Richard Metcalfe, Hydropathist : the man and his work / by an old patient.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Richard Metcalfe, Hydropathist : the man and his work / by an old patient. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    and restores the patient to health. Mr. Metcalfe is nearer the mark, as he packs the patient till the evil is expelled and the sufferer is free. All that is required are a couple of sheets, two or three blankets, and some water; and the beauty of it is that the remedy works as quickly as effectively. After the first packing the patient will become so hot that in twenty-five or thirty minutes he will want to be taken out; then he is transferred into another Avet sheet; and then, after another thirty minutes, the pack should be repeated a third time. Then he is taken out, rubbed briskly with a towel, put to bed betAveen blankets Avith a hot bottle to his feet, a Avet toAvel to his head, and a Avet compress about the stomach. Then he falls into a refreshing sleep, Avhich lasts from four to eight hours. After Avar ds he is fed on mutton or chicken broth, and presently ‘Richard is himself again.’ ‘I have had a good many cases,’ said Mr. Metcalfe to me, ‘several of Avhich were of a severe nature.’ ‘And you succeeded in curing them? How long were the cures being effected?’ ‘ If I had the case the first day of the attack, I generally subdued the fever in six hours; if on the second day, twelve; on the third, eighteen. I do not mean that the complete cure Avas effected in that time. It takes some time to reduce the high temperature of the body. Mostly in three days the patients were convalescent. The pack is the most powerful febrifuge—perhaps the most powerful in existence. The pack acts in a similar Avay on the body that water does on hot iron. Water Avill more quickly equalise temperature than anything else. In influenza the normal temperature of the body is raised,, and the skin feverish; by enveloping the whole body in a Avet sheet, you loAver the tempera- ture of the skin and promote its free action; thus internal congestion is at once relieved.’ ‘I claim,’ continued Mr. Metcalfe after referring to the treatment generally folloAvcd by the Faculty,‘to cut the disease short by the packing process. By reducing the fever Avithin eighteen hours, I avoid the dangerous consequences often folloAA'ing on a fit of influenza.’ ‘Then you regard influenza as a fever?’ ‘Yes, as a malarial fever.’ ‘Then you Avould interdict the use of medicine altogether in influenza?’ ‘No; I do not say that at all. Where the value ot medicines have been tested by practical experience they should be used in conjunction Avith the pack—that is to say, in small doses, for the Avet sheet pack makes the patient more susceptible to the influence ot medicine. I have at this time a dozen very severe cases under treatment.’ ‘And Avhat is the general result?’