Treatment.—Hot baths, leeches, or fomentations to the crutch, and a sedative, such as opium (preferably given by the bowel), will be required. If the disease continues the bladder should be washed out through a catheter with weak boric acid solution, five grains to the ounce, or chinosol (1 in 2000), twice a day. Urotropin, ten grains, and copaiba or sandal-wood oil in ten-drop doses.
The diet should be restricted to milk.
Dengue.
This disease, also known as dandy fever and break-bone fever, occurs in many parts of the world, and it is most common along littorals, probably because the Stegomyia mosquito which carries the infection is usually numerous in sea-coast places.
Cause.—The organism of dengue fever is unknown, but the infection has been proved to be carried by at least one species of mosquito.
Symptoms.—The incubation period varies from about five to ten days. The onset is very sudden, the temperature rising rapidly. Within an hour or two an initial rash appears, which varies in appearance and is transient. The patient suffers from severe headache and pain in the joints and back. Indeed, the condition closely resembles a sharp attack of influenza, but, as a rule, there are no signs of coryza. The eyes are very painful and insomnia is present. The high temperature lasts for three or four days, then drops, continues low from twelve hours to three days and rises again sharply. During the interval the patient feels better but the symptoms start again when the temperature rises for the second time. In the second stage the true rash of dengue appears, which is rather like that of measles, and it is followed by desquamation of the skin. The disease, though often causing great weakness, is very rarely fatal.
Prophylaxis.—Protect against mosquito bites by using a proper mosquito net or by employing mosquito repellents such as “sketofax.”
Treatment.—Light diet, rest in bed, phenacetin and aspirin for the relief of pain and headache. Cold sponging helps the febrile condition and the insomnia. During convalescence there is often much depression, and the patient benefits by being ordered tonics and a sound wine.