Health, Happiness, and Longevity Part 10

=Cholera.=--Dr. Gamaleia, of Odessa, claims to have discovered a prophylactic against cholera, and hopes to win the prize of $20,000 offered for such a cure. He calls his specific Chemical Vaccine, and has tried it efficaciously on apes, guinea-pigs, and pigeons. This is obtained by the successive pa.s.sages of cholera virus through the blood of animals. After each of these pa.s.sages, the virus becomes stronger, and is finally injected into the patient.

A cure which was very effective when the cholera struck America is called the "Sun Cholera Medicine." It is also an excellent remedy for colic, and diarrhea, etc. Take equal parts of tincture of cayenne pepper, tincture of opium, tincture of rhubarb, essence of peppermint, and spirits of camphor. Mix well. Dose: 15 to 30 drops in a little cold water, according to age and violence of symptoms, repeated every fifteen minutes or twenty, until relief is obtained. Our own _infallible_ remedy for cholera, cholera morbus, cramps, colic, and diarrhea, is:--

Tincture of opium, 3 drachms.

" " cayenne pepper, 5 drachms.

" " ginger, 5 drachms.

" " camphor, 3 drachms.

Dose: 1 teaspoonful in a gill of cool water for an adult; repeat with half a teaspoonful in 15 minutes if not relieved. For a child 2 years old 1/4 the above dose, and in proportion up to an adult.

=Cleanliness.=--The English upper cla.s.ses are clean, but cleanliness of any high degree is a modern virtue among them. It is an invention of the nineteenth century. Men and women born at the close of the eighteenth century did as French people do to-day; they took a warm bath occasionally for cleanliness, and they took shower-baths when they were prescribed by the physician for health, and they bathed in summer seas for pleasure, but they did not wash themselves all over every morning.

However, the new custom took deep root in England, because it became one of the signs of cla.s.s. It was adopted as one of the habits of a gentleman.

Don't take your pocket-handkerchief to dust off your shoes and the next moment wipe your face and eyes with it; don't carry your _own sheets_ with you on a trip and then sit in the smoking-car for 200 miles for enjoyment; anything added to white castile soap as scenting matter is no improvement and in most cases is detrimental.

We have taken this subject up so carefully in "bathing" and in the first part that we will say no more here.

=Cold Feet.=--The best prescription for cold or tired feet is to carefully envelop each toe and foot with blank newspaper before encasing the same with sock. First have the feet perfectly dry and warm, then they will remain so all day, if properly protected with easy-fitting, strong boots or shoes. Barbers do this to prevent their feet scalding and heating; stage drivers use this method, and hundreds attest its efficacy.

Many people, especially women and children, suffer the whole winter through with cold feet. This is mainly due to the fact that they wear their shoes too tight. Unless the toes have perfect freedom, the blood cannot circulate properly. People who wear rubbers the whole winter through, generally suffer with their feet. Rubbers make them very tender by overheating and causing them to perspire. They should be removed as soon as one enters the house. They draw the feet, keep them hot and wet with perspiration--then as soon as one goes again into the air the feet are chilled.

=Colds.=--Don't have any fear of night air. That is an unfounded superst.i.tion. Keep your windows open. You will sleep better and the next day you will not catch cold.

Take a good hot lemonade just before retiring; in the morning, immediately on getting out of bed, take a cold bath and rub hard until you are in a perfect glow.

Too much coddling is unquestionably one of the most common causes of catarrh. One who is inured to hards.h.i.+ps is able to endure exposure without injury, while one unaccustomed to like experience quickly succ.u.mbs. Air-tight houses, close and unventilated, overheated rooms, even the quant.i.ty of clothing required, are active causes, preventing development of hardihood. As a result, colds and catarrh are universal maladies among civilized people.

Says a writer in _Woman's Work_: "Without dwelling on the nature and causes of colds, or on what physicians call the pathology of these disorders, I will say that a low or even starvation diet for a few days, with the free drinking of warm, mildly stimulating teas, is better for a cold than any drug or combination of drugs. If with this a warm bath or a hot foot-bath is taken, little more will be needed. Nine cases in ten of colds can be broken up in this early stage by a hot foot or rather leg-bath, keeping the bath as hot as it can be borne, until perspiration arises. After the bath drink a half pint of hot lemonade and go to bed."

_A Good Cough Remedy._--The following is from a doctor connected with an inst.i.tution with many children: "There is nothing more irritable to a cough than a cough. For some time I had been so fully a.s.sured of this that I determined, for one minute at least, to lessen the number of coughs heard in a certain ward in a hospital of the inst.i.tution. By the promise of rewards and punishments, I succeeded in inducing them to simply hold their breath when tempted to cough, and in a little while I was myself surprised to see how some of the children entirely recovered from their disease. Constant coughing is precisely like scratching a wound on the outside of the body. So long as it is done the wound will not heal. Let a person when tempted to cough draw a long breath and hold it until it warms and soothes every air-cell, and some benefit will soon be received from this process. The nitrogen which is thus refined acts as an anodyne to the mucous membrane, allaying the desire to cough and giving the throat and lungs a chance to heal. At the same time a suitable medicine will aid nature in her effort to recuperate."

=Constipation.=--Regularity in the hour of going to stool and the avoidance of highly-seasoned food are preventatives. See "constipation,"

first part, per index, for a cure.

=Consumption.=--"What Changes has the Acceptance of the Germ Theory made in Measures for the Prevention and Treatment of Consumption?" is the t.i.tle of an essay by Dr. Charles V. Chapin, of Providence, to whom was awarded a premium of $200 by the trustees of the Fisk Fund. In this essay Dr. Chapin has given an admirable _resume_ of all that has been written about consumption from the time of Hippocrates to the present day. After a careful examination of the literature of the subject, he thinks that we are justified in the conclusion that the acceptance of the germ theory has made no direct or important addition either to the hygiene or medicinal treatment of consumption. He thinks, however, that it should have great influence. It tells us plainly what we ought to do.

We simply do not obey its behests. The germ theory--now no longer a theory in the case of tubercular consumption--tells us that we have to do with a contagious disease. Now there is no theoretical reason why a purely contagious disease like tuberculosis cannot be exterminated. If we can prevent the spread of contagion at all, we can prevent it entirely. The enormous value of preventive measures, isolation, disinfection, and quarantine, is well ill.u.s.trated in history of cholera, typhus fever, and yellow fever in the United States.

By keeping out the virus of these diseases, or destroying it when it had gained access to our sh.o.r.es, we have for a number of years been remarkably free from these diseases, and it is certain that if these precautions had not been taken we should have suffered severely. For obvious reasons, the suppression of tuberculosis is not so easy a matter as the suppression of cholera or yellow fever. Neither is the suppression of scarlet fever or small-pox as easy. Yet whenever the public has been educated to a correct appreciation of the contagious nature of scarlet fever, the number of cases has diminished very much.

Even in small-pox, with its virulent contagion, it is possible, by means of isolation and disinfection, to check its spread even among an unvaccinated population, as has been ill.u.s.trated many times of late in the anti-vaccination city of Leicester, England. We must now put tuberculosis among these diseases, and, though its theoretical suppression is simple its actual extermination is a very difficult problem. It lies largely with the medical profession how long tubercular disease shall decimate the human race. The physicians are the educators of the people in these matters. When the doctor shall teach that tuberculosis is contagious, the people will believe, and will govern themselves accordingly. In combating contagious diseases the preventive measures taken often give discouraging results. This will be particularly so in tubercular disease. Half-way measures secure less than half-way results, and these alienate the support of those who only indifferently believe in contagion and the importance of precautionary measures. Efficient means of suppression are radical, and bear hard on the individual; they are not complied with, and they produce violent opposition. Yet, difficult as it may be, the medical profession should take aggressive action against this disease. We have no right to wait for the discovery of a specific, or the gradual evolution of a phthisis-proof race. We must take the world as we find it, full of men and women predisposed to tubercular phthisis, and with no idea of its contagious nature. What can we do about it? 1. Teach the people the true nature of the tuberculosis, that no one ever has tubercular consumption unless the tubercle bacilli find their way into their lungs. 2. Teach them, also, that, even if it finds its way there, it will not grow unless the conditions are right. Teach fathers and mothers how to rear healthy boys and girls. Tell them what to eat and what to wear, to exercise, to breathe fresh air. This alone would exterminate phthisis.

3. The contagion must be destroyed. Fortunately, in this disease there is no need of isolation. Disinfection is enough. The consumptive patient gives off the poison only in the sputum, or perchance the other excreta, if the disease extend beyond the lungs. The virus is not given off from these while moist. We must therefore disinfect all sputum at once with mercuric bi-chloride. Cloths must be used instead of handkerchiefs, and then burned, or, if the latter are used, they should be often changed, and immediately put in a bi-chloride solution and boiled. Bed-linen should be treated in the same way. Frequent disinfection of the entire person, and fumigation of the apartment, would be safe additions to the preventive measures. 4. Persons who have a marked predisposition to the disease had best not come in close contact with the phthisical. Children should never have tuberculous nurses, wet or dry. In the case of consumptives very great attention should be paid to ventilation, and to the alimentation both of the patient and the attendants. Such measures, if rigidly carried out, would be of enormous service in preventing this disease. But with the increasing prevalence of tuberculosis among domestic animals, something more is imperatively demanded. Active measures should be taken to free the country from animal tuberculosis.

There are some ideas which it is well to observe:--

1. Flies may carry the virus if they are allowed to frequent cuspidors into which consumptives have expectorated. Clean these out often. Do not permit the patient to spit into a handkerchief and then let it lie around to dry. The dust arising may inoculate some person p.r.o.ne to consumption.

2. Be careful about the meat you eat. It can and does convey tuberculosis. Investigations have been made showing that as high as 50% of a herd to be slaughtered in New York City had tuberculosis. Milk may be also infected and often is.

3. Have an abundance of flowers around. They invariably are helpful.

4. Constant and regular singing with proper care and not tiring is excellent for consumptive lungs, which should be done in well-ventilated rooms.

5. Be out in the open air as much as possible, and breathe through the nose entirely. Continually exercise the lungs by drawing in long breaths.

6. If possible try fumes of hydrofluoric acid. In gla.s.s factories if workmen are rendered consumptive by stooping over the grinding machinery, they usually find great benefit by being allowed to work in the room with the gla.s.s etchers, where so much hydrofluoric acid is employed.

7. b.u.t.termilk is well recommended.

8. Consumptive and bronchial troubles in women are often due to irregularity of dress about the throat and lungs. There is danger from wearing _decollete_ costumes. So regular have we been in our habits that the throwing off of a 1-oz. neck-tie for half an hour in the open air will give us a cold with the thermometer at 70% Fahr.

The ocean cure is well set forth in the following, which represents the advantages of a long sea voyage:--

1. Perfect rest and quiet, and complete removal from and change of ordinary occupation and way of life; a very thorough change of scene, and perfect and enforced rest from both mental and physical labor.

2. The life in the open air and the great amount of suns.h.i.+ne to be enjoyed; it is quite possible, under favorable circ.u.mstances, to pa.s.s fifteen hours daily in the open air; and whenever it is possible the traveler by sea is certain to endeavor to escape from the close and sometimes unpleasant atmosphere of a small cabin, into the pure air to be found on deck.

3. The great purity of the air at sea, and its entire freedom from organic dust and other impurities. In this respect it has an advantage over the air of an open country, for the latter is apt to contain the pollen of gra.s.ses and other plants, which, in some persons, excites hay fever and asthma. The air of the cabins may, of course, be contaminated, but the air of the open sea is probably the purest to be found anywhere.

4. The presence in the sea air of a large amount of ozone, as well as particles of saline matter, more particularly in stormy weather, from the sea spray, and these may exercise a beneficial effect in certain throat and pulmonary affections on the respiratory mucous membrane.

5. The great equability of the temperature at sea. This refers chiefly to the daily variations, which rarely exceed four or five degrees Fahr.

It must be noted that in a long sea voyage very considerable variations of temperature are encountered, and in a swift steamer the transitions are somewhat sudden.

6. The great humidity of the atmosphere and the high barometric pressure, which are considered to exercise a useful sedative influence on certain const.i.tutions. It is said that the temperature of the body averages one degree Fahr. less on account of this sedative effect. The exhilarating and tonic effect of rapid motion through the air; for by the continuous progress of the s.h.i.+p the sea breezes are constantly blowing over it, and the pa.s.sengers are borne through the rapidly-moving air without any exertion of their own. The influence of these currents of air on the surface of the body is, no doubt, important, acting as a stimulant and a tonic, increasing evaporation from the skin, and imparting tone to the superficial blood-vessels.

We now give our own cure, which we claim is of great value, at least it is worth trying, for it cured the author of consumption of twenty years'

standing in one year. This disease can be cured by "cold packing" the lungs and throat, and following the rules in general for health stated in the first part of this work. You must understand a cold compress or pack, otherwise you are likely to increase the malady and hasten your death. Some persons cannot warm one ounce of cold water in twenty-four hours. Such we advise to go very slowly. First adopt the formulae for cleanliness and regularity already given. Then when a little more blood is infused through the system and hence more heat exists, commence the cold pack. Use simply a moistened cambric handkerchief, placed upon the lungs; envelop with at least two thicknesses of linen and one of flannel; wrap up warm and go to bed. Do not attempt to cold pack any part of your body and then expose it to a moving atmosphere. After one week you can increase the moisture of the pack at least 50%. Then add to the thickness and moisture 10% each week, as long as you can succeed in warming it and causing it to sweat that portion of the body packed.

If you should wake up in the night and find the pack dry, remove the portion previously moistened and retain only the dry covering, viz., the linen and flannel. In the morning, before arising, thoroughly rub the lungs with a dry linen towel. This, then, is all that is necessary to get rid of this incurable (?) disease, if you will only follow the rules already given for health, happiness, and longevity.

=Convulsions, Fits.=--When a child has a convulsion, or what is commonly called "a fit," attention should be given to the urinary secretion at once. If there is suppression of urine, the child should be put into a warm bath and made to sweat as speedily as possible. In many cases in which children die from a succession of convulsions, the real cause of death is suppression of urine (a fact which is probably not so generally known as it should be), so that the child really dies of poisoning through the retention of the urinary secretion. When a child is subject to attacks of this character, care should be taken to dress it warmly in flannels, so as to keep up a degree of perspiration most of the time, and hot baths should be administered frequently. Give a gla.s.s of Bethesda water from three to four times a day, and the disease will disappear.

=Corns and Bunions= are caused by tight, ill-fitting boots and shoes.

The way of preventing them is, therefore, manifest. Thrusting the toe into a lemon, to be kept on over night, will make the removal of a corn easy. Two or three applications will suffice for the worst cases. Soft corns may be relieved by dissolving a piece of ammonia, the size of three peas, in an ounce of water, and applying the solution as hot as can be borne. It is beneficial to place blank newspaper between the toes. That will keep them from scalding, and hence softening, so that corns will easily form. We have already referred to this paper method for cold feet. Paper is a non-conductor and thus has the proper effect.

=Croup=.--The following prescription, to be used as a gargle, is not only excellent for croup, but will _absolutely_ keep anyone from choking to death from phlegm in the throat, no matter what the cause, so long as they have any portion of a lung left. It consists of the yolks of two eggs thoroughly beaten, in half a pint of good cider vinegar, adding two tablespoonfuls of honey. I have known two different patients, given up by their physicians, to rally in thirty minutes under the above treatment, and finally get well.

=Diabetes.=--A prominent French physician advocates a coffee remedy.

After having continued to use the remedy for upward of a third of a century in many hundreds of cases, he again appeals to the profession to give it a trial in those cases of liver and kidney troubles which have resisted all other treatment. His habit is to place twenty-five grammes, or about three drachms, of the green berries (he prefers a mixture of three parts of Mocha with one part each of Martinique and Isle de Bourbon coffee) in a tumbler of cold water, and let them infuse over night. The infusion, after straining or filtering, is to be taken on an empty stomach the first thing after getting up in the morning. He cites many cases of renal and hepatic colics, diabetes, migraine, etc., which, although rebellious to all other treatments for years, soon yielded to the green coffee infusion. It is worth a trial at any rate.

Bethesda water from the Wakeshaw Springs, in Wisconsin, will cure three out of every five cases of diabetes and help the other two. Drink it as you would any good water.

=Diphtheria.=--Diphtheria is a malignant and very infectious disease. It may often be communicated by a kiss, a touch of the hand, or by drinking out of the same cup with the sick person. The mildest case should be carefully isolated. In the family this may sometimes be done by removing the patient to an upper room, which can be well ventilated by means of windows and an open fire. The contagion of diphtheria is not carried far by the atmosphere; hence, by strict attention to cleanliness and ventilation, it may be quite possible to isolate a case even under the family roof. The disease is characterized by soreness of the throat, pain in swallowing, apoplectic, epileptic, hysterical, or the result of poisoning. Put a cork between the patient's teeth, that the tongue may not be bitten. Loosen the clothing, have plenty of fresh air, and do not restrain the movements of the patient, except to prevent injury or bruising. Rub the temples with cologne or spirits, and, as soon as the patient can swallow, give a little cold brandy and water.

Dr. W. A. Scott, of Iowa, where, in the latter part of 1889, diphtheria raged, found a valuable and effective remedy for this dread disease. The recipe can be filled at any drug store, and used by any person without danger:--

Take ten grains of permanganate of pota.s.sium and mix with one ounce of cold water. As soon as dissolved, it must be applied with a rag or sponge mop or swab to the whitish places in the tonsils, and other parts that have the diphtheria membrane on them. Do this very gently, but thoroughly, every three hours until better; then every six hours until well. It does not give pain, but is rather nauseous to the taste.

If the tongue is coated white, mix one drachm of hyposulphite of soda and five drops oil of sa.s.safras in four ounces of syrup made of sugar and hot water, and give a teaspoonful every 1 to 3 hours, as needed, when awake.