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SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

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VAPOUR-BATHS.

Among the remedies for cholera, or perhaps we should rather say attempted
remedies, the vapour-bath is conspicuous over all the other means of cure,
external and internal: stimulants, frictions, rubefacients, blisters, have
that for their indirect object which the vapour-bath accomplishes directly,
namely, to produce heat on the surface of the body, and thus restore that
correspondence between the temperature of the interior and exterior parts,
which in the disease is so strangely disturbed. There are two difficulties
in the application of the vapour-bath, which are not easily overcome. When
applied to the patient in the ordinary way, from the nature of the heat,
the upper surface of the body is scorched, while the back is almost cold.
Now in cholera, the application of heat to the back is of essential
importance. In the whole of the machines for applying the bath, the
patient is exposed to more or less tossing about; which, from the extreme
prostration of strength in cholera patients, is always injurious; and as
the patient must, when taken from the bath, be replaced on a comparatively
cold bed, the sudden change will often do more ill than the bath will do
good. To these must be added, in a disease which chiefly affects the poor,
another item, forming an important drawback on the utility of the ordinary
vapour-bath,--the application of it is attended with no inconsiderable
expense. A machine which should obviate these objections, was a
desideratum; and we think such a one has been invented by Mr. Burnet, of
Golden Square. It is so simple as to be easily described without a diagram,
and so well adapted to the end, and so easy and cheap in application, that
we think we shall be rendering an acceptable service to our readers in
describing it. The best way to effect this is to show the steps of its
application.

We suppose the patient lying on his back in bed. The two sides of a
framework, about 6-1/2 by 2-1/2 feet, are placed one on each side of him;
five or six broad canvass straps, which are meant to support his body, are
placed beneath him by a couple of attendants; two transverse pieces of
wood are then introduced at the foot and head, to extend the framework;
and the cross straps, by means of eyelet-holes, are attached to the sides,
by a row of common brass pins. This is the work of about a minute. On