Cooking, Coughs, Cramp

Papers on Health
by John Kirk

(Page 15 of 22)

Cooking - The cooking of vegetables requires particular care. The valuable salts and other nutritive ingredients they contain are easily dissolved by water, and when they are drained, and the water thrown away, as is usually done, all this nutriment is lost. Double cooking pots are easily procurable for meat, porridge, etc. These are quite suitable for vegetables - cabbage, turnips, carrots, peas, etc. The vegetable should be placed, without water, in the inner pot; it will take somewhat longer to cook than when boiled in the usual way. The outer vessel should be partly filled with water kept boiling. Any juice which comes out of the vegetable should be served in the dish along with it. It may be thickened with a little flour and butter, or if a regular white sauce is being made, the juice should be used instead of part of the water. If no double boiler is procurable, an ordinary tin can, inside a saucepan will serve very well. Many who consider certain vegetables indigestible, as usually prepared, will find that when cooked in this way they agree with them perfectly. The fact that the color of cabbage, peas, etc., is not so green as when boiled in a great deal of water, is not of importance, when the flavor and wholesomeness are so much increased. In stews and vegetable soups the salts are, of course, preserved.

Cooling in Heating - Often it is difficult to get a sufficient cooling effect by means of cold cloths without unduly chilling the patient. When the head has to be cooled, as in the very dangerous disease meningitis, the effect must pass through the mass of the skull before reaching the brain. A large and long continued application is needed for this. The surface is apt then to be overcooled before the interior of the head is affected. In such a case the surface of the head, when the patient feels it too cold, should be gently rubbed, as directed in Eyes, Squinting, until this feeling goes off. Then the cooling may be resumed. Or if rubbing be disagreeable, a warm cloth may be applied for a short time, and cooling then resumed. In this way a succession of waves of heating and cooling can for a long time be sent through the surface, with good effect and no chill. The short heating restores the surface, and does not interfere with the cooling effect reaching the interior parts. The same principle applies to cooling any part of the body (see Bathing). Any deep-seated inflammation is best reached in this way.

For instance, in the large hip-joints it is of vast importance to reach inflammatory action in parts that are not near the surface, and cold cloths, pressed constantly, produce distress in the surface, if there is no intermission in supplying them. The patient is apt to rush to the conclusion that he must just yield to be blistered, painted with iodine, covered with belladonna plaster, or burned with red-hot irons! That is, he will yield to be made a great deal worse in every respect than he is, because he is not aware that it is quite possible to cure him without making him worse even for a moment.

Coughs - These will be found treated under the various heads of Colds, Bronchitis, Consumption, etc., but some particular cases of mere cough demand special attention. A tickling cough sometimes comes on, and seems to remain in spite of all efforts to get rid of it. It is worse at night, and keeps the sufferer from sleeping, causing much distress. Where the breathing organs are weak, this cough is caused by an extra flow of blood to them, especially on lying down, the blood acting as an irritant by pressing where it should not. In such cases a bran poultice applied as directed for Bronchitis, with cooling applications to the part where the tickling is felt, should soon effect a cure. See Restlessness.

We had a case lately in which these features were very marked. It seemed as if the patient had caught cold and this was showing itself in severe and alarming coughing. The skin was yellow, and there were other signs of failure in the organs that purify the blood. Irritating substances were passing into the lungs because of failure in the liver and kidneys, and not from anything in the lungs themselves. In such cases the cough is merely a way of throwing off everything which ought not to be in the breathing organs.

The remedy is very simple. Let the patient take about three tablespoonfuls of hot water every ten minutes for four hours. Before these four hours are expired, the substances causing irritation will be so diluted that they will cease to irritate, and the organs failing to do their duty will be in full working order.

Cramp in the Limbs - The treatment of this is to apply cold cloths to the roots of the nerves which govern the affected limb or limbs. For the legs, the cold is applied to the lower spine; for the arms or hands, it is applied to the upper part. The limbs affected should also be rubbed briskly with the hands, or a rough towel. Often the irritating heat causing the cramp is in but a small part of the spine, and the whole body is cold, or at least too chilly to make the cold cloths a pleasant cure. In such a case fomentation of the feet and legs will supply sufficient heat to make the cure by cold pleasant and safe.

Cramp in the Stomach - This very severe trouble, though resisting ordinary methods of treatment, is not difficult to cure by right means. If help is at hand, the patient may be placed in a shallow bath, and cold water splashed with a sponge or towel against the back. A bad case has been cured with two minutes of this treatment. After it, the patient must be well dried and put to bed.

When help is not available, a substitute for the cold splashing is a thick cold compress, the length of the spine, which must be laid on the bed, and the patient lie down on it. This must be changed when it grows hot, and a few changes usually give relief.

Persons who are suffering have often very strong prejudices. For example, one who has decided most firmly that he "cannot do at all with anything cold," is suffering from cramp, and nothing but cold will relieve him, but you must not even hint at any such application. You must in such a case consider how this prejudice took its rise. You will probably find that cold has been unskillfully applied to this patient, and bad effects have been produced, not by the cold, but by its unskillful application. For instance, in a case of cramp the irritation and excess of heat may be both confined to a very small space, no more than that which is filled by the root of one nerve; the rest of the body may be cold rather than hot.

Printed by Hurst Bros., Shaw Heath, Stockport. 1904.