Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix.

  • Jonathan Pereira
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medical and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bentley and Theophilus Redwood ; with an appendix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    48/1180 (page 16)
    d. Aqueous Vapour. 1. The Vapour Bath.—The general effects of the vapour bath are those of a powerful stimulant and sudorific. It softens and relaxes the cutaneous tissue, expands the superficial vessels, accelerates the circulation of blood, augments the frequency of the pulse and re- spiration, and produces copious perspiration. These effects are succeeded by a feeling of languor and a tendency to sleep. If the whole body be immersed in vapour, which is constantly inhaled, the temperature should be a little less than if the trunk and limbs alone are subjected to its influence; because the inhalation of vapour stops the cooling process of evaporation from the lungs. The following is a comparative view of the heating powers of water and of vapour, distinguishing the latter according as it is or is not breathed :— Tepid bath Warm bath Hot bath.... Water Vapour Not breathed Breathed 85° 92° 92 — 98 98 —106 96°—106° 106 —120 120 —160 90°—100° 100 i-110 110 —130 The vapour bath is very useful when our object is to relax the skin, and to produce profuse sweating; as in chronic rheumatism and gout, in slight colds from checked perspiration, and in chronic skin diseases accompanied with a dry state of the cutaneous sur- face. In old paralytic cases, without signs of vascular excitement of the brain ; in some uterine affections, as chlorosis, amenorrhoea, and irritation of the womb; in dropsy of aged and debilitated subjects ; in old liver complaints ; and in some scrofulous affections, it is occasionally employed with advantage. Topical or local vapour baths are employed in the treatment of local diseases; as affections of the joints. Dr. Macartney recom- mends the topical use of vapour, as a soothing and anodyne application, in painful wounds, contusions, and fractures. 2. Inhalation of Warm Vapour.—The inhalation of warm aqueous vapour proves highly serviceable, as an emollient remedy, in irrita- tion or inflammation of the tonsils, or of the membrane lining the larynx, trachea, or bronchial tubes, as in the sore throat of scarlatina and in croup. It may be employed by Mudge's inhaler, or by inspiring the vapour arising from warm water. [§ Aqua Destillata, Distilled Water. HO or H20. Take of water ten gallons, distil from a copper still, connected with a block-tin worm ; reject the first half gallon, and preserve the next eight gallons.]