HEAT STROKE.
First Aid Rule 1.—Send for physician.
Rule 2.—Remove quickly to shady place, loosening clothes on the way.
Rule 3.—Strip naked and put on wire mattress (or canvas cot), if obtainable.
Rule 4.—Sprinkle with ice water from watering pot, or dash it out of basin with hand.
Rule 5.—Dip sheet in ice water and tuck it snugly about patient.
Rule 6.—Sprinkle outside of sheet with ice water; rub body, through the sheet, with piece of ice. Put piece of ice to nape of neck.
Rule 7.—When temperature falls to 98.5° F. put to bed with ice cap on head.
SUNSTROKE.—There are two very distinct types of sunstroke: (1) Heat exhaustion or heat prostration. (2) Heat stroke.
Heat prostration or exhaustion occurs when persons weakened by overwork, worry, or poor food are exposed to severe heat combined with great physical exertion. It often attacks soldiers on the march, but also those not exposed to the direct rays of the sun, as workers in laundries, in boiler rooms, and in stoke-holes of steamers. The attack begins more often in the afternoon or evening, in the case of those exposed to out-of-door heat. Feelings of weakness, dizziness, and restlessness, accompanied by headache, are among the first symptoms. The face is very pale, the skin is cool and moist, although the trouble often starts with sudden arrest of sweating. There is great prostration, with feeble, rapid pulse, frequent and shallow breathing, and lowered temperature, ranging often from 95° to 96° F. The patient usually retains consciousness, but rarely there is complete insensibility. The pernicious practice of permitting children at seaside resorts to wade about in cold water while their heads are bared to the burning sun is peculiarly adapted to favor heat prostration.