Page:Alcohol, a Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine.djvu/234

226 "The external use of water also forms an important part of the treatment. The patient should be sponged off with tepid water every hour or two when the temperature is 103°, or above. When the temperature is less than this, it is not necessary to sponge the body so frequently. Sometimes a hot sponge bath is more efficacious in reducing the temperature than the tepid or cool bath. The sponge bath reduces the temperature, relieves many of the distressing nervous symptoms, is refreshing to the patient, and promotes sleep. The temperature of the body may also be reduced by the use of cool compresses placed over the abdomen, and changed frequently.

"The matter of diet is an important factor in the treatment of typhoid fever. The diet should be aseptic, easily digested, and should contain the necessary food elements. Probably no one article of diet meets all these requirements as well as sterilized milk. The patient should take from two to three pints daily. The milk is best taken four times during the day at intervals of four hours, taking eight to ten ounces at a time. Should the patient become tired of the milk, gluten gruel may be substituted for the milk.

"The diarrhœa and bowel symptoms, when present, may be relieved by the application of hot fomentations to the abdomen, warm or hot enemas and twenty grains of subnitrate of bismuth given every four hours.

"The patient should be kept as quiet as possible, and should be turned in bed at intervals, to prevent hypostatic congestion and the formation of bed-sores. The bony prominences which are apt to become eroded should be sponged frequently with a solution of tannic acid in equal parts of alcohol and water; a dram of the tannic acid to a pint of alcohol and water, is about the proper strength to use.

By the methods briefly outlined above—that is by the free use of water internally and externally, by keeping the intestines thoroughly emptied of poisonous material by the free and