The Sulphur Bath is prepared by dissolving eight ounces of sulphuret of potassium and two ounces of dilute sulphuric acid in sixty gallons of water. The acid may be omitted.
A Sulphur Vapor-bath is often employed in cities where the necessary apparatus can be procured. It may be improvised by placing sulphur on a shovel over hot coals. The patient should be prepared as in the spirit vapor-bath, and burning sulphur substituted for the liquor. The patient is then enveloped in the fumes of sulphurous oxide. Heating a mixture of sulphur and sulphuric acid, produces the same result. If the gas is inhaled in large quantities it causes irritation of the respiratory passages, and suffocation. It is therefore necessary that the coverings should be securely fastened at the neck, and that the room be one which can be quickly filled with pure air This bath is used in cutaneous, rheumatic, and syphilitic disorders.
Fomentations consist of the general or local application of woolen cloths wrung out of hot water. They should not be so light as to be ineffectual, nor so heavy as to be burdensome. They should not be wet enough to drip, nor applied so as to expose the body to the surrounding air. A fresh cloth should be ready for application before the first one is removed, and the change quickly effected. Fomentations are effectual in relieving congestion and inflammation.
The Wet Sheet Pack. As this remedial appliance will be frequently recommended in the pages following, its mode of application is here described. Take a pail half filled with cold water, gather together one end of a common cotton sheet, and immerse it, allowing it to remain while preparing the bed, which may be done as follows: remove all the bed-clothes except a coverlet and the pillows, then spread upon it, in the following order, two ordinary comforters, one woolen blanket, one woolen sheet, (or two woolen sheets if a woolen blanket is not at hand); then wring out one-half or two-thirds of the water from the wet sheet, spread it smoothly upon the blanket, and the patient being undressed, places himself on the sheet, with his arms extended, while an assistant wraps him closely and tightly with it, as quickly as possible. Each arm may be thus covered by the wet sheet, or may lie outside of it, and be covered by wet towels, prepared in the same manner as the sheet. Then quickly and tightly cover with the blankets and comforters, tucking snugly from head to foot. The head should also be covered with a wet towel, and a bottle of warm water placed to the feet, or near enough to keep them warm.
After the first shock of the chill is over, the pack is very pleasant and refreshing, and the patient should go to sleep, if possible. The ordinary time for a patient to remain in a pack is about sixty minutes. Thirty or forty minutes is sufficient, if he is in a feeble condition. Never wring the sheet out of warm water, for one of its principal benefits comes from the vigorous reaction induced by its cold temperature. After remaining in the pack from thirty to sixty minutes, allow the patient to stand on his feet, if he is able, and have the whole surface of his body bathed. Rub briskly, and dry with towels, or by throwing over the body a dry sheet and then rubbing him. The dry sheet retains the bodily warmth and is more comfortable, but interferes with the completeness and vigor of the rubbing of the body. Be sure and establish full reaction, which may be known by the warmth of the surface. Frequently, when the patient is released from the pack, and is being bathed, rolls of scales, scurf, and skin-debris come off, thus giving palpable evidence of the utility of the pack in freeing the myriads of pores of the skin of effete matter. It is efficient in fevers, and for breaking up colds, and is a very valuable, remedial agent in most chronic diseases, assisting in removing causes which depress the bodily functions.
MOTION IS A REMEDIAL AGENT.
The stability of the planetary system depends upon the converted motion of its parts. So in the human system, motion is a fundamental principle which underlies every vital process. Health consists in normal, functional activity. The human system is the arena of various kinds of motions, both of fluids and of solids, and life and health depend upon these physiological movements. There are the movements incident to respiration, the expansion and contraction of the walls of the chest, bringing the oxygen of the air into contact with the blood as it circulates through the lungs. Corresponding with the movements of the chest are the motions of the abdominal walls, which promote the functions of the organs of the abdominal cavity.
There are motions of the heart and arteries, which urge the blood out to the extremities and diffuse it through every part of the system, and also motion of the blood in the capillaries, by which the blood is circulated through the tissues, that the latter may be built up from its nutritive constituents. Then there is the motion of the vital current in the veins returning towards the heart, and urged forward by the muscular and pump-like action of the chest and abdominal walls. The peristaltic motions of the stomach and bowels urge onward digesting materials, exposing them successively to different solvents and aiding the absorption of nutritive matter. No less essential to life and health are numerous other minute operations or motions, on which vital power in all its manifestations of muscular and nervous energy depends. Many other motions are consequent upon decay, growth, and repair. Oxygen, carbonic acid, watery vapors, and other gaseous matter are constantly being exchanged between the system and atmosphere. Then, the human system being a complex, chemical laboratory, there are motions consequent upon chemical action, constantly going on within it.
Muscular motion, under the direction of the will, is also absolutely necessary for the maintenance of good health.
Animal heat and muscular and nervous power are dependent upon motions of the minutest particles composing the body. The body is composed of fluid and semi-fluid matter, permitting great freedom of motion. Health requires that there shall be a constant change of place, an active transmission of material to and from vital organs and parts, through the medium of blood-vessels, as well as outside such vessels; that is, motion of interstitial fluids.