Pharmacopoeia of St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin, Leicester Square, London, W.C.

  • St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin (London, England)
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacopoeia of St. John's Hospital for Diseases of the Skin, Leicester Square, London, W.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    enduring, recent or of old standing. Veiy hot vapoiir is employed, it being found safer and less prostrating to use this for a short time than steam at a lower temperature for a longer period. Conse- quently, the patient is in almost all cases at the beginning, and in many tliroughout the course, directed to remain only six or eight minutes iu the bath, but to take it as hot as it can be borne. On ste[)ping out of the bath patients are instmcted to dry themselves as gently as possible; indeed, wrapping up the whole frame (juickly in a large turkish or bjith towel seems to answer as well as aiy plan. It lias not been observed that any state of health, which allows of the patient attending at the Hospital, is prohibitory as respects the bath. People constantly urge that they have been recommended not to venture upon a vapour bath—cannot, indeed, take one on account of suffering from weak or irribiblo heart; that the use of such a remedy renders them more liable to cold, bronchitis, and so on ; that they are too hrw to bear it; and, finally, that they have tried a turkish bath, which is the same thing, and have derived no benefit from it, or have even been made much worse. This is all a mis- take. The vapour bath given as directed has not been found to induce or aggravate in-egular heart acdion; according to the reports of the patients themselves, it does not bring on prostration, and patients using it arc not found to be more liable than others to cold and bronchitis, but quite the contra rv.