Valere Aude eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 346 pages of information about Valere Aude.

Valere Aude eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 346 pages of information about Valere Aude.

The treatment must be in proportion to the strength of the patient.  Thus the quiet, energetic temperament can endure more extensive packs; his nature in fact requires them.  His body may be completely packed or at least three-quarters, by placing the moist sheet around his entire body except the arms, while the woolen blanket is either wrapped around the whole body, including the arms, or, as before, leaves the patient free to move his arms, which are then only covered by the bed-clothes.  A patient of this kind may also be treated with ablutions or put into a half bath at 75.2 deg., while cooler water is poured over him.  Young and strong patients have endured even cooler baths as powerful stimulants.

The nearer a patient approaches to a nervous, weak condition, the more caution is required to allow him hike warm baths only, or, still better, ablutions at 77 deg., which may be made severer by not drying the patient.

It is very beneficial to weak patients to frequently wash their hands, face and neck, without drying them.

A very careful treatment of the hair is also a great necessity, especially for women.  Clean and well combed hair is very beneficial to a patient.  Slight ablutions of the head and combing the hair while wet, are very cooling and refreshing.

The stronger the nature of a patient, the safer it becomes to rely upon a single mode of procedure.  Thus, cold packs may be sufficient in case of high fever if applied about every half hour or hour; or, if the temperature is not quite so high, at intervals, from one hour and a half to two hours With weaker persons more variety of procedure is imperative, but none of them must be too stringently applied.  In these cases mild ablutions should be used several times during the day, and they may be alternated with packs of the whole lower part of the body or packs on the calves of the legs.

Cool or cold enemas are rapidly absorbed and thus have a quieting influence on the large blood reservoir in the abdomen.  Little mouthfuls of water are also taken from time to time, but too much water always weakens the patient.

(C) DIET IN CASES OF FEVER.

As diet in cases of fever I recommend the prescriptions of Professor Moritz, which coincide with my own experiences, so far as a fever diet is concerned; and in addition the physiologico-chemical cell-food which I have used for many years with the greatest success (Dech-Manna Diet).  The importance of the latter is due to the fact that it not only prevents the destruction of the cells, but has a general strengthening effect upon the system.

Whatever the differences in manifestation the febrile diseases may show, the febrile reduction of the digestive capacity of the stomach and the bowels is so characteristic, that it should be specially noted in this connection.

True, fever shows considerable disturbance of metabolism, since the decomposition of the albumen is increased in an abnormal way.  This fact, however, does not demand any particular attention, in regard to diet.  As far as possible during fever it is well to exercise an economizing influence on the decomposition of the albumen of the body through the introduction of all kinds of food that produce energy, so that it is not necessary to give preference to any one particular kind of food.

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Valere Aude from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.