We have taken this subject up so carefully in "bathing" and in the first part that we will say no more here.
Cold Feet.—The best prescription for cold or tired feet is to carefully envelop each toe and foot with blank newspaper before encasing the same with sock. First have the feet perfectly dry and warm, then they will remain so all day, if properly protected with easy-fitting, strong boots or shoes. Barbers do this to prevent their feet scalding and heating; stage drivers use this method, and hundreds attest its efficacy.
Many people, especially women and children, suffer the whole winter through with cold feet. This is mainly due to the fact that they wear their shoes too tight. Unless the toes have perfect freedom, the blood cannot circulate properly. People who wear rubbers the whole winter through, generally suffer with their feet. Rubbers make them very tender by overheating and causing them to perspire. They should be removed as soon as one enters the house. They draw the feet, keep them hot and wet with perspiration—then as soon as one goes again into the air the feet are chilled.
Colds.—Don't have any fear of night air. That is an unfounded superstition. Keep your windows open. You will sleep better and the next day you will not catch cold.
Take a good hot lemonade just before retiring; in the morning, immediately on getting out of bed, take a cold bath and rub hard until you are in a perfect glow.
Too much coddling is unquestionably one of the most common causes of catarrh. One who is inured to hardships is able to endure exposure without injury, while one unaccustomed to like experience quickly succumbs. Air-tight houses, close and unventilated, overheated rooms, even the quantity of clothing required, are active causes, preventing development of hardihood. As a result, colds and catarrh are universal maladies among civilized people.
Says a writer in Woman's Work: "Without dwelling on the nature and causes of colds, or on what physicians call the pathology of these disorders, I will say that a low or even starvation diet for a few days, with the free drinking of warm, mildly stimulating teas, is better for a cold than any drug or combination of drugs. If with this a warm bath or a hot foot-bath is taken, little more will be needed. Nine cases in ten of colds can be broken up in this early stage by a hot foot or rather leg-bath, keeping the bath as hot as it can be borne, until perspiration arises. After the bath drink a half pint of hot lemonade and go to bed."
A Good Cough Remedy.—The following is from a doctor connected with an institution with many children: "There is nothing more irritable to a cough than a cough. For some time I had been so fully assured of this that I determined, for one minute at least, to lessen the number of coughs heard in a certain ward in a hospital of the institution. By the promise of rewards and punishments, I succeeded in inducing them to simply hold their breath when tempted to cough, and in a little while I was myself surprised to see how some of the children entirely recovered from their disease. Constant coughing is precisely like scratching a wound on the outside of the body. So long as it is done the wound will not heal. Let a person when tempted to cough draw a long breath and hold it until it warms and soothes every air-cell, and some benefit will soon be received from this process. The nitrogen which is thus refined acts as an anodyne to the mucous membrane, allaying the desire to cough and giving the throat and lungs a chance to heal. At the same time a suitable medicine will aid nature in her effort to recuperate."
Constipation.—Regularity in the hour of going to stool and the avoidance of highly-seasoned food are preventatives. See "constipation," first part, per index, for a cure.
Consumption.—"What Changes has the Acceptance of the Germ Theory made in Measures for the Prevention and Treatment of Consumption?" is the title of an essay by Dr. Charles V. Chapin, of Providence, to whom was awarded a premium of $200 by the trustees of the Fisk Fund. In this essay Dr. Chapin has given an admirable résumé of all that has been written about consumption from the time of Hippocrates to the present day. After a careful examination of the literature of the subject, he thinks that we are justified in the conclusion that the acceptance of the germ theory has made no direct or important addition either to the hygiene or medicinal treatment of consumption. He thinks, however, that it should have great influence. It tells us plainly what we ought to do. We simply do not obey its behests. The germ theory—now no longer a theory in the case of tubercular consumption—tells us that we have to do with a contagious disease. Now there is no theoretical reason why a purely contagious disease like tuberculosis cannot be exterminated. If we can prevent the spread of contagion at all, we can prevent it entirely. The enormous value of preventive measures, isolation, disinfection, and quarantine, is well illustrated in history of cholera, typhus fever, and yellow fever in the United States.