Neuralgia and Rheumatism treated by cold draughts after sweating.—
At Bellevue, near Paris, there is a fine establishment, in which every-
thing of practical value connected with “ the water-cure”—be it hot or
cold—is applied to the treatment of various obstinate affections. The
advantages obtained from a rational employment of several powerful
agents, as distinguished* from the empirical use of one alone, are very
great. They were pointed out in an excellent Memoir which Mr.
Fleury presented at the last meeting of the Academy of Sciences. The
author selected forty-six cases, observed at the establishment during
the last four years, and from their results deduced the following con-
clusions :
Five patients, laboring under attacks of acute neuralgia from four to
fifteen days, (facial, intercostal, sciatic,) were cured by one to three
applications of the cold douche, both general and local, employed after
the use of the dry stove, which had produced copious transpiration.
Here the revulsive action of heat followed by cold was much more
energetic than that of flying blisters, or the cautery.
Eleven patients, attacked by acute muscular rheumatism, fixed in its
seat and very severe, were rapidly cured in the same manner.
In four cases of obstinate neuralgia, which had resisted every known
method of treatment for four to ten years, a cure was obtained by cold
douches (general and local,) sometimes preceded by the use of the hot-
air bath. The duration of the treatment varied from one to six months,
and its average was three months. Three patients, who for five to
fifteen years had presented, in the most marked degree that ensemble
of symptoms known under the title of “ nervous accidents,” and who
had been reduced by them to the lowest state, in spite of medical art,
were cured in the same manner. Here, however, the treatment was
continued from seven to eighteen months, and the average duration was
more than a year.
Finally, in twenty-three cases of chronic muscular rheumatism, which
had resisted every species of treatment, and the most celebrated mineral
waters of Europe, the cold douches after sweating effected complete
cures. The average time of treatment was four months ; the minimum
one month ; the maximum seven.
Here, it must be confessed, we have a rational method of treatment,
applied according to the rules of art, and as successful as the miracles
of Hydropathy.—Lond. Med. Times.