathe it, and I continued my observations.
"The town of Colusa is built upon the old, or clay formation,
and the people are entirely free from the so-called
malarial influence. They are almost entirely free from
chills, typhoid fevers, diphtheria, etc., but just at the lower
end of the town there is evidence that the river at one time
ran almost at right angles with its present course, and while
the land is just as high, and very large oaks grew upon it,
showing the formation to be very old—the span of human
life taken as a measure—yet in digging and boring wells, as
well as by the indigenous growth, the very great difference
in the age of the formation was apparent. Upon this new
formation an extension to the town was located, and among
other buildings the county hospital was placed there.
The patients and employes of the hospital all had chills for
several years, until the physician-in-charge, Dr. W. H.
Belton, noticed that the people generally who used water
from wells on this newly-made land had chills, while the
others had not, and caused pipes from the town waterworks,
into which river water was pumped, to be laid to the
hospital. There was an immediate change. At the commencement
of the use of river water, there were some forty
persons in the hospital, all with chills, but since the building
has been almost entirely free from it. There could be
no more conclusive evidence that these people drank the
germ of the disease and did not breathe it.
"It is claimed that after a wet season there is more
malaria in the air, and that hence people are more subject
to disease. I have investigated this, and my observations,
extended over a number of years, have convinced me that
the water in the wells is simply raised to a newer stratum,
one not thoroughly washed, as it were, and that people
drink the germ of disease, and do not breathe it.
"My conclusions are, therefore, that irrigation will tend to
bring on malarial disorders, as it raises the water in wells
to a newer stratum of earth, but no further. When we
irrigate so as to produce this effect we must go down after
pure drinking water, or bring it to our houses in pipes.
The effect of disorders thus brought about is easily remedied.
"I do not wish to be understood as maintaining that there
may be no such thing as poison in the atmosphere. In
some localities, where the air is not in motion every day,
as it is here, the air, like standing water, may become stagnant.
I know of some hotels in this valley totally void of
drainage, and where the accumulated filth of a quarter of
a century stands in the yards in cess-pools. In some countries
this would kill ninety out of a hundred people who
would stop in them a week, but here we feel no inconvenience
from it, except in so far that the water may become
impregnated. Air in motion, like water in motion,
purifies itself, and hence I have come to the rejection of
the theory of malaria in the air."
Of our own remedies we feel very proud because they are
sure to kill chills and fever. There are two:—
First: Take the proportions of one (1) of sulphur to two
(2) of gin, or 4 fluidounces of gin to 2 of sulphur. Let
it stand overnight. For an adult take one teaspoonful of
this mixture in a little water from 15 to 30 minutes before
the attack. Remain in bed in a room warmed to 90° Fahr.,
for from 6 to 10 hours. This has not been known to fail.
Second: This requires much care and judgment. Take
a whole nutmeg finely grated, and its equal quantity of
pulverized alum, thoroughly mix them, and take at one
dose; the time to take it has everything to do with its effect.
It must be taken between 10 and 17 minutes before the
shake is due to come on. Go to bed immediately, using
double the usual amount of bedclothes, remain there from
1-1/2 to 3 hours, and both chills and fever will permanently
depart. If the medicine is taken too soon (say 30 minutes
before the shake), the attack will be more severe; if taken
immediately after the shake it will increase the fever; in
either case the dose will have to be repeated to effect a
cure. This latter treatment completely cured the author.
Nervousness and Worry.—One meets few unworried
people. Most faces bear lines of care. Men go anxious to
their day's duties, rush through the hours with feverish
speed, and bring hot brain and tumultuous pulse home at
night for restless, unrefreshing sleep. This is not only a
most unsatisfactory, but is also a most costly, mode of living.
The other night the train lost two hours in running
less than a hundred miles. "We have a hot box," was the
polite conductor's reply to some impatient passengers who
begged to know the cause of the long delays at stations.
This hot-box trouble is not altogether unknown in human
life. There are many people who move swiftly enough
and with sufficient energy, but who grow feverish and are
thus impeded in their progress. A great many failures in
life must be charged to worrying. When a man worries
he is impeded in several ways. For one thing he loses his
head. He cannot think clearly. His brain is feverish, and
will not act at its best. His mind becomes confused, and
his decisions are not to be depended upon. The result is
that a worried man never does his work as well as he
should do it, or as he could do it if he were free from worry.
He is apt to make mistakes. Marks of feverishness are sure
to be seen somewhere in whatever he does. Remedy: Keep
cool, think three times before you act once.
Obesity and Thinness.—To increase the weight; Eat,
to the extent of satisfying a natural appetite, of fat meats,
butter, cream, milk, cocoa, chocolate, bread, potatoes, peas,
parsnips, carrots, beets, farinaceous food, or Indian corn,
rice, tapioca, sago, corn-starch, pastry, custards, oatmeal,
sugar, sweet wines, and ale. Avoid acids. Exercise as
little as possible, sleep all you can, and don't worry or fret.
To reduce the weight: Eat, to the extent of satisfying a
natural appetite, of lean meat, poultry, game, eggs, milk
moderately, green vegetables, turnips, succulent fruits, tea
or coffee. Drink lime juice, lemonade, and acid drinks.
Avoid fat, butter, cream, sugar, pastry, rice, sago, tapioca,
corn-starch, potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, and sweet
wines. Exercise freely.
Piles.—When piles become painful, whether they protrude
or not, the patient should take a warm hip-bath and
remain in until the pain ceases, extra precaution being
taken for cleanliness, using pure white castile soap with
the hip-bath. A careful diet of farinaceous and other
easily-digested food, and regularity in going to stool, will
suffice to cure the majority of cases. If the piles are bleeding,
apply a salve of opium and nut-gall; if itching, a
drop of oil of cade will give relief. Linseed oil, applied to
the piles, is said to be an effective remedy. In severe
cases of piles great relief is afforded by the use of suppositories
made after the following formula: 2 grains sulphate
morphina, 2 grains extract belladonna, 1 scruple tannin.
The above mixed with a sufficient quantity of cocoa butter
to make twelve suppositories of one-half ounce each; one
to be used every night on retiring.
Poisons.—Poisons may be classified under two distinct
heads—mineral and vegetable. Mineral poisons are irritating
and corrosive in their action. They produce a metallic
taste in the mouth, burning pains in the throat,
stomach, and bowels, and, often, violent retching and
bloody vomiting, purging, cramps, cold sweats, and great
depression. Vegetable poisons are chiefly narcotics, and
many of them are as virulent as any in the mineral kingdom.
They cause giddiness, drowsiness, stupor, insensibility
or delirium, and oppressed breathing.
General Directions.—First and instantly dilute the
poison with large draughts of warm water, either clear, or,
if the particular poison is known, containing the proper
antidote. This will usually cause vomiting, which is to be
desired. If vomiting does not soon occur, excite it. Protect
as much as possible the lining membrane of the stomach
and bowels from contact with the poison by large and
frequent doses of sweet-oil, mucilage of gum arabic, flaxseed
tea, milk, etc. Melted cosmoline, vaseline, butter, or
lard will serve for this purpose. Keep up the temperature by
means of warm blankets, hot bottles, etc.; and if there are
marked evidences of sinking, such as a failure of the pulse,
or very feeble, gasping respiration, give a little stimulus,
preferably by injection into the bowels. In the case of an
adult, a tablespoonful of brandy, whisky or gin, with an
equal quantity of water, may be administered in this manner
every five or ten minutes, until reaction sets in—that
is, until the face regains its color, the pulse becomes stronger,
and the breathing natural.
A general antidote for all cases of poisoning, where the
nature of the poison is unknown, is a mixture of carbonate
of magnesia, powdered charcoal, and hydrated sesquioxide
of iron, equal parts, in water.
POISONS—MINERAL. Acids.—Muriatic (spirit of salt), nitric
(aqua fortis), sulphuric (oil of vitriol), oxalic, nitro-muriatic,
etc. Nitric and sulphuric acids are sometimes used for
the removal of warts; oxalic acid is often employed for taking
out iron or ink stains; muriatic and nitro-muriatic acids
are frequently prescribed medicinally. As soon as a poisonous
dose has been swallowed, seek for something which will
neutralize the acid. Powdered chalk, whiting, magnesia, or
lime scraped from a wall and stirred in water, may be given
in any of these cases. For sulphuric or muriatic acid also
administer soap-suds, sweet milk, common soap cut into small
pieces, baking or washing soda, or saleratus, giving these
latter in very small quantities at a time, so as not to produce
dangerous distension of the stomach, from the evolution
of gas. In the case of sulphuric acid, water must not
be used freely at first, at least not unless it contains some
antidote, as the heat produced, when this acid and water
are mixed, is sufficient of itself to cause serious damage.
Ammonia, and other alkalies (Caustic Potash, Soda or
Lime).—Antidotes: Vinegar, lemon juice, or a weak solution
of tartaric acid, to be followed immediately with sweet-oil or
mucilage of gum arabic, and an emetic. Also give an injection
of boiled starch. Pain may be relieved with laudanum,
in doses of ten to fifteen drops, as the paroxysms occur.
Antimony (Butter of Antimony, Tartar Emetic).—Encourage
vomiting. The antidotes are milk, tea, tannic acid.
Arsenic, Ratsbane, Paris Green, Cobalt, and all arsenical
preparations used as rat poisons.—Give the whites
of five or six eggs, beaten in half a pint of water; or, flour and
water, barley water, flaxseed tea, or magnesia. Also administer
an emetic of five grains of sulphate of copper
(blue vitriol), or fifteen grains of sulphate of zinc (white
vitriol), ipecac, or mustard and water. After the vomiting,
give hydrated sesquioxide of iron in tablespoon doses, every
fifteen minutes, until danger is past. This is the best-known
antidote for arsenic, and should be procured fresh
from the drug store if possible.
Chloral, Chloroform, Ether.—Cold water should be
sprinkled over the face and applied to the head. If breathing
is suspended, treat the patient for artificial respiration.
The use of electricity is recommended.
Corrosive Sublimate (Bedbug Poison), Calomel (Mercury).—The
whites of three or four eggs, beaten in water,
should be given without delay. If eggs are not at hand,
flour or thin starch gruel, mucilage of gum arabic, or milk,
will answer. An emetic should be taken immediately after
the antidote has been administered.
Iodine (used for external application).—If it has been
swallowed, give a paste of starch, or flour and water.
Lead, Salts of (Sugar of Lead, Lead Paint).—After an
emetic, administer as much Epsom salt, or Glauber's salt,
as the patient can drink. Then give large quantities of
milk and whites of eggs.
Lunar Caustic, Nitrate of Silver.—Give a large teaspoonful
of common salt, in a glass of water. Repeat the dose
every ten minutes for an hour. Then give a dose of castor-oil,
and let the patient drink freely of flaxseed tea, barley
water, or sweet milk.
Muriates of Tin and Zinc.—These poisons are sometimes
found in canned goods—fruits, vegetables, fish, and meats.
They cause nausea, vomiting, sudden failure of the vital
forces, and sometimes cramps and convulsions. Milk, the
whites of eggs, strong tea, or tincture of Peruvian bark,
should be given. After the violent symptoms have subsided,
the patient should drink freely of flaxseed tea or barley
water.
Phosphorus, Matches.—Give large quantities of warm
water containing calcined magnesia, chalk, or whiting.
Prussic Acid.—Liquor of ammonia, in doses of ten drops
to a tablespoonful of water, should be given every fifteen
minutes, until the patient is out of danger. Also apply
smelling salts to the nose, dash cold water in the face, and
give stimulants.
Verdigris.—Give sugar, milk, and whites of eggs in
large quantities, then strong tea, but no acids of any kind.
Poisons—Vegetable. Aconite.—Induce free vomiting,
then give brandy or whisky every half hour until the
dangerous symptoms are allayed.
Alcohol, Spirits.—Give half a teaspoonful of aromatic
spirits of ammonia in sweetened water every half hour.
Bromide of potassa, in doses of fifteen to thirty grains,
every two or three hours, will also be found useful.
Cocaine is the alkaloid of the coca plant of South American
origin. It is generally employed in the form of muriate
of cocaine and principally used as a local anæsthetic.
It should only be used under the direction of a physician.
It may occasion dangerous effects even in doses usually
deemed safe. When it has been taken internally, the
proper antidote is a powerful emetic followed by stimulants—such
as liquor and spirits of ammonia—administered internally.
When it has been used to a dangerous extent
externally, give whisky or brandy and ammonia.
Laudanum, Opium, Paregoric, Morphia, Belladonna, Hyoscyamus,
Stramonium, and Conium.—An emetic of mustard
and water, twenty grains of sulphate of zinc (white vitriol),
or thirty grains of powdered ipecac, should be given. Strong
coffee, brandy, or whisky should then be administered in
large quantities, and the patient walked around the room.
Slapping, pinching, dashing cold water in the face, and
even whipping, may be necessary to keep the patient awake.
Strychnine (Nux Vomica).—Give an emetic of a solution
of sulphate of zinc (white vitriol), or a strong infusion of
tobacco; or inject into the bowels bromide of potassium,
thirty grains, and the extract of coca, one-half ounce.
During the spasms, the patient should breathe chloroform
or ether from a saturated cloth held to the nose and mouth.
Toadstools (False Mushrooms) and other poisonous plants
and seeds, such as are liable to be picked up and eaten by children.—Empty
the stomach at once by an emetic you have
at hand.
Coffee poisoning occurs mostly with well-to-do people—those
who are overfed. Tea poisoning comes to hard-working,
half-starved women. The symptoms of coffee poisoning
are want of appetite, sleeplessness, and nervous tremblings,
with various indications of indigestion and torpor of liver.
Tea poisoning requires rest and nourishment; but the victim
of coffee excess usually needs to unload his system by
exercise on a low diet.
Antipyrine.—Dr. T. E. Smith, of Cincinnati, had his
whole right side paralyzed by a ten-grain dose of antipyrine.
The dose is an ordinary one. This powerful drug
is much resorted to by grippe victims.
Removal of Foreign Substances.—Considering the
frequency with which foreign bodies are swallowed, especially
by children, the best treatment to employ in such
cases should be generally known. A variety of such
methods have been advocated, but just now the so-called
"potato cure" appears to be the most popular. One
physician not long ago reported that he had successfully
applied it with the best results in three cases. One was
that of a 6-year-old boy, who swallowed a small weight;
another that of a girl, 9 years old, who had swallowed a
nail; and the remaining one that of a woman who had
swallowed a set of teeth. He fed the patients for three
days on nothing but potatoes. This treatment is a method
in vogue among the pickpockets of London, who, swallowing
their booty, live on potatoes until the stolen articles
have passed down and out of the body.
Rheumatism.—Those who have a tendency to that disease
should "take a stitch" now and free their systems
from all injurious retained matter. They should live
abstemiously, exercise freely, keep the skin active by frequent
bathing, the bowels open with fruits, and drink water
in large quantities. Water dissolves and washes waste
matter out of the system; it is therefore an absolute essential
where there is any impairment in the action of the kidneys,
bowels, or skin. He who applies this simple treatment,
and takes proper care of himself otherwise, may feel
quite secure from attacks of rheumatism.
"Practical Medicine" suggests: "Make a concentrated
emulsion of black soap, 200 grammes; add thereto 100 or
150 grammes of turpentine, and shake the whole vigorously
until a beautiful creamy emulsion is obtained. For a bath
take half of this mixture, which possesses an agreeable
pine odor. After remaining in the bath a quarter of an
hour, the patient should get into bed, when a prickling sensation,
not disagreeable, however, is felt over the entire
body; then, after a nap, he awakens with marked diminution
of rheumatic pains."
Flour of sulphur dusted into the soles of the shoes and
stockings is said to be a perfect preventive. The exciting
causes of rheumatism are cold or wet applied to the body
when in a state of heat, exposure to cold winds, remaining
long in wet clothes, sleeping in a damp bed, or blood-poisoning.
Acute attacks of rheumatism should be treated by
painting the affected part with tincture of iodine.
Seasickness.—Experts claim that seasickness can be
regulated by a system of breathing. One must sit still and
time the breathing to the upward and downward motion of
the boat. As the boat falls there should be a full expiration,
and as the boat rises start on an inspiration ending
just as the boat begins to drop.
Sleep.—The "Home Maker" says: "Up to the fifteenth
year most young people require ten hours, and till the
twentieth year, nine hours. After that age everyone finds
out how much he or she requires, though, as a general rule,
at least six to eight hours are necessary. Eight hours'
sleep will prevent more nervous derangements in women
than any medicine can cure. During growth there must
be ample sleep if the brain is to develop to its full extent,
and the more nervous, excitable, or precocious a child is, the
longer sleep should it get if its intellectual progress is not
to come to a premature standstill, or its life be cut short at
an early age."
A doctor of prominence says: "There is no doubt in
my mind but the belief that human beings should sleep
with their bodies lying north and south has its foundation
in true scientific facts. Each human system has two magnetic
poles—one positive and one negative. Now, it is true
that some persons have the positive pole in the head and
the negative pole in the feet, and vice versa. In order that
the person sleeping should be in perfect harmony with the
magnetic phenomena of the earth, the head, if it possesses
the positive pole, should lie to the south, or if the feet possess
the positive pole the head should lie to the north. The
positive pole should always lie opposite to the magnetic
center of the continent and thus maintain a magnetic
equilibrium. The positive pole of the person draws one
way, but the magnetic pole of the earth draws the other
way and forces the blood toward the feet, affects the iron in
the system, tones up the nerves, and makes sleep refreshing
and invigorating. But if the person sleeps the wrong way
and fails to become magnetically en rapport with the earth,
he will then probably be too magnetic, and he will have a
fever resulting from the magnetic forces working too fast, or
he will not be magnetic enough, and the great strain will
cause a feeling of lassitude, sleep will not be refreshing, and
in the morning he will have no more energy than there is in
a cake of soap. Some persons may scoff at these ideas,
but the greatest scientific men of the world have studied
the subject. Only recently the French Academy of Science
made experiments upon the body of a guillotined man,
which go to prove that each human system is in itself an
electric battery, one electrode being represented by the
head, the other by the feet. The body was taken immediately
after death and placed on a pivot, to move as it
might. After some vacillation the head portion turned toward
the north, the body then remaining stationary. One
of the professors turned it half way around, but it soon
regained its original position, and the same result was
repeatedly obtained, until organic movement finally ceased."
Small-pox and Vaccination.—Notwithstanding existing
prejudices, statistics prove the great usefulness of vaccination.
In small-pox epidemics, of those persons attacked
who have not been vaccinated, one case in four is fatal;
while of those who have been vaccinated, the death rate is
not one in four hundred and fifty. In cities, it is important
that every infant should be vaccinated before it is six
months old. In the country, the operation may be deferred
until the infant is a year old. Care should be taken to have
the virus fresh and from the cow. The taking of virus
from a child, or an adult, should never be allowed, as constitutional
diseases are often transmitted in that way. Vaccination
is performed by making a small incision in the
skin and introducing the virus on the point of a lancet or
needle. On the third day, if the desired result has been attained,
a small red spot may be seen. This increases in
size, becomes elevated, and, by the sixth day, is filled with
a clear, yellow liquid. About the eighth day, the pustule
is fully formed, when symptoms of small-pox are usually
felt,—headache, shivering, loss of appetite, etc. These
symptoms subside in a day or two; the fluid in the pustule
dries up, and a scab forms, which remains about two weeks
and then disappears, leaving a scar. The affected part
should be protected by a loose bandage, and all scratching
or rubbing prevented.
The theory in regard to vaccination is that the disease in
a mild form takes hold of the system, and either completely
or partially destroys the liability to contract the same disease
in the future. If the destruction is only partial, it
can be made total by future vaccinations. All authorities
agree that it is necessary to revaccinate frequently—just as
often, in fact, as the system shows itself in readiness to take
the vaccinations. Then as often as once in five or seven
years vaccination should be repeated in order to obtain
complete immunity from small-pox.
Superstitions.—Numerous are the dangerous superstitions
about marriage. For instance, the bride must not try
on her wedding gown, or ill-luck will follow. She must not
look in the glass after she is fully dressed and ready for the
ceremony. She must not enter her new home by stepping
over the threshold, but must be carried over it by one
of her relatives. A piece of the bride's cake must be
broken over her head as soon as she is safely on the other
side. It is very unlucky for her to be in a happy state on
her wedding-day. She must be as dolorous as possible,
violent fits of weeping being especially beneficial.
It is a good idea for the brides-maids to throw away as
many pins as possible on the wedding-day, as this will
hasten marriage. The bride should throw away her slipper
in leaving the wedding feast, and she who catches it will be
the first married. The month of May is generally conceded
to be the most unfortunate for marriages. The lucky
months are January, April, August, October, and November.
January is especially lucky.
Lovers should carefully avoid passing a sharp or pointed
instrument from one to the other. Such things tend to
cause quarrels. The wedding should be put off by all
means if a cat sneezes on the eve of the wedding-day. It
should never take place if the cat is black. To sweep dust
over a girl's feet or legs will be certain to make an old
maid of her.
Should the younger sister of a family marry first, the
older sisters will be condemned to lasting celibacy unless
they dance at her wedding in their stocking-feet.
The wedding-ring of the mother is an infallible cure for
eruptions on the skin of the child. The ring must be
rubbed three times around each sore. Cure is certain.
The virtue of the dew that glitters and sparkles in every
leaf and flower of a May morning has been recognized
from the earliest times. If a young girl wishes to obtain
and preserve a glorious complexion she should venture out
of a May morning and wash her face in this dew.
To spit in the hand before undertaking anything,
whether in love, war, or business, will not fail to bring luck.
If you are out fishing, do not step over your rod, or you
will catch no more fish than did Simple Simon in his
mother's pail.
Of births, it may be said in general that a crying child
will grow up to be a great and useful man. This omen is
not very clearly settled, however, and is often given the
other way. Some seer far back in the ages discovered the
following: Born on Monday, fair in the face; born on
Tuesday, full of God's grace; born on Wednesday, sour
and sad; born on Thursday, merry and glad; born on
Friday, worthily given; born on Saturday, work for your
living; born on Sunday, you will never know want.
To recall a person after they have left the house is bad
luck. To go back for something forgotten is also bad luck,
unless you sit down before going out again.
If, when you sit before the fire, a live coal jumps out, it
is a sign that you are to have good luck, especially in money
matters. To wash in water another has washed in is not
only bad sanitarily, but also superstitiously. He who
makes many crumbs at the table will never have any money
to spare. It is flying in the face of fortune to sweep dust
out of the front door or to allow it to be swept out. In so
doing you are sweeping out your good luck. To count
one's gains brings luck, but to find money is the worst
possible luck.
The 4-leaved clover once found, should be treasured, as
every school-child knows and believes. It brings luck of
every description. Eve attempted to carry a 4-leaved
shamrock of precious stone from Paradise with her, but it
fell and shattered at her feet. Think of the disaster thus
entailed upon the human race!
To see the moon over the left shoulder is as unlucky as
to hold the four of clubs at cards. But the new moon seen
over the right shoulder, or straight in front, portends fortune
as smiling as her own bright rays.
One should be careful in writing a letter not to cross out
a word in it. To do so means that any request you may
have made in the letter will not be granted. It is very
unlucky to dry a letter before the fire, instead of allowing
it to dry slowly and naturally. But unluckiest of all is
to drop the letter on the floor after finishing it.
Birth, marriage, and death are the three most important
events in every life. Death, being the most dreadful,
comes in for the largest share. One of the best ways given
us of avoiding it when mortal sickness is upon us is to
allow the report to be circulated that you are already dead.
The chances are strongly in favor of getting well. Especially
is this so if friends begin to arrange for the funeral.
A sure sign of early death is for a person to scatter the
leaves of a red rose upon the ground. It is extremely
hazardous to an infant's life to pare its nails before it is a
year old. They should be bitten off.
Some superstitions of my early life which I still remember
are:—
1. Turning a loaf of bread upside down creates family
quarrels. 2. Allowing anyone to pass between you and
your companion evil and death to follow. 3. Breaking a
mirror, death in the family. 4. Having your hair cut
on Sunday, forgetfulness. 5. Beginning an undertaking on
Friday, ill luck. 6. Sitting at table or in company when
just 13 are present, a death of one of their number before
the year is done. 7. Presenting a sharp instrument or
edge-tool to anyone, ill luck to ensue. 8. Putting on any
garment inside out, unless you retain it until the sun goes
down, bad luck to come. 9. Spilling salt, unless some is
thrown into the fire or over the left shoulder, misfortune.
During my life I have done everything in the above list
that is claimed should not be done, that fell in my way to
do, and still live and prosper, although born on Friday,
and being one of a family of 13 children.
Snake Bites.—Tie a string or ligature hard around the
injured limb and above the bitten place; suck the wound,
so as to extract the poison, but be careful to see that the
person who performs the sucking has no open sore in his
mouth; wash with warm water and apply caustics, such as
carbolic acid or concentrated liquor of ammonia; give five
to ten grains of carbonate of ammonia, in water, every
hour, and stimulate the patient with whisky or brandy; rub
the limbs with pieces of flannel dipped in hot whisky or
diluted alcohol. Medical attendance should be secured as
soon as possible.
Tape-worm.—Recently attention has been called to
cocoanuts as a vermifuge. Professor Paresi, of Athens,
when he was in Abyssinia, happened to discover that ordinary
cocoanut possesses vermifuge qualities in a high degree.
He took, one day, a quantity of the juice and pulp, and
shortly afterward felt some gastric disturbance, which, however,
passed off in a few hours. Subsequently he had
diarrhea, and was surprised to find that there had been
expelled a complete tape-worm, head and all, quite dead.
After returning to Athens he made a number of observations
which were most satisfactory, the tape-worm being
always passed and quite dead. He orders the milk and
pulp of one cocoanut to be taken early in the morning,
fasting, no purgative or confinement to the house being
required.
Teeth.—For toothache rub a little essential oil on the
face, at the hinge of the jaw, on the side that aches.
Tobacco.—Probably no subject in our book can interest
the majority of persons more than this great question
of the use of tobacco. We have a collection of opinions
from the best authorities:—
The Medical News published a paper by Dr. Wm. L. Dudley,
Professor of Chemistry in the Vanderbilt University,
giving the results of recent careful analytical experiments
made by him in his laboratory with the smoke of an ordinary
cigarette. Mice were used upon which to employ his
tests. It is not needful that we should give the professor's
description of his modus operandi by means of air-tubes, an
aspirator, a glass jar, etc., the results of his experimentation
being the chief object of interest in which the reader
is concerned. Suffice it to say, then, that in each of his several
chemical tests by the gradual combustion of a single
cigarette, the mouse that was the recipient of the resultant
smoke died in the course of the operation, being literally
poisoned to death by inhaling the carbonic oxide evolved
from the "noxious weed." The blood of the dead creature
being subjected to spectroscopic examination, it was found
that the veinous fluid had been so completely altered and
vitiated that death was the inevitable effect. The tests
were thoroughly scientific and conclusive. The fact was
demonstrated, beyond the chance of doubt or question, that
carbonic oxide is the chief constituent of cigarette smoke,
if not all tobacco smoke, and that its inhalation into the
air-passage and lungs must of necessity be exceedingly
deleterious, as much so to men and boys as to mice.
Cases of poisoning due to meat which seemed thoroughly
wholesome have sometimes occurred and have remained
unexplained. In the Revue d' Hygiene, M. Bourrier,
inspector of meat for the city of Paris, makes a suggestion.
He described his experiments with meat impregnated with
tobacco smoke. Some thin slices of beef were exposed for
a considerable time to the fumes of tobacco, and afterward
offered to a dog which had been deprived of food for twelve
hours. The dog, after smelling the meat, refused to eat it.
Some of the meat was then cut into small pieces and concealed
within bread. This the dog ate with avidity, but in
twenty minutes commenced to display the most distressing
symptoms, and soon died in great agony.
All sorts of meat, both raw and cooked, some grilled,
roasted, and boiled, were exposed in tobacco smoke and
then given to animals, and in all cases produced symptoms
of acute poisoning. Even the process of boiling could not
extract from the meat the nicotine poison. Grease and
similar substances have facilities of absorption in proportion
with their fineness and fluidity. Fresh-killed meat is
more readily impregnated, and stands in order of susceptibility
as follows—pork, veal, rabbit, poultry, beef, mutton,
horse.
A simple experiment which will show how injurious is
cigarette smoke inhaled may be easily performed by means
of a handkerchief: After taking a mouthful of smoke, put
the handkerchief tightly over the lips and blow the smoke
through it. You will find a dark brown stain on it. If
the smoke is inhaled, and then blown through the handkerchief,
there is very little stain, if any; consequently all that
nicotine must remain in the lungs.
An Ex-Smoker's Advice.—A young man who, not long
ago, was an inveterate smoker, but who was recently induced
to "swear off," came to me and talked in this strain: "I have
been doing some figuring lately, and the result astonishes
me. When I was smoking my hardest my average was
eight cigars a day. Sometimes it would run over eight and
sometimes under; but eight was about the all-round figure.
I rarely bought my cigars by the box, and as I indulged in
straight 10-cent goods, 80 cents a day was what my smoking
cost me. This, with 40 cents added for cigars that I
gave away and lost shaking dice, make a total of about
$6.00 a week that I now save. It is just nine weeks and
three days since I swore off, and by Saturday I shall have
$60 in the bank, without an effort on my part save that
required to control an unnecessary appetite. I must also
regard as an asset the superabundance of animal spirits I
enjoy as a direct result of my abstinence from a habit that
everybody knows is weakening, when indulged in to excess.
Smoke yourself, do you? Well, try my scheme. Swear
off and put your cigar money in the bank. You might
need it some day, even if you are a newspaper man."
The New York Medical Journal contains a convincing
article on tobacco: "Tobacco contains an acrid, dark brown
oil, an alkaloid, nicotine, and another substance called nicotianine,
in which exists its odorous and volatile principles.
When tobacco is burned a new set of substances is produced,
some of which are less harmful than the nicotine,
and are more agreeable in effect, and much of the acrid
oil—a substance quite as irritating and poisonous as nicotine—is
carried off. These fire-produced substances are called,
from their origin, the 'pyridine series.' By great heat the
more aromatic and less-harmful members of the series are
produced, but the more poisonous compounds are generated
by the slow combustion of damp tobacco. This oil which
is liberated by combustion is bad both in flavor and in
effect, and it is better, even for the immediate pleasure of
the smoker, that it should be excluded altogether from his
mouth and air passages.
"Smoking in a stub of a pipe is particularly injurious,
for the reason that in it the oil is stored in a condensed
form, and the smoke is therefore highly charged with the
oil. Sucking or chewing the stub of a cigar that one is
smoking is a serious mistake, because the nicotine in the
unburned tobacco dissolves freely in the saliva, and is absorbed.
'Chewing' is, on this account, the most injurious
form of the tobacco habit, and the use of a cigar holder is
an improvement on the custom of holding the cigar between
the teeth. Cigarettes are responsible for a great amount of
mischief, not because the smoke from the paper has any
particularly evil effect, but because smokers—and they are
often boys or very young men—are apt to use them continuously,
or at frequent intervals, believing that their power
for evil is insignificant. Thus the nerves are under the constant
influence of the drug, and much injury to the system results.
Moreover, the cigarette smoker uses a very considerable
amount of tobacco during the course of a day. 'Dipping'
and 'snuffing' are semi-barbarities which need not be
discussed. Not much effect is obtained from the use of the
drug in these varieties of the habit.
"Nicotine is one of the most powerful of the 'nerve
poisons' known. Its virulence is compared to that of
prussic acid. If birds be made to inhale its vapor in
amounts too small to be measured, they are almost instantly
killed. It seems to destroy life, not by attacking
a few, but of all the functions essential to it, beginning at
the center, the heart. A significant indication of this is
that there is no substance known which can counteract its
effects; the system either succumbs or survives. Its depressing
action on the heart is by far the most noticeable and noteworthy
symptom of nicotine poisoning. The frequent existence
of what is known 'tobacco heart' in men whose
health is in no other respect disturbed is due to this fact."
"A youth of eighteen at Bayshire, L. I., has become insane
from the excessive use of cigarettes."
Those who can use tobacco without immediate injury
will have all the pleasant effects reversed and will suffer
from the symptoms of poisoning if they exceed the limits of
tolerance. These symptoms are: 1. The heart's action
becomes more rapid when tobacco is used. 2. Palpitation,
pain, or unusual sensations in the heart. 3. There is no appetite
in the morning, the tongue is coated, delicate flavors
are not appreciated, and acid dyspepsia occurs after eating.
4. Soreness of the mouth and throat, or nasal catarrh
appears, and becomes very troublesome. 5. The eyesight
becomes poor, but improves when the habit is abandoned.
6. A desire, often a craving, for liquor or some other stimulant
is experienced.
"In an experimental observation of thirty-eight boys of
all classes of society, and of average health, who had
been using tobacco for periods ranging from two months to
two years, twenty-seven showed severe injury to the constitution
and insufficient growth; thirty-two showed the
existence of irregularity of the heart's action, disordered
stomachs, cough, and a craving for alcohol; thirteen had
intermittency of the pulse, and one had consumption. After
they had abandoned the use of tobacco, within six months
one-half were free from all their former symptoms, and the
remainder had recovered by the end of the year."
Pasteur Recommends Camphor Smoking.—In an interview
with M. Pasteur, he was asked whether he considered
la grippe occasioned by bacteria? The professor smiled
sardonically and shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.
On being asked what he considered the best remedy for the
malady, he remarked: "Let men and women both quit
smoking tobacco and smoke camphor instead, and they
will probably escape the pest."—Paris Special.
The Bulletin of this city has a good article on insanity
and the cigarette. Ten or twelve boys have within a short
time been committed to the insane asylum at Napa whose
insanity has been traced directly to the smoking of cigarettes.
The number who by reason of the same indulgence have
brought on a degree of imbecility that may ultimately land
them in the asylum or in the penitentiary cannot be reduced
to an exact estimate. But having occasion recently
to make some inquiry about a number of boys who had
figured in the records of the criminal courts, it was found
that a majority of them were habitual smokers of cigarettes.
The connection between cigarette smoking, mental imbecility,
idiocy, and crime has recently attracted more
than usual attention. No boy or young man can smoke a
cigarette without being harmed thereby. One of the reasons
ascribed for the lunacy of several boys was that the
cigarettes were made up of the vilest stuff. They contained
a narcotic beyond that usually found in pure tobacco.
This is supposed to be some of the cheaper forms of opium.
But, whatever it may be, it is making imbeciles and idiots
of many boys, and criminals of some of them. In a number
of instances where boys have been sent to the asylum, it
was found that after a short period, the cigarette and all
other forms of dissipation having been cut off, the patients
rapidly improved, and after a few months' detention they
were sent home. The evil does not end here. If a boy
becomes an inveterate cigarette smoker, the chances are
greatly against any reformation. Some friend may take
him in hand and show him the danger in season. The
larger number will keep right on. Of this number it is
doubtful if ten per cent will ever come to anything. And
even these will accomplish far less than if they had never
weakened their mental powers by this vile indulgence.
The crazy boys who bring up in the asylum are only the
few wretched examples of the cigarette mania. Other examples
are constantly found in the criminal courts. The
moral sense has been utterly lost, or so weakened that there
is no clear distinction between right and wrong. Every
boy who smokes a cigarette has started to go to the bad.
Just where he will bring up—whether in the insane asylum,
in the criminal courts, or in a condition of such hopeless
moral and mental imbecility that friends must support him,
or the almshouse must finally give him shelter, is one of
the questions that time will settle for him. But if any
better record is to be made for him, the boy and the cigarette
must have a prompt and final separation.
The Boston Herald states: "It is said that Turkish tobacco
contains prussic acid, and that Havana tobacco has another
alkalide called collidine, of which one-twentieth of a
drop will kill a frog, with symptoms of paralysis. The
half-liquid matter that accumulates in the bowl of a pipe
will kill a small animal in three-drop doses. A few drops
of nicotine inserted under the conjunctiva of an animal will
kill at once. Eight drops will kill a horse, with frightful
general convulsions. It has been observed that the living
systems quickly become tolerant of tobacco poison—"an
animal that is thrown into convulsions by half a drop one
day will require twice as much the next day, and so in four
or five days four or five times as much."
The following is suggestive: No student who smokes can
obtain a scholarship at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H.
It is a new rule of the faculty.
As the purchase of the breweries of the United States
has been commenced by the capitalists of the eastern continent,
I trust they will extend their purchases to the distilleries
and tobacco warehouses and plantations on this continent,
especially of the United States; its financiers being
shrewd will the sooner observe the advancement of intelligent
progress in the line of thought, and change their investments
from breweries, distilleries, and cigarette and tobacco
manufactories, to the sinking of artesian wells and the
invention of some improved water-filter.
Tonsillitis, Quinsy, Black Tongue, or Ulcerated Sore
Throat.—
PRESCRIPTION.
| Solution chlorate of potash (1 in 16) | 3 ounces |
| Tincture muriate of iron | 2 drachms |
| Tannic acid | 10 grains |
| Tincture of capsicum | 1 drachm |
| Add glycerine to make | 4 ounces |
Shake well before using.
Dilute in equal parts of water, and gargle every half
hour in a severe case for the first three hours. After that
every two or three hours. The above is invaluable and unfailing
in case of quinsy.
Vital Statistics.—Statisticians are bringing out some
curious facts with regard to the birth and death-rates of
the leading nations of the world. Unfortunately, our tables
are not as accurate as those collected in the European
States. Abroad there is a careful record of marriages,
births, and deaths. These are collected by us without any
thoroughness, save only when a census is being taken. In
England and Wales it has been found that the birth-rate is
35.4 and the death-rate is 20.5 per 1,000 persons. In
Sweden the birth-rate is 30.2, against a death-rate of 18.1.
In the German Empire, birth-rate 39.3 and death-rate 26.1.
Austria, 39.1 birth-rate, 29.6 death-rate. The official returns
state that our annual birth-rate is 36 and death-rate
18, but clearly our birth-rate is much larger, as we are
growing in numbers faster than any people on earth. Our
increase is fully 10,000,000 since the last census was taken
in 1880. Our colored population have a higher birth-rate
than have the Southern whites. Among the latter it is 28.71,
while for the colored it is 35.08. Although the death-rate
of the blacks is quite large, still they are increasing relatively
faster than the white. It is also a curious fact that more
colored females are born than whites, but taking blacks and
whites together the births of the males exceed those of the
females.
The report of the California State Board of Health for
the month of April, 1889, contains the following: Reports
from 75 different localities, with an estimated population of
701,950, give a mortality of 835, which is a percentage of
1.18 per 1,000 in the month, or an annual mortality of 14.16,
which is the lowest annual percentage at which we have yet
arrived, indicating a remarkably good condition of the public
health throughout the State.
Voice.—A question in connection with the training of
the voice is to be discussed, viz., when it should be commenced.
With regard to the question, says a distinguished
scientist, "I am strongly of opinion that training can
hardly be begun too early. Of course, the kind and amount
of practice that are necessary in the adult would be monstrous
in a young child, but there is no reason why, even at
the age of six or seven, the right method of voice production
should not be taught. Singing, like every other art, is
chiefly learned by imitation, and it seems a pity to lose the
advantage of those precious early years when that faculty
is most highly developed. There is no fear of injuring
the larynx or straining the voice by elementary instruction
of this kind; on the contrary, it is habitual faulty vocalization
which is pernicious."
There are three essential elements in voice production:
First, the air blast, or motive power; second, the vibrating
reed, or tone-producing apparatus; third, the sounding-board,
or re-inforcing cavities. These, to parody a well-worn
physiological metaphor, are the three legs of the tripod of
voice. Defect in or mismanagement of any one of them is
fatal to the musical efficiency of the vocal instrument.
The air supplied by the lungs is moulded into sound by the
innumerable little fingers of the muscles which move the
vocal cords, and their training largely moulds the tone and
volume of voice. Much of the lung and throat troubles
existing can be traced to the ignorance of vocal teachers
and parental indulgence in allowing the voice to be
strained beyond its register. To know a teacher that understands
the proper treatment of the vocal organs, from one
that does not—judge them by their pupils; if a pupil has
an impaired throat, and there is no improvement after six
lessons, change teachers. Every vocal teacher can instruct
in the rudiments of music, but only one in fifty knows anything
about the voice.
Warts.—A drop of cinnamon oil on each wart daily,
continued for a fortnight, will usually remove them. The
most successful remedy we have ever tried is to have the
wart saturated three times a week for three weeks with
the saliva of a person of positive magnetism, not a member of
the family. There is a scientific reason for it not here explained,
but try it.
Water.—If a small quantity of oxalic acid added to
water produces a white precipitate, lime is contained in the
water. Tincture of galls added to the water which contains
iron will yield a black precipitate. Water which
causes a bright piece of steel to turn yellow, when dipped
into it, contains copper. Sulphuric acid, dropped into
water and turning it black, shows that the water contains
vegetable and animal matter. For detecting sewage contamination,
fill a clean pint bottle three-fourths full of the
water to be tested; add a teaspoonful of granulated sugar;
cork the bottle, and set it in a warm place for two days;
if the contents of the bottle become cloudy or muddy, the
water is unfit for domestic use. Half an ounce of the neutral
solution of bisulphate of alumina added to 200 gallons
of water will precipitate the organic matter therein contained;
the water may be then used freely for drinking
purposes. To remove the odor from cistern water, suspend
in the water a bag containing a peck of charcoal.
According to Dr. Leuf, when water is taken into the full
or partly full stomach, it does not mingle with the food,
as we are taught, but passes along quickly between the
food and lesser curvative toward the pylorus, through which
it passes into the intestines. The secretion of mucus by
the lining membrane is constant, and during the night a
considerable amount accumulates in the stomach; some of its
liquid portion is absorbed, and that which remains is thick
and tenacious. If food is taken into the stomach when in
this condition it becomes coated with this mucus, and the
secretion of the gastric juice and its action are delayed.
These facts show the value of a goblet of water before breakfast.
This washes out the tenacious mucus and stimulates
the gastric glands to secretion. In old and feeble persons
water should not be taken cold, but it may be with great
advantage taken warm or hot. This removal of the accumulated
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 pass 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 practitioners.
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
albumen 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 quantities 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 quantity.
