Cold therapy

“ Many coughs that hang on when treated by remedies of various kinds, yield at once if the patient is given an abundance of fluid diet and gets freely into the air. There is no danger of catching another cold, because a cold is not due to a low outdoor temperature, but to dust and microbes, and is a real infection.
Irrational Remedies.—There are an innumerable number of supposed remedies for colds. Scarcely any one who has reached the age of forty apparently feels that he or she is doing the whole duty to humanity unless they have some remedy for colds to recommend. ”

“ Mere exposure to cold or wet, unless accompanied by exhaustion from hunger, or grief, or other influence of the kind, rarely causes this trouble.
Where the trouble has set in, the treatment is the same as recommended above in Lungs, Bleeding from. If the patient be a very strong person, and the fever very great, the fomentation to the feet may be dispensed with; but if any uncomfortable coldness is felt, or the patient not above average strength, it should always be applied. No one who has not seen it can imagine the magical effect such treatment has. ”

“ If the hot treatment causes increase of pain, this indicates that a stage has arrived in which cold is to be applied instead of heat to the lower back, to subdue nerve irritation. Before or after this stage, cold application will do harm, so it is well always to try heat first, as in the great majority of cases that is what is required. When cold is applied, the patient must be warm, and if necessary the feet and legs should be fomented. ”

“ What, under such circumstances, ought you to do to stop the cold, and get rid of it, before serious disorder is brought about? Here, again, warm clothing is of the highest value. If the chilled surface be at once closely covered up, and be kept covered, the blood is soon drawn back to the skin, and the internal obstructions are in this way overcome. The best possible way to get rid of a cold quickly, for those who can follow it, is to go to bed as soon as it begins, and to keep there until the cold is cured. ”

“ The importance of this subject, and the possibilities of this new fabric for the prevention of colds, and their resultant diseases, can only be appreciated when we remember the simple fact that it is impossible to take a cold so long as a healthy condition of the skin, and an even temperature of the surface of the body, are maintained. ”

“ As a rule, patients suffering from colds need more sleep than other people and above all need more sleep than they ordinarily take, for this will increase their resistive vitality and enable them to throw off the infection. A good rule is to add two hours of sleep to the usual quota. The unfortunate habit of keeping people indoors and of keeping fresh outdoor air away from them, because it is feared they will catch a fresh cold, often seriously disturbs sleep and delays recovery. ”

“ No notion of “getting used to it,” or of cultivating hardiness and endurance, should induce one to venture near the stage commencing with chilliness; by so doing the 50stock of health is wasted instead of increased: the mere patient endurance of cold cannot possibly do good, although it may unquestionably do a great deal of harm. ”

“ Those few hardy pedestrians who may venture to indulge in winter walks are subject to having the extremities freeze although if they understand the essentials of keeping warm in winter they may avert such troubles. The effects of heat and cold are about the same; they both cause a loss of blood to the tissues which when thus deprived of heat and nourishment are on the way to mortification. The object of treatment is to restore circulation, gradually. Use cold baths in a cold room then gradually warming same up to the temperature of the body. ”

“ How common it is to see a woman entirely wrapped up, with a handkerchief held to her nose,—the whole body as tense as it can be,—wondering "Why does it take so long to get rid of this cold?" To get free from a severe cold there should be open and clear circulation throughout the whole body. The more the circulation is impeded, the longer the cold will last. To begin with, the cold itself impedes the circulation; and if, in addition, we offer resistance to the very idea of having a cold, we tighten our nerves and our bodies and thereby impede our circulation still further. ”

“ It is amusing to watch the gradual change in the attitude of our patients toward the cold-water treatment. In some instances we have had to spend hours in earnest persuasion before we could induce a particularly sensitive person to try the first mild spray. A few weeks later if, perchance, something interfered with the cold water applications, the patient would indignantly refuse to take the other treatment if there was to be no cold water. ”

“ The treatment advised when fever and chilliness occur is the use of calomel and hot drinks, especially cream-of-tartar lemonade, which acts as a diuretic as well as a laxative. A diaphoretic at the beginning of the affection will always give the patient comfort and may unload the system of enough depressed toxic material to enable it to react and bring about the abortion of a cold.
Other medical men objected to calling everything an infection. A common cold, they thought, was nothing else than the effect of the lowered temperature on the human system. ”

“ You will probably find that cold has been unskilfully applied to this patient, and bad effects have been produced, not by the cold, but by its unskilful application. For instance, in a case of cramp the irritation and excess of heat may be both confined to a very small space, no more than that which is filled by the root of one nerve; the rest of the body may be cold rather than hot. There is need first that this general cold should be dealt with, and a general heat produced by some means or other. This is usually best done by packing feet and legs in a hot blanket fomentation. ”

“ Where one person has been killed in battle, thousands have died of colds.
To restore the equipoise must be the object of all treatment. We put the feet in hot water and they soon become red and gorged with the blood which is thus called from the congested organs. Hot footbaths have saved multitudes of lives. It is well in case of a sudden cold to go immediately to bed, and with hot drinks and extra clothing open the pores, and induce free perspiration. This calls the blood to the surface, and, by equalizing and diminishing the volume of the circulation, affords relief. ”

“ To prevent his patients from suffering, in consequence of the external atmospheric cold, he keeps them in warm beds, and only suffers them to be out of bed a very short time, at long intervals. And while out of bed even, they are rubbed rapidly, in order to prevent any collapse of the skin from the cold. ”

“ The essentials for a cold rub, and in fact for every cold-water treatment, are warmth of the body before the application, coolness of the water (natural temperature) , rapidity of action and friction or exercise to stimulate the circulation. No cold-water treatment should be taken when the body is in a chilled condition. ”

“ In the treatment of localized pain or inflammation, cold is used in a number of ways, largely depending upon the will of the physician and the means of the patient. The simplest, cheapest, and perhaps the best method of using cold, is to place cracked ice in a rubber bag, the latter to be thoroughly watertight, lay it over the inflamed part, surrounding it with a towel so as to prevent the moisture, which appears on the surface from condensation, from wetting the clothing. ”

“ If we inquire after the best cure, the answer would be, "Warmth and protection against cold draughts"—i. e., warm, stagnant, in-door air. Now, I maintain that it can be proved, with as absolute certainty as any physiological fact admits of being proved, that warm, vitiated indoor air is the cause, and cold out-door air the best cure, of catarrhs. Many people "catch cold" every month in the year and often two or three times a month. ”

“ They may quite safely apply it as long as they can keep the rest of the body comfortably warm. If they can keep nice, soft blankets well round the patient, as a rule it will not be difficult to keep up all general heat. Let us suppose that, when warm in bed and asleep, the patient wakes up, and the diseased movement begins; it will be well then to ply the back with the cold towel. If the movement is perfectly still in half-an-hour, a rest may be given. If the movement soon returns, the cold can be applied till perfect quiet is had again. ”

“ Often enough, we observe persons sitting heavily clad, in a warm room and close to the fire, and yet feeling “shivery” and sure of having “caught cold.” To throw off all clothing would banish such chills instanter, especially if the person begins to give himself a brisk hand-rubbing. The skin is sweltered, and is numb for want of circulation in the capillaries. In the case supposed the person has prevented a “cold.” Next to the water-bath, which is, of course, or ought to be, an air-bath and water-bath combined, the simple air-bath is invaluable as a prophylactic or a curative ”

“ The mere application of a chill temperature to the skin is not alone, however, enough to give a cold. This result chiefly comes when the application has been made while the body is in a weakened or exhausted state, and therefore has not the power to resist and overcome the internal disturbance of the even blood-flow. Colds are nearly always caught in consequence of a sudden exposure of the body to a chill, either when it is in a state of exhaustion and fatigue from sustained exertion, or when it has been for some time previously over-heated. ”

“ In a great many forms of illness the same principle holds good. It is safer, where there is any doubt, to try heat first, but not in a very strong manner. If this gentle heating makes matters worse, gentle cooling may be tried. If the heat does good, it may be continued and increased, but never beyond the point of comfort. If the cold does good, it also may be continued on the same principle. What the patient feels relieving and comforting, is almost sure to be the cure for his trouble, if persisted in. See Changing Treatment. ”

“ Should we persevere sufficiently, we could cure almost any fever or inflammation with water at 80° Fah., a temperature so mild that the most delicate child can bear it.
One thing in particular should be remembered: the patient should not be bundled up closely, and have a great deal of warm bed-clothing, under the impression that a cold will be taken if such measures are not adopted. We almost always find patients heating and injuring themselves in this way. But it should always be remembered, that when a fever or inflammation is already present, it is not possible to take an additional cold. ”

“ The physician does not seek to “cure” a high temperature, but he finds out what is the disease which is causing the increase of heat, and by removing that cause he reduces the temperature. It is only when the temperature, per se, is threatening life that steps are taken to reduce it, and then it is by the application of cold, and scarcely ever by drugs, that cooling is brought about. ”

“ In this respect it acts like all other stimulants proper to the body, and not like alcoholic stimuli, which excite the brain, while they diminish the influence of the vital air upon the blood, and favor capillary obstructions and inflammations.
The influence of cold on the nervous system is no new discovery, for ever since man has felt and inferred from his feeling, he must have known that influence alike from experience and observation. Used as a bath, we have seen that it may produce very contrary effects; like any other powerful agent, it both excites and depresses. ”

“ Every thing that has the effect of weakening the system and so diminishing the power of evolving heat, favors the morbific effect of cold, and is a predisposing cause of disease. The most common of these debilitating circumstances are fasting, evacuations, fatigue, a last night’s debauch, excess in venery, long watching, much study, and rest or inaction immediately after it, or after great exercise.
The faculty of evolving heat is weak in old persons and in the newly born, and these are often the victims of the power of cold. ”

“ If he have his patient in an ague, for the cure of which he needeth his medicines in their working cold, yet he may hap, ere that fever be full cured, to fall into some other disease such that, unless it were helped with hot medicine, would be likely to kill the body before the fever could be cured. The physician then would for the while have his most care to the cure of that thing in which would be the most present peril. ”

“ While in our treatment of acute diseases we use wet packs and cold ablutions to promote the radiation of heat and thereby to reduce the fever temperature, our aim in the treatment of chronic diseases is to arouse the system to acute eliminative effort. In other words, while in acute disease our hydropathic treatment is sedative, in chronic diseases it is stimulative. ”

“ If it is hot, cool it. This treatment relieves the irritation of the mouth, as well as removes the starting. If both head and feet are hot, then you need only cool the spine.
In all cases, common sense must be used, but we think we have given sufficient indication of principles to enable a thoughtful nurse or mother to treat successfully almost any case. Where very cold cloths on application cause shivering and crying, either use tepid cloths, slightly cooler than the skin, or warm the surface of the cold folded cloth by holding for a short time to a fire, and then apply to the patient. ”