Papers on Health Part 22

No one has a right to do what distresses others, and especially when they are sick. This principle should guide action. Acting thus will give untold rest and ease to the troubled.

Nostrils, The.--The disease called Polypus, affecting the mouth or nostril with growths which are usually removed by force, is one of those troubles curable by proper use of vinegar or weak acetic acid.

The extraction of the Polypi is painful, and we have ourselves seen them so completely cured, that it is a pity not to make very widely known a method of avoiding extraction. A small gla.s.s syringe or a "nasal douche" (rubber is best) should be got, such as may easily be used for syringing the nostrils, or gums, if the growth be on these.

Syringe the growths well with vinegar or ACETIC ACID (_see_), so diluted with water as only _very slightly_ to smart when it is applied.

Use this slightly warm, and force it well up the nostril, so that it goes even back into the throat. This should be done for a considerable time: not so as to feel painful, but long enough to produce a decided effect, which remains on ceasing. Dry the nostrils with a little soft lint or clean rag, and force in a little fine almond oil. Do all this twice a day for a fortnight at least. In a bad case, a BRAN POULTICE (_see_) may be applied to the back of the head and neck, coming down over the spine between the shoulders.

Similar growths on other membranes, if accessible, may be cured by acid in a similar way.

This treatment is excellent for an ordinary cold in the head.

Nourishment.--Nothing is more required in healing than properly to _nourish_ the enfeebled body. In its commencement proper nourishment demands a proper mixture of food and saliva. In fever, if there be little or no saliva present, food requiring much saliva to fit it for digestion only injures. This is the case with so-called _rich_ foods, especially. Excessive thirst usually marks this deficiency of saliva.

Always consider carefully the flow of saliva before feeding a patient in a weak state. Get the mouth to "water" somewhat before giving food.

We have seen a cold cloth changed several times over the stomach start the flow of saliva almost miraculously, relieving the thirst, and prepare for nourishment which could not be taken before.

Going further into the matter, we see that very likely the stomach requires a.s.sistance to dispose of even well-salivated food. There may be a lack of gastric juice. In this case, frequent and small quant.i.ties of hot water supplied to the stomach will greatly help it. A winegla.s.sful of hot water taken every ten minutes for two, four, or ten hours will be sufficient (_see_ Digestion; Indigestion). It is well to think ten times of the readiness of the system to digest, for once of the food to be taken. If the stomach be either burning hot or cold and chilly, let it be cooled or warmed, as the case may be. Either use cold towels or give hot water as above, as the case demands. When it is brought into something like a natural state of feeling, you may then give food. The hot water will often not only prepare the stomach, but will start the flow of saliva in the mouth, and that even when the cooling cloth has failed to do so.

A medical man will, at times, forbid water, however thirsty the patient may be. He is not unlikely to be labouring under a serious mistake. It may be just the want of water which is causing the very symptoms which he thinks to cure by withholding it. We never saw anything but suffering arise from withholding water from the thirsty.

Milk is a prime element in nourishing the weak. Mixed with its own bulk of boiling water, or even with twice as much, it is immensely more easy to digest. The simple water is of vast importance, and the milk mixed with boiling water is quite a different substance for digestion from the fresh pure milk. It is better to have a teaspoonful of milk and water really digested than a pint of rich milk overloading the stomach.

Many persons put lime-water into the milk to make it digestible. In doing so they put a difficulty in the way, in the shape of the lime. If one tries to wash his hands in "hard" water, he sees how unfit that water is to do the proper work of water in the blood and tissues of the body. Now, it is not difficult to meet this evil where the only water to be had has a great deal of lime in solution. Boiling this water makes it deposit much of its lime. If a very, very small bit of soda is mixed with it in the boiling, it lets down its lime more quickly and completely.

Alcoholic drinks--wine, porter, or ale--are often given as means of nourishment. They are hurtful in the extreme, as the spirit contained in them spoils, so far as it acts, both the saliva and the gastric juice. Rum and milk, sack whey, and other such preparations are equally bad, and have killed many a patient.

While suitable nourishment is necessary for the sick, great care should be taken to avoid giving too much. Often the amount of food the patient requires or can a.s.similate is _exceedingly small_. Injudicious attempts to "keep up the strength" by forcing down food that cannot be digested often destroy the little that remains, and remove the only hope of cure. (_See_ also a.s.similation; Biscuits and Water; Blood; Bread; b.u.t.termilk; Child-Bearing; Constipation; Diet; Drinks; Dyspepsia; Foods; Heartburn; Infants' Food.)

Nourishment, Cold in.--If a person is in fever, and is burning with internal heat, a little bit of ice, sucked in the mouth, gives great relief. The relief is got in this way: the melted ice, in the form of water, is little in bulk in proportion to the heat which is absorbed in melting it. To absorb the same heat by means of merely cold water, would imply a great amount of water, and an inconvenient filling of the stomach. The heat used up in melting the small bit of ice is great, and the amount of water exceedingly small. This gives benefit without inconvenience; hence, to suck a bit of ice is to be much preferred in such a case to taking a drink of cold water.

Within proper limits, beyond all question, cold is, in certain cases, essential to nourishment. For example, in a case of thirst such as we have noticed, the heat of the stomach extending to the mouth is drying up all the juices that should go to secure digestion and a.s.similation.

The saliva is dried up, and the gastric juice equally so. Cold is applied to the pit of the stomach (not ice, but a moderate degree of repeated cold), and the result is, these juices begin to flow.

Nourishment is the consequence, and very clearly, in such a case, it is the consequence of cold. In other words, it is the result of reducing the excessive internal heat, and leaving something like the proper degree behind.

The place which cold has in nourishing is, so to speak, negative--that is, it is useful only in reducing overheating. But when we remember how a frosty morning sharpens appet.i.tes and makes the cheeks glow with ruddy health, we see that such reduction of overheat is not infrequently required.

Nourishment, Heat in.--Heat is absorbed in building up the bodily tissues, and given off when they are disintegrated. To rightly understand this is of great importance in all treatment. When a living substance is growing, it demands heat. An ill.u.s.tration of this is the sun's heat causing what we call "growing weather." Again, where substances are breaking up, as in burning wood, heat is given out. In the stomach, a certain amount of heat is needed during digestion. If it is not given, indigestion ensues. To swallow ice, where the stomach has already insufficient heat, is then great folly. On the other hand, to take hot water is to do the very thing which gives the stomach what it needs, and so to relieve the indigestion. Many times, when the stomach simply stands still from lack of energy, it will move immediately on getting a gla.s.s of hot water to help it. Similarly, a little genial heat a.s.sists other failing organs. As we have shown how cold diminishes the excessive action of inflammation and fever, so we now point out that if you can find out what organs are feeble and acting insufficiently, and stimulate them with gentle heat, you are on the way to a cure.

Nursing Over.--Few vital processes are more remarkable than that by which food fitted for adults becomes in the mother's breast food fit for the little infant. In nursing it is well to remember that all food is not equally fit to be so changed. Well-boiled porridge, of either oat or wheaten meal, is probably as good as can be got. Malt liquor, though causing a large flow of milk, most seriously deteriorates its quality, and should be entirely avoided. But in this article we think chiefly of the mother, and of the necessary drain of blood and vital force which she bears in nursing. In most cases this drain is easily borne, in others the child is fed at the mother's expense. The supply of power, in such cases, is not equal to the loss of it in feeding the child, and the reserve in the mother's body is slowly used up. She becomes thin and pale, and her nervous system begins to suffer. When this is the case, either means must be used to increase her vital power, or nursing must at once be given up. Of course, where she may have had insufficient or unsuitable food, a change of diet may work a cure; but, as a rule, the drain of nursing will have to be stopped. To help her restoration, whether she ceases to nurse or not, use the following mixture and treatment: Boil a stick of best liquorice for half-an-hour in a quart of good soft water. Add one quarter of an ounce of camomile flowers, and boil for another half-hour. Keep the water up to the quant.i.ty by adding _boiling_ water as required. Strain the mixture, and give a dessertspoonful thrice a day before meals. If the dessertspoonful be found too much, a teaspoonful may be taken. The patient, if any heart trouble is felt, should go to bed early, and have the feet and legs fomented, and cold cloths pressed over the heart.

This may be done for three or four nights. After this, each night for a fortnight the back should be well washed with SOAP (_see_) and hot water, and rubbed with vinegar and hot olive oil. Let each be dried off before the other is applied.

Oil, Olive.--A little oil only should be applied to the skin at once.

Any such _smearing_ as dirties the clothes or bedclothes is quite unnecessary.

Since the first edition of these papers was published, the use of oil in the "ma.s.sage" treatment has become so widely known that methods of rubbing are better understood, and its results more appreciated. Hence it is now easier to procure pure oil, and our readers should be able to get it cheaply at any first-cla.s.s grocer's.

Opium.--_See_ Narcotics.

Oranges.--Some things regarding this useful fruit require to be noted by those using them in sickness. To eat the whole substance of an orange except the outer rind is to give the digestive system some hard work. We have known most serious stomach disturbance caused to the healthy by doing so. Some parts of the inner rind and part.i.tions of the fruit act almost like poison. These should always be rejected. The juice is most beneficial. It is best given to patients by squeezing the orange into a gla.s.s, and _straining_ it through muslin into another gla.s.s. Add its own bulk of water and a teaspoonful of sugar, if liked.

This may be taken warm or cold, and will do where even milk and water cannot be taken. (_See_ Drinks).

"Outstrikes."--These appear on the skin from various causes. In the case of infants, they often appear on the head and face during teething.

An experienced medical man is cautious in the extreme of quickly healing the distressed skin. He is afraid of "driving in" the eruption on the brain. Perhaps he refuses to do anything whatever to heal the head. From what we have seen, however, even in the worst cases, when head and face and neck were one great sore, we feel a.s.sured that there is no need why this distress should be continued at all. It may be, at least in many cases, safely and not very slowly healed.

The _whole_ skin of the infant must be brought into vigorous and healthy action. The head at first need not be touched; but the entire skin not affected should be sponged with warm vinegar, and then dried, rubbed with warm olive oil, and this wiped off carefully and gently, so far as it does not adhere to the skin under the soft dry towel. Quite enough remains to do all the good required; and if more is left on, a chilliness and nastiness are felt, which prejudice many against the use of it altogether.

It is well, in many cases, not to touch the child with _water_ or _soap_. The vinegar and oil cleanse the skin and do all that is required. Then vinegar very much diluted should be used warm to apply with a soft rag to the sores. Take a teaspoonful of vinegar in a breakfastcupful of warm water. If this causes the child to cry when applied, then dilute still further. Vinegar weak enough to cause hardly any feeling when it touches the sore, will _heal_; stronger vinegar will _injure_.

We have known a nurse try to heal an outstricken face by means of good vinegar at its full strength. She was instructed to use the vinegar very much diluted, but fancied it would heal faster if much stronger.

She might just as well have fancied that it is better to put one's cold hands into the fire than to hold them at some distance when wishing to warm them. The child's face was made greatly worse, of course, and the cure abandoned. It is therefore necessary to urge that a strength of acid which secures only the most gentle sensation of smarting is essential to cure. The weak vinegar is first applied to the outer and less fiery parts of the outstrike. Try to heal from this inwards, by gradual advances from day to day. On the less affected parts the weak acid may be applied twice a day; on the sorer parts only when itching is so distressing as to demand it.

We have seen a child whose head, face, and neck were one distressing sore; we have taken the cloth with the diluted vinegar and daubed a square inch or so of the skin on which the fiery eruption was so full, and in less than two minutes we have seen the colour change into a healthy pink, and remain that colour when the olive oil was applied.

The child's sores yielded gradually, till the whole illness was removed.

Sometimes such eruptions, in adults as well as children, arise from suppressed perspiration, or from the perspiration being of an acrid and irritating nature. It is sometimes apparently the result of the rubbing off of a little of the skin, or it comes on without any known accident.

For a time it seems scarcely worth noticing, and is consequently neglected; but gradually it spreads on the surface and gives uneasiness, especially after the patient has been some time in bed. It goes on till a large portion of the skin from the knee to the ankle is reddened and roughened with a moist eruption. Now remedies of various kinds are tried, but the evil gets worse and worse. The person affected is often a struggling mother or widow, who has to keep on her feet all day in anxious toil, and neither gets very good food during the day nor proper rest during the night. Month after month goes past, and no relief comes. The positive agony which such persons suffer is incredible to those who have not experienced anything of the kind.

Here the great difficulty often is to get the patient the very chief condition for cure--that is, perfect rest for the affected limb. If this can in any way be secured, all else is comparatively plain sailing. But this is sometimes impossible: the children may not be in a position to be left, or the little business cannot be allowed to die, as it would in a month's time if not attended to, or some other hindrance is in the way. We must just do the best in the circ.u.mstances.

We shall say that we are compelled to do without the rest, probably also without certain other things. Rest is very desirable, and so is a gentle rubbing all over the body, first with warm vinegar and then with olive oil, but there is perhaps no one capable of doing such a thing whose services can be secured. It is easy to "order" very useful processes, but among many who would not be exactly called "poor people"

it is not easy to have the "order" carried out. We must often do without this double rubbing, and yet cure the diseased skin of the afflicted limb. Let the reader remember that it is no matter of choice that we dispense with the rest and the rubbing. If they are possible, by all means let them be taken advantage of to the utmost.

For treatment, unless distinct running sores are formed, bathe the limb with warm water and M'Clinton's Soap, which will remove all crusts, scabs, &c. Then apply zinc ointment. Do not bathe or poultice after the first time. All secretion can be removed by a piece of cotton wool dipped in warm olive oil. If deep running sores have formed, then we must have a water-tight box of rough deal in which the whole leg up to the knee can be bathed for an hour in hot water. We see no reason why it should cost much over a shilling to get this, and it would be a sore want if it could not be procured. It is so made that the leg and foot can rest easily in it while it is nearly full of hot water. It need not be wider than just to hold the limb easily. Some good-hearted joiner will put five small boards together so as to meet this want. We shall suppose that it is supplied. Now for a few cloths, such as will cover the diseased parts, about three-ply all round. Then for vinegar or acetic acid, so diluted with water that it will just cause a slight smarting when heated and touching the affected skin. It must not be so strong as to cause burning, nor so weak as to give no sense of its presence at all, but between these extremes. It can be tried when too weak, and vinegar or other acetic acid added till a gentle smarting is felt. The cloths are dipped in the diluted and heated vinegar, allowed to drip till no more falls off, and then laid tenderly all round the sore. A strip of dry cloth may then be wound round so as to keep these on, and the leg thus dressed placed in the bath. It should be kept there, with now and again a gentle movement, and the strong comfortable heat of the water kept up for an hour, unless the patient should feel sickness before that time. If this comes on, the water is too hot; but, instead of merely cooling it, the bath may cease for the time, and water not so hot may be tried on a second occasion. Whether the hour has been reached or not, good has been done. The leg is taken out of the hot water and gently dried--not rubbed, but dried without rubbing.

Then as much cloth as will go twice round all is dipped in warm olive oil, and this is pressed out a little, so that it may not run. The oiled cloth is wrapped all round the limb. Some dry cloth is also wrapped round, and the first treatment is completed. This should be repeated every night before going to bed, for a week at least. It may be required for a fortnight if the case is bad and no rest at all can be had during the day. We should say the cure may fail for want of this rest, but this is not likely. In the morning as soon as convenient, the diseased skin should be soaked with a warm vinegar cloth, so that it shall smart just a little. It should then be dressed again with the warm olive oil. If at any time during the day or night it gets irritated and troublesome, this morning dressing may be repeated. It will not be very long before the one leg is as good as the other. The general health, too, of the patient will be sensibly improved.

It is scarcely necessary to point out that a similar treatment to this will cure "outstrikings" of the same sort in the arms and other parts of the body, as well as upon the legs. There is required only some such modification of the appliances as may meet the particular case. For example, we have seen the outstriking between the shoulders, so that it could not be reached by bathing, unless by appliances utterly out of the question in the circ.u.mstances. But dressing with hot vinegar cloths, allowing these to remain on for twenty minutes or so, and then dressing with warm olive oil, allowing this to remain for two or three hours, is quite possible to any one who is so affected; and this will usually be sufficient for a cure.

You have, perhaps, been cured temporarily more than once with a.r.s.enic, and the evil has returned worse and worse. In that case you may require all the more patience and the longer application of the above treatment; but, once cured in this way, you will not, so far as a good long experience enables us to judge, be likely to have any relapse. In very bad cases we have seen poultices of mashed potatoes made with b.u.t.termilk cleanse the diseased parts most effectually, and then the acid takes healing effect very speedily. In these cases ordinary medical treatment had utterly and hopelessly failed.

Pain, Severe, in Limbs.--This is often not due to any trouble in the joint itself, but to some disorder in the large nerves which have their roots in the lower part of the back. In the case of severe pains in the back of the leg, ankle, or knee, when a chill to the large limb nerves has been the cause, and has raised inflammation, the patient should be put warm in bed. Take two large towels, thoroughly wrung out of cold water. Fold one six or eight ply thick. Gently press this, avoiding cold shock to the patient, over the lower part of the back. When this towel gets hot, spread it out to cool, and apply the other. Continue this with each towel alternately, and when finished, or after an hour, rub the skin with warm olive oil and cover up with new flannel. Similar cold applications to the _upper_ part of the spine will cure such pains in the wrists. If the cold application intensifies or fails to relieve the pain, it is well to try the ARMCHAIR FOMENTATION (_see_).

Sometimes light pressure in the form of squeezing the muscles of the lower back is very useful. A very gentle pressure on the right parts is most pleasant to the sufferer. At first it simply relieves in some degree the weary feeling of the limbs. When it is at all well done, it soon raises a gentle heat, which slowly pa.s.ses down the limbs, even to the very toes. This is just life itself communicated to the limb. But we must not confine our treatment to the spinal cord. The squeezing, or gentle pressure, must be carried down the limb; and when new life has been infused so far, it will be well to apply the pressure between the hands to the swollen and painful part. _See_ Ma.s.sage.

Palpitation.--Ordinarily we are not aware of the beating of the heart, enormous as is the work it does; but in certain cases this beating becomes distressingly violent, especially on lying down flat or in ascending hills or stairs. The latter cases are the more serious, yet both kinds we have found quite curable. In treatment, fomentation must be avoided, and so must doses of the nerve-damaging drug, digitalis.

The best way is to _cool the heart_, and thus relieve its superabundant action. But care must be taken that _cold be not applied to a feeble heart_, but only where action is evidently superabundant. It is usually easy to distinguish the two kinds of palpitation. The cooling can be done by pressing towels wrung out of cold water all over the heart region of the left side. Then rub the part so cooled with olive oil, dry off, and let the patient rest. This may be done in the morning before rising. In cases where the heart is feeble, the following treatment should be carried out instead of the cold towels:--Begin at bedtime with a cloth covered with creamy soap lather, and placed quite warm all over the body of the patient. It should be fastened on with the body of a dress, or thin vest, so that it may be kept close to the skin during the night. In the morning the back should be gently washed with hot vinegar, dried, and gently rubbed with warm olive oil. In those cases where the palpitation is only part of a general nervousness, which causes great distress and sleeplessness at night, the back should be lathered all over with soap (_see_ Lather and Soap) at bedtime, and the cloth with lather left on all night. In the morning, dry off, rub gently with hot vinegar, and then with hot olive oil. If the palpitation resists this treatment, then cold towels should be gently pressed to the _spine_, until the whole system is quieted.

The back should then be rubbed with warm olive oil. So far as this restless action is concerned, this is all that is required for complete cure. We are writing thus in view of cases declared hopeless, but the patients are now in perfect health. We remember one at this moment in which the heart's action was so bad that the head could not be raised from the pillow, but the person was in a few weeks as well as any one could wish to be.

No one who has not seen how readily the surplus vital action pa.s.ses out of the system when simple cold is rightly applied, can imagine how easily such cases are cured. It seems to us absurd to speak of "heart disease" in many of the cases in which people talk of it and set the case down as hopeless. It is absurd, simply because it is not heart disease, but only a little more action than is comfortable, and which is reduced in a few minutes by a cold towel. No doubt care and willingness to work a little are required, if one would relieve a sufferer in such a case as this, but that care and energy are sure to have the best of all rewards.