A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    111/554 (page 99)
    applications are stopped, the patient is wrapped in a blanket and placed in bed in a cool room. The Hot Bath.—Tht hot bath h,p€r contra, used to raise the tempera- ture of the body. The cutaneous vessels are dilated, the skin becomes reddened, and a tendency to perspiration is favored. These conditions may persist for some time after removal from the bath. When too much blood has been invited to the brain, a hot bath will tend to expel it. The hot bath is especially useful in overcoming a disposition to Insomnia. It is also of value in overcoming Spasm, especially spasm of the involun- tary muscle fibres constituting the muscular coats of the canals of the viscera. It is often resorted to to overcome Colic dependent on pro- longed muscle contraction in the biliary ducts, ureters, bladder, small intestine, etc. Hernial Protrusions which have resisted attempts at taxis, as ordi- narily regulated, often yield to the repetition of this method, when the patient is immersed in a bath as hot as can be borne for fifteen minutes. A similar procedure is of value in the Reduction of Dislocations ; though the relaxing effect of heat is less evident upon muscles of the vol- untary than upon the involuntary set. Hot hip-baths and foot-baths are in use in domestic practice, as deriva- tives in Pelvic Congestion, and as remedies to invite blood away from the viscera in the first stage of Fever. The baths ordinarily employed in diseases of the skin are composed of water alone or containing medicinal substances in solution. Diseases of the Skin.—The cold and cool baths are employed in the treatment of Miliaria or prickly heat. The patient remains in the bath a longer or shorter time according to the heat of the weather, and then on getting out is carefully dried without rubbing, and the skin is dressed with some astringent or sedative powder, as McCall Anderson's camphor powder: R. Pulv. caraphora, 3j j Pulv. amyli; Pulv. zinci oxidi, aa gss. M. Lukewarm and moderately hot baths diminish irritability of the pe- ripheral ends of the sensory nerves. For this reason such baths are useful in those skin diseases in which Pruritus is a prominent symptom. In the simple pruritus of old age or in the pruritus connected with disease of the liver, or in winter pruritus (Pruritus Hiemalis), the simple warm bath often is beneficial. The warm or hot bath should usually precede the employment of more decided antipruritic remedies. The addition of indifferent substances, as starch, bran, oat- or corn-meal, serves to soothe the inflamed skin in Eczejma, particularly where the skin has been broken leaving a moist surface. Here crude water alone sometimes irritates the skin, while the addition of some starchy substance soothes and relieves pain and itching. With a similar end in view, alkalies are added to