Sponging the entire body twice daily with tepid water and aromatics or alco hol adds greatly to the comfort of the tient. Should the temperature be high, cool sponging, the cold pack, or the bath may be used. There must not, however, be any sudden shock in the latter case.
The child should be plunged in water at 95° F., gradually reduced to SO° during the first bath. Friction should be used and the duration of the bath be from eight eight to ten minutes. Subsequent baths with successively lower initial tures not falling below and final temperatures not falling below 70°, may be given at intervals of about four hours, whenever the temperature exceeds 104° F. The effect upon general comfort as well as upon temperature must be con sidered. In cases of meningitis or with severe cerebral symptoms, an ice-cap should be applied to the head.
In broncho-pneumonia water-baths or Priessnitz's wet eloths sized to avoid as phyxia, cyanosis., and carbon-dioxide poisoning. To avoid venous stasis the position of the patient changed every hour, and he is not allowed to remain long on his back. He is also made to take four or five deep inspirations every half-hour. Nothnagel (Med. Press and Cire., Jan. 9, '95).
As soon as a child has suberepitant rides with slight fever. it should be sys tematically submitted to treatment by hot mustard baths as the best possible means of forestalling an aggravation of the disease. Lemoine (Nord 1\16d., Dec. 15. '97).
The following measures are recom mended for infants: At the very first onset of pneumonic symptmns—high temperature: diminished resonance ; small, non-crepitant or crepitant rides; apathy; increased rate of heart-beat and respiration—the writer gives a bath of SG° F. (30° C.) for two minutes and then slowly reduces the temperature of the bath by adding cold water for from two to three minutes till a temperature of 70° F. (24.G° C.) is reached. The body of the patient is rubbed with a sponge or cloth or the hand to promote reaction of the skin and reduction of the body-heat. The bath-water need not, and in cases of feeble children should not, quite cover the body, but the water can lie sponged on the chest, the patient lyinp• in the arms of an at tendant. If definite pneumonic symp toms be present the bath may have to be repeated at intervals of from eight to twenty-four hours. The cross-packs re
lieve the symptoms of bronchitis. The writer uses them extensively in incipient plithisis, but they give excellent results. and naturally prompter One., in uncom plicated single bronchitis. They are ap plied in the following way. A linen bandage about one and one-half inches broad for infants and five inches for adults, and from two to three yards long, is placed in cold water (from 5.1° to 66° F.-12.2° to 19° C.), is well wrung out, and is applied to the chest thus: (1) beginning tinder the right axilla, passing over the left clavicle and round the chest back to the right axilla: (2) from here round the chest horizontally; (3) from the right axilla to the left and over the back and the left clavicle to the front (or left axilla). This bandage is covered in the same way with a thick single or thin double flannel bandage perhaps half an inch broader. This "pack" is applied at night and left till the morning; on removing it the chest must be well rubbed with a cold, wet towel, and then rubbed dry. T. Zangger (Lancet, -June 28, 1902).
Ice may be applied over the heart, as already stated, whenever the temperature shows a tendency to exceed 100° F. The application should be continuous until the temperature declines, and should be repeated according to necessity. Should this fail to bring the temperature to or below 100° F., nitrogen monoxide, about S gallons daily, should be given by in halation. As the rise in temperature is usually postmeridian, the inhalation should be given in the forenoon, four gallons being administered at about 9 o'clock and four at about 11 o'clock. This will also conduce to sleep at night.
Food should be given as in fevers gen erally, in small quantities, at intervals of two or three hours, and should consist of easily-assimilable and concentrated nutriment, pancreatized milk, beef-juice, egg-albumin, soft-boiled eggs, and the like. Children, the aged, and tubercu lous patients are usually benefited by alcohol in small quantities, given with the food. The patient should be encour aged to drink sufficient water to keep up to normal the quantity of urine excreted, and it is usually well to give a mild alka line diuretic, as solution of potassium citrate or solution of ammonium acetate.