Benefits Derived From Foot Baths
The shallow foot bath is a variety of the cold foot bath in which the amount of water employed is small, barely sufficient to cover the toes. After being held in the bath for one minute, one foot is taken out and rubbed for half a minute, and returned to the water, the other being then treated in like manner. The treatment is continued until each foot has been thoroughly rubbed three or four times. The shallow foot bath produces powerful reactive effects in the feet, and is thus of great service in chronic cases of cold feet and sweating of the feet. The hot foot bath produces, in a diminutive way, the same effect as the general hot bath. As a curative measure, this bath is more commonly used, perhaps, than any other. At a temperature of from one hundred and three degrees to one hundred and six degrees the foot bath is an exceedingly useful means of aiding the regulation of the systematic circulation, the blood-vessels of the lower extremities relieving the congestion of the brain and other organs in the upper half of the body. The hot foot bath is also of very great service as a means of relieving or preventing a cold resulting from exposure of the feet to dampness. The very hot foot bath is exceedingly useful in cases of sprain of the ankle joint. The bath is begun at a temperature of about one hundred and four degrees, and then gradually raised by the addition of hot water until it is as hot as the patient can bear—one hundred and twenty degrees to one hundred and thirty degrees. Neuralgia of the feet is likewise relieved by the very hot foot bath. The process should be repeated two or three times a day, and continued for twenty or thirty minutes each time.—Australasian Good Health.