This consists of a jacket made something like a vest, reaching from the
neck to a little below the navel. It should be made of double
thicknesses of soft toweling. To protect the garments or bedding from
moisture, it should be covered with another jacket made like it but a
little larger. In applying it, the wrapper should be wet in tepid water,
and should then be applied as snugly as consistent with the comfort of
the wearer. It should be re-applied every two or three hours, as it
becomes dry.
If properly managed, the chest wrapper is a valuable remedy; but it has
been greatly abused. It should not be worn more than a week without
intermission. The practice of some in continuing it until it produces an
eruption of the skin, and even longer—to promote a discharge—under the
idea that a vicarious elimination is thus performed, is highly
reprehensible, and has no sound physiological principle to support it.
Such treatment is damaging to the skin, and does the patient no good in
any way. The better plan is to allow the wrapper to be worn during the
night, but omitted during the daytime. If worn during the day, it should
be changed often, and should be removed so soon as the patient becomes
chilly. Whenever removed, the surface of the skin should be washed or
sponged with cool or tepid water. Feeble patients with defective
circulation should wear the wrapper only while walking or riding on
horseback.
This appliance may be profitably employed in a large number of chronic
diseases. In chronic bronchitis, pleurisy, pleurodynia, asthma, and the
early stages of consumption, it gives relief.