Among the remedies for cholera, or perhaps we should rather say attempted
remedies, the vapour-bath is conspicuous over all the other means of cure,
external and internal: stimulants, frictions, rubefacients, blisters, have
that for their indirect object which the vapour-bath accomplishes directly,
namely, to produce heat on the surface of the body, and thus restore that
correspondence between the temperature of the interior and exterior parts,
which in the disease is so strangely disturbed. There are two difficulties
in the application of the vapour-bath, which are not easily overcome. When
applied to the patient in the ordinary way, from the nature of the heat,
the upper surface of the body is scorched, while the back is almost cold.
Now in cholera, the application of heat to the back is of essential
importance. In the whole of the machines for applying the bath, the
patient is exposed to more or less tossing about; which, from the extreme
prostration of strength in cholera patients, is always injurious; and as
the patient must, when taken from the bath, be replaced on a comparatively
cold bed, the sudden change will often do more ill than the bath will do
good. To these must be added, in a disease which chiefly affects the poor,
another item, forming an important drawback on the utility of the ordinary
vapour-bath,--the application of it is attended with no inconsiderable
expense. A machine which should obviate these objections, was a
desideratum; and we think such a one has been invented by Mr. Burnet, of
Golden Square. It is so simple as to be easily described without a diagram,
and so well adapted to the end, and so easy and cheap in application, that
we think we shall be rendering an acceptable service to our readers in
describing it. The best way to effect this is to show the steps of its
application.
We suppose the patient lying on his back in bed. The two sides of a
framework, about 6-1/2 by 2-1/2 feet, are placed one on each side of him;
five or six broad canvass straps, which are meant to support his body, are
placed beneath him by a couple of attendants; two transverse pieces of
wood are then introduced at the foot and head, to extend the framework;
and the cross straps, by means of eyelet-holes, are attached to the sides,
by a row of common brass pins. This is the work of about a minute. One
attendant then raises the frame at the head, while the other introduces a
couple of feet about nine inches long into the frame; and this done, the
foot is raised in a similar way, and similarly supported; a board is then
fitted to the foot, through a hole in the centre of which the chimney of
the heating apparatus passes; the blankets are closely tucked round the
patient and the frame; the lamp is applied, and the process of bathing
commences. In this way, it will be seen that the patient is suspended in
the heated air, which is moreover applied to the back in the first
instance; there is no fatigue incurred; and when perspiration has been
generated and carried on as long as is deemed expedient, he is let down
again, without difficulty or danger, into his heated bed, and surrounded
with the warm blankets employed in the bath itself. The room in which we
saw the experiment performed, was at a temperature of 43° Fahrenheit; the
clothes of the bed were of the same temperature: the lamp is conical, and
has no tube; the wick is merely inserted in it; the charge is two ounces
of spirits of wine. In ten minutes after the lamp had been applied, the
thermometer at the foot of the frame on which the patient is made to
recline, was 136°; at the head, 116°; on the blanket, which covered the
bed, 96°. Were the vapour applied above the patient instead of under him,
the difference between the heat at the breast and back would be at least
40°. The temperature once raised, may be kept up at a very small expense;
so that the whole price of the bath, continued for half an hour or three
quarters of an hour, will not exceed eightpence or ninepence. There is a
very simple expedient, by which, when the temperature of the chamber
formed by the frame of the bath is once raised sufficiently high, steam,
either simple or medicated, may be introduced, and the lamp apparatus may
be applied either at the foot, the head, or the side, as is most
convenient. The grand recommendation, however, of the bath, is the
applicability of the vapour to the entire surface of the body; the
simplicity and ease of the application, both to the assistants and the
patient; the exclusion of the possibility of cold; and its cheapness. In
all these points of view, we look on it as a valuable invention.
_Spectator_.
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