Drinking
water should be pure, uncontaminated by animal or vegetable
impurities, and given _ad libitum_, unless, in rare instances, it
should cause vomiting or interfere with the capability of digesting
food. If children are comatose or delirious, as they frequently are in
typhoid fever, give water to them regularly, or force it upon them, if
they refuse to take it, as I was obliged to do with a child of six
years just recovering from that fever.
It is my custom to allow cold drinks of water in all cases of measles
whenever patients desire it, and I am satisfied that it aids the early
appearance of the rash, and certainly is cooling and grateful to the
patient. Hot drinks or vile and nauseous teas are unnecessary in this
disease, and should be discarded as useless, odious, and disgusting.
If congestion of the lungs or any intercurrent inflammation occurs, or
the rash is much delayed, a hot water bath or the old reliable corn
sweat will break up the complication with amazing rapidity, and if the
head is kept cool, will not generally be unacceptable to the patient.
Hot baths reduce temperature by causing free perspiration afterward,
and cold packs reduce it by cooling the surface sufficiently long to
reduce the heat of the blood, and, if used judiciously, seldom fail of
success. I have reduced the temperature four degrees in two hours by
wrapping around a child a sheet wet with tepid water, and no other
covering.
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