In the case of phlegmasia dolens alba I have used cold water compresses fortified by ice bags with brilliant results, but only after all the other treatments that are laid down in different treatises had been tried, and failed to give the slightest relief. Among these were hot fomentations, large repeated doses of morphine, and liniments of everything that is usually prescribed to relieve pain; for the pain in phlegmasia is sometimes excruciating.
My experience of the beneficial effects of ice bags and cold-water compresses in the acute stages of pelvic cellulitis and perimetritis, led me to believe that the same measures would be useful when the cellulitis was in the cellular tissue of the extremities, which constitutes phlegmasia dolens, ignorantly termed milk leg. This appeared to be heroic treatment to the patient, who dreaded the shock and feared bad consequences, but she finally consented.
The following was my method: an ordinary large towel was dipped into iced water, wrung out and clapped around the affected limb, a heavy flannel roller bandage was then applied from the toes upward to the groin; flannel is preferable, because it does not get hard when moist and remains softer under similar conditions than cotton material. On the most painful parts, like the inner aspects of the thighs, the back of the flexure of the knee, or popletial region, and the calf of the leg, I laid rubber bags filled with ice in addition to the cold-water compresses; these were kept in place by a circular binder independent and outside of the roller bandage.
The patient is naturally a little shocked when the cold towel is first applied, but the unpleasantness is only momentary, and then the reaction brings ease and comfort, so that she desires the ice bags to be renewed quite often at first, for the patient has now found a remedy that relieves the pain as nothing else has ever done before. When the towels become dry and hot, the painful symptoms return, so that they should be dipped four to six times in the twenty-four hours. If the sensitiveness on pressure and other indications denote that the acute inflammatory process is checked, then the compresses and ice may be discontinued. This treatment avoids suppuration and the formation of abscesses, while hot applications encourage them.
A mild stimulating diet of milk and egg punch with ten to fifteen grains of quinine each day should be given in all infectious inflammations.
CHAPTER XXV.
ELECTRICITY AS A REMEDY.
In a brief reference to the medical virtues of electricity in the treatment of diseases of women, only an outline of its physics can be given, so as to give the reader an approximate idea of its origin and phenomena.