Electricity recommended for promot ing the removal of gouty concretions. Thomas A. Edison (Brit. Med. Jour., Aug. 10, '90).
Static electricity is the best treatment in hereditary gout, and will prevent at tacks, if used judiciously at the right time. Static electricity and other elec tric currents will cure many of the other varieties of gout. Static electricity acts as a general tonic. It replaces exercise and acts as passive motion. R. Newman (Med. Record, Dec. 11, '97).
Another new and valuable addition to the therapeutics of gout is the hot-air bath. In all the different forms of baths, mineral bath, moor-baths, Turkish, and Russian baths, which have been em ployed for a long time with varying suc cess against gout, the heat is the common active principle. It is difficult to bear more than 50 or at most 60 degrees of Celsius when the heat is applied as vapor bath, moist air, or hot water; but when the heat is administered by means of dry air, a far higher temperature is borne without pain or damage.
Tallermann, of Sheffield, and Betz, of Chicago, have invented ingenious appa ratuses, by which an arm or foot may be exposed for from 30 to 50 minutes to a current of dry air heated to 100-150° C. and even more, and many observers (Knowsley, Sargent, Mendelsohn, Levi son) have noticed the good effects of this treatment against the stiffness of gouty articulations, especially when it is com bined with the use of massage.
Attention called to an apparatus which has been employed in a series of cases in the University Hospital, where some 300 baths were given to test its efficiency. It was found to be most satisfactory. The required temperature can be obtained quickly, in from 10 to 15 minutes, and the apparatus is substantially but simply constructed, and involves nothing that can get out of order or require repair. The cases that were treated included acute and chronic articular rheumatism, gonorrhoeal rheumatism, gout, traumatic arthritis, synovitis, tenosynovitis, and fibrous ankylosis.
The method of administering the bath is as follows: The patient's pulse and temperature were first taken and re corded. The limb, first being completely
enveloped with a piece of lint, which was wrapped loosely about the part, was then placed in the cylinder. The time al lowed for each bath was from three fourths of an hour to an hour. At in tervals of 20 minutes the door of the cylinder was thrown open momentarily to allow of the ingress of a fresh supply of air. If the patient perspired freely, this opportunity was taken advantage of to wipe the limb thoroughly dry. If this precaution is not taken and the limb is allowed to remain bathed with sweat, there is the possibility, if the tempera ture is exceedingly high, of a superficial burn resulting. This happened in several cases where the precaution was not taken. The degree of temperature em ployed varied, some patients bearing with perfect comfort a degree of heat which would be extremely painful to others. The average was about 300° F., although in one case the temperature reached 375° F., to which the patient seemed quite indifferent. The frequency with which the baths were given varied with the severity of the case; usually, however, they were administered on every other day.
Certain physiological phenomena fol lowed the application of heat, such as increased arterial tension, elevation of the blood-pressure, dilatation of the lu men of the blood-vessels, diminution of the erythrocytes, decrease of haemoglobin, increase in the elimination of nitrogen, and increase in frequency of the heart's action. In cases in which there is a diathesis, either rheumatic or tubercu lous, this treatment can have no bene ficial constitutional effect.
Permanent cures of local lesions, symp tomatic of diathetic diseases, are not to be looked for from the employment of hot-air baths, but for the relief of joint affections of traumatic origin this method of treatment is most useful and sometimes indispensable, and the re sults obtained can be called permanent. C. H. Frazier (Annals of Sing., Oct., '97).