Papers on Health

by John Kirk

We have known a nurse try to heal an outstricken face by means of good vinegar at its full strength. She was instructed to use the vinegar very much diluted, but fancied it would heal faster if much stronger. She might just as well have fancied that it is better to put one's cold hands into the fire than to hold them at some distance when wishing to warm them. The child's face was made greatly worse, of course, and the cure abandoned. It is therefore necessary to urge that a strength of acid which secures only the most gentle sensation of smarting is essential to cure. The weak vinegar is first applied to the outer and less fiery parts of the outstrike. Try to heal from this inwards, by gradual advances from day to day. On the less affected parts the weak acid may be applied twice a day; on the sorer parts only when itching is so distressing as to demand it.

We have seen a child whose head, face, and neck were one distressing sore; we have taken the cloth with the diluted vinegar and daubed a square inch or so of the skin on which the fiery eruption was so full, and in less than two minutes we have seen the colour change into a healthy pink, and remain that colour when the olive oil was applied. The child's sores yielded gradually, till the whole illness was removed.

Sometimes such eruptions, in adults as well as children, arise from suppressed perspiration, or from the perspiration being of an acrid and irritating nature. It is sometimes apparently the result of the rubbing off of a little of the skin, or it comes on without any known accident. For a time it seems scarcely worth noticing, and is consequently neglected; but gradually it spreads on the surface and gives uneasiness, especially after the patient has been some time in bed. It goes on till a large portion of the skin from the knee to the ankle is reddened and roughened with a moist eruption. Now remedies of various kinds are tried, but the evil gets worse and worse. The person affected is often a struggling mother or widow, who has to keep on her feet all day in anxious toil, and neither gets very good food during the day nor proper rest during the night. Month after month goes past, and no relief comes. The positive agony which such persons suffer is incredible to those who have not experienced anything of the kind.

Here the great difficulty often is to get the patient the very chief condition for cure—that is, perfect rest for the affected limb. If this can in any way be secured, all else is comparatively plain sailing. But this is sometimes impossible: the children may not be in a position to be left, or the little business cannot be allowed to die, as it would in a month's time if not attended to, or some other hindrance is in the way. We must just do the best in the circumstances. We shall say that we are compelled to do without the rest, probably also without certain other things. Rest is very desirable, and so is a gentle rubbing all over the body, first with warm vinegar and then with olive oil, but there is perhaps no one capable of doing such a thing whose services can be secured. It is easy to "order" very useful processes, but among many who would not be exactly called "poor people" it is not easy to have the "order" carried out. We must often do without this double rubbing, and yet cure the diseased skin of the afflicted limb. Let the reader remember that it is no matter of choice that we dispense with the rest and the rubbing. If they are possible, by all means let them be taken advantage of to the utmost.

For treatment, unless distinct running sores are formed, bathe the limb with warm water and M'Clinton's Soap, which will remove all crusts, scabs, &c. Then apply zinc ointment. Do not bathe or poultice after the first time. All secretion can be removed by a piece of cotton wool dipped in warm olive oil. If deep running sores have formed, then we must have a water-tight box of rough deal in which the whole leg up to the knee can be bathed for an hour in hot water. We see no reason why it should cost much over a shilling to get this, and it would be a sore want if it could not be procured. It is so made that the leg and foot can rest easily in it while it is nearly full of hot water. It need not be wider than just to hold the limb easily. Some good-hearted joiner will put five small boards together so as to meet this want. We shall suppose that it is supplied. Now for a few cloths, such as will cover the diseased parts, about three-ply all round. Then for vinegar or acetic acid, so diluted with water that it will just cause a slight smarting when heated and touching the affected skin. It must not be so strong as to cause burning, nor so weak as to give no sense of its presence at all, but between these extremes. It can be tried when too weak, and vinegar or other acetic acid added till a gentle smarting is felt. The cloths are dipped in the diluted and heated vinegar, allowed to drip till no more falls off, and then laid tenderly all round the sore. A strip of dry cloth may then be wound round so as to keep these on, and the leg thus dressed placed in the bath. It should be kept there, with now and again a gentle movement, and the strong comfortable heat of the water kept up for an hour, unless the patient should feel sickness before that time. If this comes on, the water is too hot; but, instead of merely cooling it, the bath may cease for the time, and water not so hot may be tried on a second occasion. Whether the hour has been reached or not, good has been done. The leg is taken out of the hot water and gently dried—not rubbed, but dried without rubbing. Then as much cloth as will go twice round all is dipped in warm olive oil, and this is pressed out a little, so that it may not run. The oiled cloth is wrapped all round the limb. Some dry cloth is also wrapped round, and the first treatment is completed. This should be repeated every night before going to bed, for a week at least. It may be required for a fortnight if the case is bad and no rest at all can be had during the day. We should say the cure may fail for want of this rest, but this is not likely. In the morning as soon as convenient, the diseased skin should be soaked with a warm vinegar cloth, so that it shall smart just a little. It should then be dressed again with the warm olive oil. If at any time during the day or night it gets irritated and troublesome, this morning dressing may be repeated. It will not be very long before the one leg is as good as the other. The general health, too, of the patient will be sensibly improved.

It is scarcely necessary to point out that a similar treatment to this will cure "outstrikings" of the same sort in the arms and other parts of the body, as well as upon the legs. There is required only some such modification of the appliances as may meet the particular case. For example, we have seen the outstriking between the shoulders, so that it could not be reached by bathing, unless by appliances utterly out of the question in the circumstances. But dressing with hot vinegar cloths, allowing these to remain on for twenty minutes or so, and then dressing with warm olive oil, allowing this to remain for two or three hours, is quite possible to any one who is so affected; and this will usually be sufficient for a cure.

You have, perhaps, been cured temporarily more than once with arsenic, and the evil has returned worse and worse. In that case you may require all the more patience and the longer application of the above treatment; but, once cured in this way, you will not, so far as a good long experience enables us to judge, be likely to have any relapse. In very bad cases we have seen poultices of mashed potatoes made with buttermilk cleanse the diseased parts most effectually, and then the acid takes healing effect very speedily. In these cases ordinary medical treatment had utterly and hopelessly failed.

Pain, Severe, in Limbs.—This is often not due to any trouble in the joint itself, but to some disorder in the large nerves which have their roots in the lower part of the back. In the case of severe pains in the back of the leg, ankle, or knee, when a chill to the large limb nerves has been the cause, and has raised inflammation, the patient should be put warm in bed. Take two large towels, thoroughly wrung out of cold water. Fold one six or eight ply thick. Gently press this, avoiding cold shock to the patient, over the lower part of the back. When this towel gets hot, spread it out to cool, and apply the other. Continue this with each towel alternately, and when finished, or after an hour, rub the skin with warm olive oil and cover up with new flannel. Similar cold applications to the upper part of the spine will cure such pains in the wrists. If the cold application intensifies or fails to relieve the pain, it is well to try the armchair fomentation (see).

Sometimes light pressure in the form of squeezing the muscles of the lower back is very useful. A very gentle pressure on the right parts is most pleasant to the sufferer. At first it simply relieves in some degree the weary feeling of the limbs. When it is at all well done, it soon raises a gentle heat, which slowly passes down the limbs, even to the very toes. This is just life itself communicated to the limb. But we must not confine our treatment to the spinal cord. The squeezing, or gentle pressure, must be carried down the limb; and when new life has been infused so far, it will be well to apply the pressure between the hands to the swollen and painful part. See Massage.

Palpitation.—Ordinarily we are not aware of the beating of the heart, enormous as is the work it does; but in certain cases this beating becomes distressingly violent, especially on lying down flat or in ascending hills or stairs. The latter cases are the more serious, yet both kinds we have found quite curable. In treatment, fomentation must be avoided, and so must doses of the nerve-damaging drug, digitalis. The best way is to cool the heart, and thus relieve its superabundant action. But care must be taken that cold be not applied to a feeble heart, but only where action is evidently superabundant. It is usually easy to distinguish the two kinds of palpitation. The cooling can be done by pressing towels wrung out of cold water all over the heart region of the left side. Then rub the part so cooled with olive oil, dry off, and let the patient rest. This may be done in the morning before rising. In cases where the heart is feeble, the following treatment should be carried out instead of the cold towels:—Begin at bedtime with a cloth covered with creamy soap lather, and placed quite warm all over the body of the patient. It should be fastened on with the body of a dress, or thin vest, so that it may be kept close to the skin during the night. In the morning the back should be gently washed with hot vinegar, dried, and gently rubbed with warm olive oil. In those cases where the palpitation is only part of a general nervousness, which causes great distress and sleeplessness at night, the back should be lathered all over with soap (see Lather and Soap) at bedtime, and the cloth with lather left on all night. In the morning, dry off, rub gently with hot vinegar, and then with hot olive oil. If the palpitation resists this treatment, then cold towels should be gently pressed to the spine, until the whole system is quieted. The back should then be rubbed with warm olive oil. So far as this restless action is concerned, this is all that is required for complete cure. We are writing thus in view of cases declared hopeless, but the patients are now in perfect health. We remember one at this moment in which the heart's action was so bad that the head could not be raised from the pillow, but the person was in a few weeks as well as any one could wish to be.