DRY SHEET PACK.
Though this can hardly be called a bath at its commencement, it really becomes a wet-sheet pack before its termination. Its application differs from that of the wet-sheet pack in that the patient is wrapped in woolen blankets instead of the wet sheet. The object of this treatment is to produce perspiration, which may be encouraged by drinking either cold or hot drinks in considerable quantity, and by the application of dry artificial heat to the feet and sides. It is a very severe form of treatment, and is now seldom practiced. Many years ago, patients at hydropathic establishments were often kept for several hours in the dry pack, smothered beneath loads of comfortables, blankets, and feather-beds. If cautiously employed, it is occasionally useful in “breaking the chills,” in fever and ague. It should be administered about half an hour before the time for the beginning of the chill, if required for this purpose.
The several varieties of local packs are described under the head of Local Baths.