Cold a Germ Disease.—Walsh, in the Medical News, says a very striking indication that cold is due to microbic invasion is to be found in the fact that the process is nearly always accompanied by fever. A distinct period of incubation can be traced, and the efficient cause of the illness is commonly farther off than the patient imagines. The treatment advised when fever and chilliness occur is the use of calomel and hot drinks, especially cream-of-tartar lemonade, which acts as a diuretic as well as a laxative. A diaphoretic at the beginning of the affection will always give the patient comfort and may unload the system of enough depressed toxic material to enable it to react and bring about the abortion of a cold.
Other medical men objected to calling everything an infection. A common cold, they thought, was nothing else than the effect of the lowered temperature on the human system. The dry air of houses caused a chronic postnasal catarrh, which at times increased. To overcome susceptibility to catching cold, overdressing should be avoided and cold baths taken.
TREATMENT OF HYPERIDROSIS.
In sweating of the feet a single application of diluted formaldehyd will bring about permanent relief. For the axilla, use 10 drops of formaldehyd to 2 ounces of water.
TREATMENT OF ERYSIPELAS.
Apply a thick layer of white vaselin twice a day. Protect with linen and gauze bandages.
TO DISTINGUISH CHICKEN
FROM SMALLPOX.
If the vesicle in chicken-pox is pricked with a needle, its contents can be completely evacuated and the cell will collapse; whereas, in small-pox the vesicle can be pricked twenty times and it will be impossible to empty it.
TREATMENT OF FELON.
A felon may sometimes be aborted by the application of pure alcohol under exclusion of air. Cover the phalanx with a thin layer of absorbent cotton saturated with alcohol; over this put on a rubber finger-stall. In severe cases the tissues should be deeply incised.