During an epidemic of scarlatina in 1836 two of my children were attacked by the disease, a boy of about eight, and another of five years, the younger one two days after the older one. I ordered them to be packed, and all seemed to go well, when, during my absence from the city (of Freiberg) a medical friend, who called, persuaded my wife to desist from continuing the hydriatic treatment, and use some remedies of his instead. On my return, I found the elder boy (the other began only to show some slight symptoms) in a very bad state: the cerebellum and spine were distinctly affected by the contagious poison; the patient complained of insupportable pain in the back of his head, the spine and all over his body, so that no one dared to touch him. The fact of the packs having been discontinued during twenty-four hours being concealed from me, and the boy being subject to herpes and inclined to scrofula, I began to fear that the treatment would not be applicable in such cases, and became really alarmed about my child. I was then almost a novice in Priessnitz's practice, at least in the treatment of acute diseases, which seldom occurred at Græfenberg, and, had I had more confidence in blood-letting and drugs, I would probably have resorted to them. For a while I was doubtful about the course I should pursue, when Dr. B., my medical friend, made his appearance and I learned what had happened during my absence. Instead, however, of giving way to his earnest solicitations to rely on the old practice, I at once became encouraged by his confession, and declared I would persevere in my own practice, which was quite new to him, and in which no physician of the place as yet believed. He assured me, from the symptoms, that the boy could not live twenty-four hours, unless he be bled, and that even then he would not answer for his life. Having lost six children before under allopathic treatment, and having never had much confidence in drugs during the time I had been connected myself with the practice, I firmly refused to allow either bleeding or drugging, and expressed my resolution to see what water could do, resigning myself to the possibility of a bad issue of the case. I need scarcely assure my readers, that my feelings were far from agreeable, and that my resolution required all the reminiscence of the bad success of allopathic treatment of former cases in my family, and the confidence I had in Priessnitz and his system, to support it. I tried the pack again, which did little or no good. Judging from the effects of the sitz-bath in cases of affection of the brain during continued fevers, that it might be of service also in the present case (Priessnitz's directions did not go so far, nor had I treated a similar case since my return from Græfenberg), I put my boy with great care into a sitz-bath of 70° F. and left him there for a little over half an hour, when he felt greatly relieved. He was taken to his bed and allowed to become warm, when he began to complain again. I then packed him, seemingly without much effect; therefore the sitz-bath was repeated and proved quite successful. I then packed the patient immediately after the sitz-bath and left him two hours in the pack, where he slept almost all the time. When he awoke, he complained again of pain in his head, which partly yielded to the half-bath. About three hours after the bath, he complained more of the pain in his head and spine, and I repeated the sitz-bath and the pack. He slept in the pack for about three hours, and when I took him out, he was covered with red spots. Feeling pretty well, he was dressed and permitted to stay up. In the forenoon, my friend called to see whether our patient were still living, and could hardly believe his own eyes when, on cautiously putting his head in at the door, he saw the boy walking up and down the room to warm his feet. In the afternoon, the pain returned and the rash faded. I repeated the pack, and the pain not yielding entirely, I gave him one more sitz-bath in the evening and a pack after it, in which he stayed asleep almost all the time, nearly four hours, upon which the rash stood out finely and never disappeared until desquamation set in. I managed to keep him in bed after the relapse mentioned, till desquamation was over. I need scarcely say that I continued to pack him (twice a day) till after desquamation, when the packs were given once a day for about a week longer. On the seventeenth day (which was the fifteenth with the younger boy, who had the fever in a very mild form, and was treated accordingly) the two scarlet-convalescents were seen playing in the street, throwing snowballs at each other; a fact, which increased not a little the sensation caused by this miraculous cure. Although my friend was not converted to the new method, this case had a very decided encouraging influence upon myself, and, I am convinced, became the means of salvation for many hundred lives afterwards, treated partly by myself directly, partly by other physicians, or the parents of the patients, after my prescriptions. I felt the importance of my success in this difficult case of scarlatina, and warmly thanked Providence for having assisted me in saving my child for the benefit of many others.[35]
96. The circumstance that, at the same time my two boys were taken sick with scarlatina, a servant of mine became afflicted with small-pox, my daughter with varioloids, and my mother and wife with influenza, afforded me an ample opportunity of trying the effects of the water-cure and my own courage and skill in the new method. The servant was cured, chiefly by long packs, in twelve days, so that she was able to resume her household duties, and though she had been covered with pocks all over, not the slightest mark remained on her body; my little girl was out of doors in a fortnight, and a few days were sufficient to rid the ladies of influenza. The complete success I had in the treatment of all these cases, contributed not a little to encourage me to employ the method upon others, with whom I have ever since been equally successful, with one single exception, which I shall mention hereafter.
97. One of the last cases of affection of the brain in torpid scarlatina I treated, was that of a scrofulous little boy of six years, from Williamsburgh, N. Y., who was at my establishment, with his mother and sisters, taking treatment for scrofulous ulceration of the parotid glands, and other symptoms of that dangerous disease. The reaction was torpid, and the brain became affected almost from the commencement. There was a little rash coming out, but in small dark purple spots, looking much more like measles than scarlet-fever. The delirium increased during the period of efflorescence, instead of giving way. The spine evidently sympathized in the suffering of the brain and cerebellum. Homœopathic remedies, which were earnestly asked for by the mother, had no effect whatever; acids only produced a slight relief of the inflammation of the throat; the packs increased the symptoms in the head and spine. The appearance of the tongue, the peculiar kind of delirium, the small quick pulse, &c. showed, that the case was going to take a typhoid turn; when I ordered a sitz-bath, which almost immediately relieved the head and improved the pulse, I then, proceeded in about the same manner as described above in my son's case, with the difference, that I allowed longer intervals. The patient, according to the severity of the symptoms, took one or two packs a day, and the same number of sitz-baths, had wet compresses on his ears and throat, and was kept in bed with very few exceptions, when the nurse would take him on her knees, wrapt in a blanket. The good effect of the sitz-bath was so obvious, that the child's father, who had been informed by telegraph of the critical condition of his son, asked himself for a repetition of it, when he found that neither medicines nor packs produced the slightest change. The child always became quiet and slept after the bath. Not only was his life saved, but he also escaped all the dreaded consequences of the disease. I am confident, that under any other kind of treatment, he would have lost his life, or at least he would have lost his hearing. But, far from increasing, the affection of his ears was rather improved when he left, and his general health a great deal better than when he was first placed under my care. I had a great deal of trouble with that little patient, not only because he did not allow me a night's rest for a week, and the case produced quite an estampeda in the establishment,[36] but also, and chiefly, because of the interference of a half-bred Irish woman, who had brought him up, and who, on account of the mother's bad health, acted in the double quality of a nurse and a governess towards the children. This woman, being averse to the treatment and the place, which gave her little pleasure, and to the rules of which she would not submit, procured all sort of dainties and excited the child by her foolish remonstrances against any application I found necessary, making at the same time an unfavorable impression on the simple minds of the family, by telling lies and tales, thereby not only placing difficulties in my way, in a case which was difficult in itself, but even preventing the parents from acknowledging by one word of thanks the sacrifices of time and health I had cheerfully made. What a blessing it would be for physicians and patients, could unnecessary and unreasonable people be kept away from persons afflicted with painful and dangerous diseases!—
98. IMPOSSIBILITY OF ANSWERING FOR THE ISSUE OF EVERY TYPHOID CASE.
Although a typhoid character of scarlatina will rarely set in, when the patient has been subject to the packs from the beginning of the disease, there will be cases when water-treatment can neither prevent such an event or even save the life of the patient afflicted by scarlet-fever. There will be a case, now and then, to baffle any mode of treatment, and the physician must not be blamed for losing a patient of scarlatina occasionally, but it is not necessary that people should continue to die of this disease in such numbers, as they have been destroyed till now.
99. Any case, where typhoid symptoms set in (16-25), is dangerous, and the physician and his mode of treatment deserve commendation, if the patient is saved by it; and it is in such cases, also, that the hydriatic physician requires the most skill, experience and courage.
100. IS WATER APPLICABLE IN ALL TYPHOID CASES?