WHAT THE HOME NURSE OUGHT TO DO a rubber hot-water bag is not at hand, a very good substitute is a stone bottle with a perfectly tight cork. The hottest water can be put into it without fear of crack ing, and it will retain heat the great er part of the night. Even a glass bottle can be used in an extremity; for occasionally, during a severe chill, a doctor orders hot applications put all around the body, and it is impos sible always to find enough hot-water bags to supply the demand. The greatest care must be exercised in seeing that the corks are perfectly tight. If the bottles are too hot, slip them into stocking legs, tying them at each end.
Simple as the task of making poul tices is, a certain knack is needed: Mix flaxseed with boiling water, stir ring constantly with a palette knife. When the mixture is thick enough to drop from the knife, lift it from the fire, beat well to make it light, and spread, a quarter of an inch thick, between old soft muslin or surgeon's gauze. Turn over the edges, lay it on a hot plate, cover with another plate, and carry it to the sick room as hot as possible. Before laying it on the patient, test its temperature by holding it against your own cheek. If it is too hot for you, it requires cooling before applying. When put on by degrees, as it were, letting down one small piece at a time, it will not feel as hot as if put on all at once. No poultice should re main on longer than an hour; by that time it is not as warm as the body. After removing, wipe the skin dry, and rub the sore place with oil or vaseline.
Fomentations are not easily ap plied, unless one knows exactly how to handle them. In every household which has due care for emergencies, there ought to be a set of fomenta tion cloths: three large ones of heavy blanket flannel, about three quarters of a yard square. These are neces sary in cases of pain in the stomach or abdomen, or in any extended ache in the body. Smaller fomentation cloths of a thinner flannel are neces sary in an attack of neuralgia, pain in the muscles of the neck, toothache, or pains about the head. These cloths
should be about eight or ten inches square. Some a few inches smaller are handy for pain in the ears or eyes. The way to use a large fomen tation cloth is to carry into the sick room on a tray a kettle of water wbich has been taken off at the boil ing point. Fold the large cloth four times. Hold the ends, dipping the center of the cloth into the hot water, but keeping the ends dry. Then twist the flannel into a rope-like roll until every drop of moisture is squeezed out. It will be very hot, still almost dry. Lay this on the ach ing part of the body, folding it quite smooth, and applying it gradually, keeping the hand beneath to save from a sudden shock of intense heat. Over the fomentation cloth lay a sec ond square of flannel, dry and warm, to keep in the heat. If this is band aged loosely around the body, a fo mentation cloth will retain its heat for ten or fifteen minutes. Pain may sometimes be relieved with one appli cation. If it continues, take the other flannel square and wring from the water in the same fashion. An easy way to wring the smaller cloths used about the head is to fold them into a square and lay in a potato ricer. Dip the ricer into boiling water and squeeze the cloth dry, covering it with another flannel to keep in the heat. After these squares have been used, launder them and lay away, ready for another emergency.
A very handy thing to have in the sick room is a small nursery refrig erator; but when it cannot be ob tained, you can keep ice with small amount of waste by a simple, home made contrivance. Get a large flower pot with a saucer a size or two big ger than the pot. On the saucer set a wire trivet. Put the ice on this, and over it turn the flowerpot upside down, stopping up the hole in the bottom with a wad of absorbent cot-. ton. Cover with a piece of flannel, and uncover only when ice is needed. The quietest thing to use for an ice pick is a strong hat pin; stick it in the ice, pick with a small hammer, and break off a piece as large as you want.