THE "COLD-WATER" CURE OF TYPHOID.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9016, 31 March 1888, Page 3

THE "COLD-WATER" CURE OF TYPHOID.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, — do not in general trouble myself to answer anonymous correspondence, but as your correspondent '' Cold-water Cure" is evidently in earnest, and writing in good faith, and probably would highly approve of my treatment if he only knew what it was, I will just put him right on one or two points. In the first place, when he writes about hydropathy and treats it as synonomous with the cold-water treatment of typhoid that Mr. Andrew Buchanan recommended, he is confusing two entirely different methods of treatment. The " cold-water cure," pure and simple, consists in putting the patient into a bath many degrees—at least twenty— below the temperature of the body, and keeping him there for . an undetermined time ; or, as practised by some, the patient is put into a warm bath, and the temperature gradually lowered to about 75 deg. F. In either case, the lowering of the body temperature is merely mechanical—it is done just in the same way as you cool a hot potato before you eat it. The practice is roved, by the statistics of its supporters, to be most dangerous. I cannot at the present moment lay my hands on the medical journal in which I read the latest report on the subject, because it is, with the greater part of my library, at Christchurch, but I remember most distinctly that the mortality was about 27 per cent., because the fact struck me most forcibly. Now, the wet sheet packing acts in a quite different way ; it lowers the temprature by a purely vital process—by producing profuse sweating, and eliminating the poison by the skin. Every time the patient is wet packed, a certain portion of the blood poison passes off in the perspiration. Every time the patient is cooled down by the cold bath, the internal organs are congested. The application of cold water, or even ice, to the head is defensible on the ground that the brain is such an important organ that if by cooling the head even mechanically, you can lessen delirium and produce sleep, you are doing good out of all comparison greater than any evil that can be done by the limited application of cold. But the pouring of ice-cold water to the nape of the neck for a few minutes produces also by the shock an impression in the nerve-centres which is more beneficial than the ice-bag, only you must have a skilled attendant to do it. Last night, in my lecture, I strongly advocated the wet pack, applied tepid, but not cold, except when the temperature is exceptionally highsay above 105.5. I would rather give no medicine at all than be deprived of the use of the wet pack in the treatment of the eruptive fevers. The great difficulty I have to contend with is the ignorance and prejudices of the public. Will " Cold-water Cure " tell us the names of a few of the cases "that have been cured by the hydropathic system, when abandoned as hopeless by M.D.'s?" There are only three M.D.s practising in Auckland so far as I know, and I should very much like to see some of these patients. " M.D.'s," as your correspondent calls them, may be very ignorant, prejudiced, and stupid, still as they have presumably devoted their lives to the study of medicine, it is not perhaps too arrogant on their part if they imagine that they know more about it than an amateur who has never studied it at all, and who merely picks up his ideas from a popular book. On the whole, even for their own interests, they will try to cure their patients ; and if " Cold--water Cure" were to read the medical journals, he would see that every conceivable kind of treatment that affords even a faint prospect of being more beneficial to the patients than the systems at present in vogue is eagerly caught up, tried, and discussed. Medical men as a rule do not sin on the side of being too conservative. They are, if anything, too eager to try novelties. Witness, for example, the use of that most dangerous remedy anti-pyrin, in this very disease.

I would strongly recommend " ColdWater Cure" not to try his hand at the treatment of typhoid fever, or he may find himself some day or other in unpleasant contact -\»ith a coroner's jury. Typhoid fever is emphatically not a disease for amateurs to experiment on. I have been attending cases of it ever since I entered the profession as a student, and I find that every case has its own peculiarities, and demands just as much attention as I gave my first cases, nearly forty years ago. It is all very well to sneer at doctors, and doctors' bills (doctors, I presume, being expected by " cold-water cure " to live on his favourite remedy, and not pay rates even for that); but after all, it should be remembered that the medical profession is free to everybody, that any man in the British Empire can practice to any extent he likes, if the public will only employ him, and that if " Cold-water Cure" or anyone else can gain the confidence of the public, there is nothing to hinder him from attending every case of typhoid in Auckland. The only thing that does hinder him is that the public generally have an idea that if there is anything the matter with their watches it is better to entrust them to a watchmaker who has served an apprenticeship to the business, rather than to some amateur friend who says with a jaunty air, " Oh ! give it me—l'll set it all right for you in a minute !"—I am, &c.,

R. H. BAKE well, M.D. Hobson-street, March 30.