3. Mustard Foot-Bath. A mustard foot-bath consists of one or two tablespoonfuls of pure mustard in a bucket two-thirds full of water at 105°F; the feet may be kept in this for about twenty minutes, a blanket being thrown around the limbs, and including the bucket, to retain the heat.
Revulsives must be used with caution in cases of shock or coma, lest impaired vitality or sensation to pain result in extensive sloughing of the skin.
CAUTERIES
The Actual Cautery is used in the form of variously shaped irons, hatchet-edged, round, or olivary, fitted into wooden handles, and heated in a charcoal furnace.
As a counterirritant, the iron should be heated only to a dull red heat, and should be quickly drawn in parallel lines, about one inch apart, over the skin, avoiding all bony prominences. Compresses wet with cold water, or with some antiseptic lotion, may then be applied.
The Paquellin Thermo-Cautery is a convenient form. It consists of hollow platinum cauteries and a handle covered with wood; a benzole reservoir; a pair of rubber bulbs, like those for a hand-spray apparatus, connected by a tube with the reservoir; a long rubber tube to connect the cautery handle also with the reservoir; and a spirit-lamp with attached blow-pipe.
Screwing on the desired point, the tube from the reservoir is slipped over the handle; the point is heated in the lamp; is removed from the flame; and, compressing the bulbs, which should previously have been connected with the reservoir, benzole vapor is forced into the point, which will heat up, and can be maintained at any temperature by the rapidity with which the bulb is worked. If the point will not heat with the simple flame, attach the bulbs to the blow-pipe on the lamp, and, compressing them, heat the cautery to a bright-red heat, and then connect with the reservoir and proceed as before directed.
Galvano-Cautery. This requires a battery of a few large elements closely coupled, and various curets, knives, and ecraseurs fitting into insulated handles. The chief advantage of this form of cautery is the possibility of placing the instrument in position while cold, and then heating it.
Where hemorrhage is undesirable, a dull-red heat should be maintained, for at a white heat the tissues are divided as if with a knife, and bleeding follows. When the ecraseur is used, needles must be passed at right angles through the healthy tissues, the platinum wire placed behind these, and the wire, at a dull-red heat, slowly tightened.