THE USE OF WATER IN DISEASE.
By David Paulson, M. D.
WATER can be used beneficially in a variety of ways. There is scarcely a good effect upon the human system which can be derived from drugs which can not be secured from water, and the water has the advantage of not leaving behind it the injurious after effect of drugs. We have now reached a period which is the great harvest-time for the patent-medicine man; he has something that "beats the Klondike." Car-loads and car-loads of this stuff are yearly buried in human stomachs, and the principal effective element in many of them is cheap whisky. Half of the so-called "Bitters" will burn, because some of them contain as high as forty per cent. of alcohol. There are many varieties of these patent-medicine "remedies," but they are all more or less deceptive,—they make a man feel better when he is no better; they make him feel strong when he is weak. There is coming a day of reckoning for those who use these artificial props. When the body has to be held up by an artificial aid, there is something wrong. It is only when the remedy or treatment builds up the man, so that he is like a tree whose roots strike deep into the earth, and thus holds it up, that there is anything physiologically permanent. I will try to make clear the difference between an artificial stimulant and a physiological stimulant. A physician once said he had been giving his patients artificial stimulants, and now, said he to us, "I am going to send them to you to get physiological stimulation." The beautiful sunlight is a physiological stimulant. The alternate hot and cold application of water is a physiological stimulant. Strychnine is an artificial stimulant; it irritates the nerve centers and drives a man on, producing a similar effect to that of whipping a horse; it also adds to the poisons already in the system; it irritates the eliminating organs which have to carry it off. The reverse of this is true of a physiological stimulant,—that is the difference between the two. It can easily be seen that there is a radical difference between taking into the body something that irritates and poisons the system, and the applying of a physiological stimulant such as hot and cold application. We feel better in winter, because cold is a natural stimulant. Long hot treatments are relaxing; therefore they should be short, and quickly applied. And, likewise, do not take a long cold treatment, but only enough to get the chill from it. This brief chill is a sort of fire-alarm for every cell in the body. The effect of this stimulation is to make us feel better. We ought to get that feeling out of every cold treatment. At first there is a brief depression, then the patient reacts, and every cell in the body gets to living on a higher plane. It is like a spring which bounds higher after depressing it than it was before, while at rest. By repeating this day after day, by and by these nerve cells will actually have learned the secret of living upon this higher plane. But don’t stay in the cold spray or bath too long; the quicker it is done the better. Get the sensation produced by the spray, and then there is a mighty effort of nature to restore the equilibrium; and when that is done, we feel better. Keep this up and by and by you will be able to live upon a high plane and maintain that good feeling all the time. It is possible to do that; it is of no use to live down in the vale of despondency when there is a better place to camp. We can secure something besides stimulating effects from water; we can as readily get a sedative effect. Here, for example, is a person who can not sleep; his nervous system is upon a high tension. Give a 20-grain dose of trional and it quiets him, but it does not restore the blessed feeling of rest. But if that patient is placed in a bath at a temperature of 95° for half an hour or an hour, that shuts off all the irritations to the nerves in the skin, and produces quiet. When a person has received an extensive burn, we put him into a full bath of about 95°, and he may remain in it for a long time—sometimes as long as five or six months. There is nothing weakening about it when the water is about the temperature of the skin. The same effect may be produced by another procedure, namely, by a wet-sheet pack. The sheet is wrung out of water at a temperature of 75° to 80° or even much colder, and wrapped around the patient, and several dry blankets wrapped over it. There will then be a reaction, followed by a quieting influence. Sometimes raving maniacs who have not slept for several days or nights, when treated in this manner, go to sleep in a few minutes. In such cases it certainly could not be due to mind-cure. It is because there is something in the application which is naturally soothing. This is such a simple and valuable remedy that all should know how to do it. These things put a man to sleep because they soothe his nerves, but drugs and opiates put a man to sleep because they benumb his nerves. The man who is put to sleep by drugs feels miserable the next day, but the man who is put to sleep by the application of water feels better the next day; so there is a radical difference between the two methods of treatment. In cases of bruises and wounds, water can be applied with good results. A man may come in who has been working with some heavy instrument which came down upon his hand and smashed it. The physician repairs it and then places it in hot water—not hot enough to be uncomfortable, however—and it is remarkable what beautiful results may be seen. This of course is especially applicable to hands that are so crushed and blue that it seems as tho gangrene will occur. Often by this treatment with hot water and proper bandaging, growth is stimulated and the parts are saved. It may be asked, "Do you not give any morphine in such cases?" Possibly, at first, if the patient is suffering very severely. And it would be very pleasant for the physician if he could safely keep on giving morphine, but this he can not do, for it is imperatively demanded that nature shall have a chance to cure such cases. The influence of morphine, which paralyzes the nerves and thus relieves the pain, also paralyzes the activities of the cells of the body which are building up the injured part. To illustrate: Suppose there were a number of men putting up a building and there was a boy present who was making a very disagreeable racket; then suppose there should be a storm of hail sufficient to silence the boy; the hailstones that silenced the boy would also stop the operations of the men who were putting up the building. So, with the use of morphine, we might silence the pain, but we would also silence the activities of the man. It is wicked to give such a patient something that will merely stop the pain but which antagonizes nature,—it is just putting a foot upon nature. It is amazing how readily such pains may be removed by application of moist heat.