Keep the arms, hands and chest well clothed and warm. Affecting the head as catarrh, or the pelvic regions keep the feet and ancles warm and dry. Affecting joints and muscles as Rheumatism—protect the Spine (back) from colds and currents of air.
After an accidental exposure as by getting the feet wet, or being caught in a shower, drink bountifully of cold water, and take a dose of Nux; followed in an hour by Aconite, if any chilliness is felt, or Copaiva if the head is "stuffed up."
In winter and spring when the weather is mild, but there is snow, or the ground is damp, more clothes are necessary than when it is freezing hard and the air is dry.
PREPARATION OF MEDICINE.
As it often becomes necessary for the practitioner to make more or less of his own dilutions and attenuations, some brief instructions especially to new beginners, may not come amiss.
Medicine is prepared by mixing it with distilled water, or purified 98 per cent. Alcohol; or if solid and dry, by reducing it to powder and triturating (rubbing) it in a mortar with pure sugar or Sugar of Milk. The liquid is called dilution, the powder trituration. The attenuations are mostly made at the decimal (1-10,) or centecimal (1-100) ratio and numbered 1, 2, 3, &c., by putting ten drops of the liquid with ninety drops of Alcohol, or ten grains of the powder with ninety grains of Sugar for the 1st, and ten grains or drops of the 1st with ninety more of Alcohol or Sugar, as the case may be, for the 2nd, and so on to any desirable extent.
If the centecimal attenuation is adopted, one grain or drop is used instead of ten, as in the decimal.
I prefer the decimal to the centecimal ratio. Not that there can possibly be any difference in the action of the medicines, at the same attenuation, whether it was brought to that state through a series of 1-10, or 1-100; the 3d at the 1-100 ratio of dilution being precisely the same as the 6th at 1-10. My preference for the decimal ratio is based upon the greater convenience and accuracy of measuring larger quantities.
Accuracy is very desirable, but the practice of guessing at the amount as pursued by some, is anything but accurate. When one makes his dilutions by putting the fluid into a vial and "pouring it all out," guessing that he has a drop left which is to medicate the ninety-nine drops of Alcohol or water, he may put in by guess, I am inclined to guess that he knows nothing, accurately as to what dilution he is making. (See Hull's Laura, introduction, also Jahr & Possart's Pharmacopœia and Posology.) For if the vial is small and quite smooth there may not be a drop left, or if it is rough, there may be several drops.