Hints about the proper treatment of typhus : a letter to an inquiring friend / by C.C. Schieferdecker.

  • Schieferdecker, Chr. Charles (Christian Charles)
Date:
[1864?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints about the proper treatment of typhus : a letter to an inquiring friend / by C.C. Schieferdecker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of the uniform efficacy and security of the external use of cold water, in scarlatina, and in other febrile diseases, connected with high morbid heat of the skin, it is to be lamented that some practitioners still look upon the practice as an experiment/ and repeat the remnants of exploded hypotheses, about repelling morbid matter, stopping pore?-, etc., as reasons for resisting the testimony of some of the greatest ornaments of the medical pro- fession. For my own part, 1 have been in the constant habit of resorting to the practice, at every opportunity, in scarlatina, (and in typhoid fevers, during my superintendence of the fever institution for the last ten years), attending to the simple rules laid down by Dr. Currie ; and I have never witnessed any in- convenience, much less any injury from it; but cm uniformity m its beneficial operation, of which no ot/ier physical eapedient, with which I am acquainted, affords an example Sundelin, Von Siebold, Balling, Most, and a host of other most eminent physicians, highly recommend water in typhus. Dr. C. E. Bock (the celebrated Professor of Pathological Ana- tomy in Leipzig), in his Diagnostic/' &c, declares all Specifica and Medications in Typhus as unphysiologicalVyn objectiona- ble : and adds, that all rational treatment of the typhus, as of all other dyscrasias, must have in view, to support properly the metwmorplwsis of the- Mood, and to remove troublesome symptoms. Experience teaches, that, with proper dietetics, far more typhus patients are restored, and quicker strengthened, than with drug-medication and stimulation. But a proper die- tetic treatment consists mowing a mild, mostly fluid food, (alternating between milk, butter-milk, bread, egg-drink, meat broth), ' 'ng the air day ■ • in most scrupulous cleanliness of clothes, bed rem (washing and baths); in preventing all excitement of hody, senses and mind; in proper attention to the >s, particularly of the cutaneous activity by baths, urine by cathetre and stool by enemata. Against violent headache, apply cold wet compresses to the head. Excessive bleedings remove rather by cold appli- cations, than by lead, alumii and acids; the intestinal bleeding by cold injections, and cold compresses to the abdomen ; great sensitiveness and swelling of abdomen removed by warm fomen- tations ; keep the body from getting sore by a good bed and