“If there be danger at all, it is going into cold water without raising the temperature of the body. It must be the temperature that is the question; for it cannot be of consequence whether the body be covered with grease called perspiration or hog’s-lard. Re-action will most certainly be produced, and congestion as certainly prevented by going into the water when the body is warm. Profuse perspiration does not make the body hotter, in proportion to its profuseness, on the contrary, it is cooler than before, for perspiration is a cooling process.
“When perspiration is present, the body is never extremely hot. Checking perspiration is a chimerical danger; the oozing of perspiration subsides of itself, almost at the moment the means that produced it are withdrawn, and the perspiration on the body is that which has been already produced, having now no connection with the body.”
At Cork in Ireland, it was told me by one of the first brewers, that formerly his men, while in a state of perspiration, from pressing the grain out of the vats, frequently caught cold and died: at last they adopted the plan of going into cold water, whilst in that state; the result of which has been that they now never catch cold from their occupation, and are as healthy as other people.
XIII.—The Packing Sheet, and Sweating Process.
Take all the coverings off the bed, arrange the pillows, cover over the bed and pillows with a large thick blanket, then put a small sheet into a pail of fresh cold water; if to reduce fever, let it be wrung out less; if there is no fever, more; the drier the sheet, the sooner the re-action; spread this sheet so wrung out, on the blanket.
The patient extends himself, divested of every thing, upon the sheet, which should be brought over him as soon as possible. The blanket is now brought over the sheet, and the attendant tucks it in, beginning with the neck, as tightly as possible, so that his patient can hardly move hand or foot. Other blankets are then added, separately tucked in, and turned up at the feet. Half-a-dozen blankets are not too many; and to produce immediate heat, a feather bed is superadded, leaving the head free. It is astonishing what an amount of covering one may support without inconvenience.
The great object is so to envelop the body as to exclude the air, and prevent evaporation, in order that its own heat may be concentrated upon itself.
In ordinary cases, the sheet is well wrung out, and covered up as before stated; but in cases of severe fever, the wet is only covered with a single dry one. In cases of very great delicacy, but not in fever, the sheet is put into tepid water instead of cold.
This has by some been called a general poultice, as it performs upon the whole body what a poultice or the bandages effect upon members of it. Dr. Alexander of Newcastle terms it a linen bath.