Locomotor Ataxia.—This disease is a most difficult one to deal with, and any healing is very slow work. Patients past middle life are specially difficult cases, but we have known cure, or at least great mitigation in younger persons by the following treatment. Beginning, say on a Tuesday, let the lower back be well rubbed with hot olive oil, the patient sitting with the back to the fire, and well covered, except where being rubbed. Continue this rubbing for half-an-hour and not longer than three-quarters-of-an-hour. On Wednesday, soap the back well with soap lather (see) and after the soap rub with oil again. Next night, rub with acetic acid (Coutts's) full strength, until the skin is red and smarts moderately. Repeat this on Friday, and on Saturday and Sabbath do nothing. On Monday rub with acid again, and on Tuesday, etc., proceed as before. All treatment is best done at night, and the patient must be kept warm. He should also spend as much time as possible in the open air.
Lumbago.—Lumbago differs from both paralysis and cramp of the lower back in that it is not chiefly nervous, as these are, but is a trouble in the muscular substance itself. The muscles are either sprained or chilled, so as to have lost for the time their elasticity. Blistering, burning, and all such irritating treatment are only so many helps to the disease. The true method is found in gentle moist heating of the lower back by a bran poultice (see), not too hot, but renewed, if need be, for an hour each evening. Follow this up with a rubbing with hot olive oil. Wear a belt of new flannel round the body night and day in winter, or if exposed to cold. The treatment is simple, but if persevered in, cures most obstinate cases.
Lungs, Bleeding from.—This is usually taken as a most alarming, and even hopeless, symptom. It is not necessarily so at all, and even when a considerable amount of blood is lost, the patient may recover. Therefore, let friends not be frightened when this occurs, but bend their energies to proper treatment, and all danger may be averted. All alcohol must be avoided; it is most hurtful in such cases. Pack the feet and legs in a hot blanket fomentation (see) and press cold cloths gently and equally over the chest or back where the blood is felt to be coming from: thus you stimulate the enfeebled nerves and brace the relaxed lungs at one and the same time. Relief will usually be felt at the end of two or three minutes. Continue the application till all pain and uneasiness are gone.
Before taking the legs out of the warm pack, dry the chest carefully, rub it with warm olive oil, and wrap it up in good new flannel. Then take out the feet and dry them well; rub them gently and well with warm oil, put on a pair of soft cotton stockings, and allow the patient to rest. Squeeze an orange and give him an orange drink (see Drinks).
When you have used this fomentation to the feet, and cold cloths once or twice, it will be well to place a large bran poultice across the lower part of the back, taking care again that this is only comfortably hot. When you have had the benefit of this once or twice, you may place a similar poultice between the shoulders; but this only after you have so far succeeded in cooling down the inflamed lung or lungs, as the case may be. During the whole of the treatment it will be well to watch what is agreeable to the sufferer. It is not only that a certain treatment, or degree of treatment, comforts, but that it comforts because it heals. Move the patient as little as possible during treatment, and do and say all possible to soothe the mind.
The whole treatment should be gone over a second time within twelve hours. The second day give one application of the treatment only, and repeat once again the third day. Except for the first time, the treatment may be limited to half-an-hour. Avoid hot food or drink, but it is not necessary to have it positively cold. This treatment we have found perfectly successful in many cases.
Lungs, Congestion of the.—Treatment as below. Read preceding and succeeding articles.
Lungs, Inflammation of the.—This is a common trouble in our climate, and, fortunately, one not difficult to cure if taken in time and properly treated. It is usually the result of a chill, and is accompanied with pain and inability to breathe properly, distressing fever, and often delirium. To begin with, all its evils arise from the relaxing of the vessels of the lungs, so that these swell, and the excess of blood causes inflammatory action to supervene. To guard against it, then, those influences must be avoided which reduce vitality; where they cannot be avoided, all must be done to counteract them. Mere exposure to cold or wet, unless accompanied by exhaustion from hunger, or grief, or other influence of the kind, rarely causes this trouble.
Where the trouble has set in, the treatment is the same as recommended above in Lungs, Bleeding from. If the patient be a very strong person, and the fever very great, the fomentation to the feet may be dispensed with; but if any uncomfortable coldness is felt, or the patient not above average strength, it should always be applied. No one who has not seen it can imagine the magical effect such treatment has. It is simple, but its efficiency has been demonstrated in a very large number of cases of cure.
Malaria.—Is now known to be conveyed by the bite of a certain kind of mosquito. Those who live in a malarious district should carefully exclude these from their houses, and by draining swamps and covering water butts prevent their breeding, which is always in stagnant water. If, however, exposure to infection cannot be prevented, much may be done to strengthen the system to resist it. Firstly, note that there is a great deal in the food and drink of a family compelled to live in such a district. If they live largely on animal food, and drink alcoholic liquors, they will seriously add to the power of malarial influence. The use of simple food and pure water will very much lessen it. Let us note that the very opposite of the popular superstition is the truth. A single glassful of gin, whiskey, or brandy, instead of "fortifying" against such infection, actually knocks down the "fortifications" which nature has reared against its power. These drinks, then, must be strictly avoided.