Page:The American improved family physician, or home doctor.djvu/12

6 the linen or clothing. It is also a good plan to give the patient a tepid rub sheet or hand bath before the vapor bath. This mode of sweating is the best of all modes; they will not be weakened so much, and the greatest advantage is you can sweat a patient in this manner, and there is not the least danger of taking cold, if exposed in half an hour afterwards. When the patient is too weak to sit on a chair, an Alcoholic Vapor Bath may be given in bed by an apparatus fixed for conducting the vapor into the bed at the feet. It consists of a large spirit lamp, with a funnel inverted over it and attached to a sufficient length of tin tube with joints, so as to be placed and directed where desired, and a sort of cage made of half hoops to cover the patient from the neck to foot, and separate the bed clothes some six or eight inches from his body; this cage being placed over the patient, is covered with blankets, and receives the vapor and heat through the tube from the lamp. Dr. Armstrong highly recommends this measure in Rheumatic and a great many other Inflammatory diseases, fevers, &c, &c. I have used it in a great many diseases with the very greatest of success; and I believe it to be one of our first-rate remedies. Dr. Trall, in his Hydropathic Encyclopedia speaks nothing about the AlcholicAlcoholic [sic] Vapor Bath, but the water vapor, which is of less value. He says the patient ought not to be sweated to the extent of causing dizziness, vertigo or fainting, nor should it run to extremes under any circumstances; but that it is so injurious as he makes it, I doubt.

Fomentations,—or Bitter Herbs boiled in water till the strength is extracted, taking out the herbs and enclosed in flannel cloth, and apply to inflamed parts of any kind will give immediate relief if repeated several times a day or more, if necessary. For this purpose take Hops, Catnip, Wormwood, Boneset, Lobelia, Stramonium or Jamestown weed, White Oak, &c; put the articles in a vessel with water or vinegar, and boil them a few moments. As soon as these get cold when applied to parts, must be taken off and again dipped in the old decoction warmed up, and applied again; or flannel cloths may be wet in the strong decoction and wrung out and applied. A better plan is to have the herbs sewed up in two flannel bags, before being placed in the boiling vessel. If the part to be fomented is a limb, the most convenient plan is to place it over the vessel of boiling liquid containing the herbs, and cover all with a blanket, so as to confine the steam which may be kept up or increased to any desired amount by putting in hot bricks.

Alkaline Bath or Hand Bath.—Take a suitable quantity of boiling water, say ½ pint. To this add one teaspoonful of Saleratus or Soda; when dissolved add cold water enough to make it milk warm. Now have two hand towels, or a sponge and a towel—the one dip in the water and wring it out so that it