COLD AND PREJUDICE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1661, 16 April 1884, Page 3

COLD AND PREJUDICE.

Wcliave had only too good reason lately to deplore that state of mind in " which 'Unreasoning folly actually sacrifices precious life. : It seems a very urgent duty indead to do our best to niter sitch a state of mind, as far as it may be possible to do so. We shall illustrate what we mean -by supposing «case of illness which is representative of many that are now occurring in reality. There, then, is a child—-u fine girl, of say fivo years of age. Sh'e has somehow got chilled, and that lias issued in an inflamed state of the the throat and small tubes that lead to the lungs. This inflammatory state in these.organs is accompanied with a good deal of general fever. The breast is burning hot, and so is the skin generally. She coughs a great deal, and her breathing is not what could be desired. If this state of the body goes on from bad to worse, she will dio. If she is treated with hot applications only, she will still die all the same. If sho is tortured with poultices of mustard she will die. besides suffering most severely from the effect of the mustard on her skin. If she has antimonial wine, ipecaculiana given her she will all the more certainly die, and that in greater distress. If she has hot poultices applied between her shoulders and cold cloths pressed over her chest, she will recover in a very short time and be well. We arc speaking' with many cases in viow that go to demonstrate' the truth of what we aro writing. On tho one hand we have in view cases in' which death has been the result; and on the other hand cases similar, and set down by the highest ' medical skill available as curtain to have a fatal issue, but recovered in a few hour? by the cold cloths, and now quite well. Here is one, as an instance attended by a family doctor, who calls in one of the first physicians, and both agree that the child is certainly dying, and no more can be done for it; but tho father is simply told to put a hot bran poultice on the shoulders between each side, and to change cloths on tlio chest,—the child was quite well in a few hours. We say, if the same things are done in the case of the little girl we are supposing, she will not only not die, but she will be out of danger within an hour. The fire of inflammatory action burning in her little breast, if it is allowed to burn on, or if it is intensified by treatment that makes its fuel more easily consumed, will destroy her young life; hut if cold cloths are changed and gently pressed on the fire it will be extinguished, and she will bo in the full way of recovery within an hour. We have seen a child lying across the mother's kneo dying. The breathing was getting shorter and shorter, and the end was only an hour or so off. But a bran poultice, well heated, was placed on her back between the shoulders, and when that was on, cloths rung out of cold water were ■pressed, ono after another, over her breast. Sho was out of all danger within two hours after the application'. —Professor Kirk's Papers on Health. :