Every Man His Own Doctor / The Cold Water, Tepid Water, and Friction-Cure, as Applicable to Every Disease to Which the Human Frame Is Subject, and Also to the Cure of Disease in Horses and Cattle

by R. T. Claridge

In the third stage, the patient is suddenly laid prostrate, serous fluid, in large quantities, is discharged from the bowels and stomach, with cramps and spasms, hardly any pulse, and difficult respiration. Under ordinary treatment, this frequently terminates life in a few hours.

To those who have witnessed the wonderful results of the Water-cure treatment in cholic, diarrhœa, &c., it must be evident, that in the primary stages of this malady, the treatment resorted to in those complaints, would be perfectly effectual; and that cholera, in its worst and most fearful form, is to be successfully combated by no other than hydropathic means.

If, after visiting a contagious case, Mr. Priessnitz feels at all uncomfortable, he takes a packing-sheet and tepid-bath.

Asiatic Cholera.—On the first appearance of Cholera symptoms, which are generally those of languor and chilliness, do not wait for a development, but apply most vigorously a rubbing-sheet; then dry the body, and administer a clyster of cold water. In two or three minutes repeat the rubbing-sheet and clyster, wait five minutes and repeat the same a third time. Then a cold sitz-bath, letting two attendants rub the patient with hands dipped in water, particularly on the abdomen, the whole time; water should be drunk whilst in the sitz-bath, until patient vomits; when cramps in the stomach and vomiting have subsided, place a large bandage round the body, and put him to bed well covered up. After sleeping, apply a tepid-bath with friction for some time. If not cured, renew the whole operation.

If, after the sitz-bath, cholera appears on the advance, warm a blanket, and pack the patient as in the sweating process; if he remains therein several hours, and the symptoms do not decrease, renew the whole proceedings, and again try to produce perspiration; when effected, keep it up two or three hours. After this a tepid-bath 62° with friction. The success of the treatment very much depends upon drinking abundantly of water. The bandages used, should be doubled or trebled, and changed often. If patient is unable to stand or sit upright, lay him on a bed, and let several attendants rub him all over with wet hands.

Extract from a letter from Dr. Gibbs to the editor of the “Water-cure Journal.”

“You cannot have forgotten the consternation of the profession when this fearful disease invaded us in 1832. Neither can you be ignorant that the faculty, generally, are as ill prepared to contend with it now as they were in former years; but for the information of those who may not be as well acquainted with such matters as you must be, I beg to make an extract from the minutes of the proceedings at a meeting of the Western Medical and Surgical Association, as reported in the Lancet of September 19, 1846. In the course of a discussion on the treatment of cholera, Dr. Cahill said, that he ‘positively felt a creeping of the skin at the relation of the enormities which had been perpetrated by practitioners upon their patients. When he listened to the recital of practitioners who described the extravagant cases of mercury and of opium which they administered, he could not refrain from fancying that he was witnessing the orgies of so many Indian savages, whilst counting the scalps of their victims. He thought it a pity that the invention of such a system of torture should not experience the fate of the inventor of the brazen bull, and illustrate upon his own person the efficacy of his infernal ingenuity. He believed that in the majority of persons who died of Asiatic cholera, death was the consequence of the treatment rather than of the disease. He had seen above a thousand cases of Asiatic cholera; and in no instance had he seen any benefit from any mode of treatment. On the contrary, he had seen persons die of narcotism, who would have survived if left to the vis medicatrix naturæ. He had seen others die of absorption of air through the veins when the saline fluid was ejected; and he knew many who had had the extraordinary luck to escape both the doctor and the disease, yet rendered miserable for the remainder of life by the effects of the immense doses of mercury which had been given to them during the cholera paroxysms. In fact, it was afflicting to contemplate the sufferings which the rash and empirical practice of the profession in the management of this epidemic had created.’The learned gentleman likewise said ‘With respect to cholera, since nothing was known of its nature, and no treatment had any influence over it, the best plan was to do as little as possible: give carrara, soda, or pump-water, with a little laudanum, perhaps in the diarrhœal stage, and the patient would not be deprived of the chance which nature had given him.’

“It is to be presumed that the doctor had not seen this disease treated by the Water-cure, under the operation of which, if I am correctly informed, and as I can readily believe, results very different from those, which he witnessed, were obtained. It is stated that more than twenty cases were successfully treated by Priessnitz, and between thirty and forty at Breslau, by a clergyman, whose name I regret that I have forgotten; and it is added that neither practitioner lost a patient by death. The treatment adopted by each of them was nearly the same; the principal difference between them being, that the one employed the sitz-bath, and the other the shallow tepid-bath.

[“]If on the appearance of the premonitory symptoms, judicious treatment be promptly adopted, it seems not improbable that the disease may be cut short. Those symptoms may be any combination of the following:—shivering, dizziness, a ringing noise in the ears, a small quick pulse, accelerated respiration, languor, præcordial anxiety, a cold white tongue, nausea, vomiting, severe gripings, and watery diarrhœa. If it be not checked, the disease quickly passes into the second or algid stage; the circulation becomes feeble, the blood is drained of its fluid, the muscles are contracted and cramped, the tongue is colder and whiter, the thirst becomes burning, the lips livid; the features contracted, the extremities shrivelled, and the skin cold, clammy, and discoloured.