The oat-straw is boiled for half an hour in a kettle, and a foot-bath of 25° to 26° R. is prepared with the decoction, which is to be taken for 20 to 30 minutes.
According to my experience these foot-baths are unsurpassed as regards the dissolving of every possible obduration on the feet. They are useful against gristle, knots etc.; against results of gout, articular disease, podagra, corns, nails grown in and putrid, and against blisters caused by walking. Even sore and suppurating feet, or toes wounded by too sharp foot-sweat, can be treated with these foot-baths.
A gentleman had cut his corn, and the toe became inflamed; a poisonous ulcer seemed to threaten with pyemia. The foot was healed in four days by taking daily 3 foot-baths with oat-straw, and applying bandages, dipped in the decoction, reaching to above the ankles.
A patient was in danger of having all his toes rotted off; they were swollen and of a dark blue color; he, too, got frightened about pyemia; but the foot-bath and foot-bandages cured him in a short time.
In many cases I prescribe these foot-baths to be taken like the warm whole baths, (See respective passage on „The warm full-bath") changing three times, and concluding with the cold bath.
A constant exception to this rule, however, is made with regard to the warm foot-bath of 25° to 26° R. with admixture of ashes and salt, (mentioned under a). The object of this is, to draw the blood more powerfully downwards, and there to distribute it. But, if after this warm foot-bath a person were to apply a cold bath or ablution, to end with, he would thereby drive the blood which had been strongly led down to the feet, back again; and it would by no means flow again so plentifully to the feet as it had done by means of the warm water with ashes and salt. The first desired effect would in this manner be, at least partly, destroyed, and the aim frustrated. Therefore the warm foot-bath with ashes and salt is never followed by a cold one.
d) I wish to mention here a special kind of footbaths which are more of a solid than a fluid nature. If there is a possibility of using them, do not reject them! I have used them often, very often, with great success. Take malt grains, when still warm, and put them into a foot-bath. The feet penetrate easily into them and soon feel comfortable in the salutary warmth. This bath can last for 15 to 30 minutes. Those who are suffering from rheumatism, gout, and such like, will best find out its sanitary power.
There is one remark to be made concerning all the foot-baths. For persons affected with varices, the footbath ought never to reach higher than the beginning of the calf, and never exceed the temperature of 25° R.
Foot-baths with warm water only, without anything being mixed with it, I never take or prescribe.
II. Half-baths.
In general when speaking of half-baths, I mean such as wash the body, at the utmost, up to the stomach, but very often do not go so far. I wanted to have something between the full-baths which offer too much, and the foot-baths which offer too little. I take the liberty of calling them half-baths.
Their application is threefold:
1. To stand in the water so that it reaches above the calves or above the knees;
2. To kneel in the water so that the whole of the thighs is covered with it;
3. To sit in the water. This third application alone fully deserves the name of half bath; it reaches to about the navel.
These three applications, which are always made with cold water, rank first among the means of hardening. They are, therefore, suitable for healthy persons who wish to become stronger still, for weaklings who wish to become strong, and for those in a state of convalescence who desire to get entirely well and strong.
In diseases they should only be taken when especially and expressly prescribed; experiments ought not to be made with them; for in some circumstances they might do harm.
Whenever they are applied, be it by healthy or sick people, it must be always in connection with other applications, and they should never be taken for longer than from one half minute to 3 minutes.
I have practiced No. 1 and 2, standing and kneeling in the water, and always with great success, upon such persons who, from different causes, were in thorough decline; with this application they began the water-cure. I will not name these causes, but only indicate that there are many who, in the beginning, cannot bear the pressure of the water in whole baths, without the most disagreeable consequences. It is just such patients as these that have led me (by their great weakness and wretchedness) to these two applications; their condition required this discrete, moderate and considerate application of water, sometimes for long weeks, until they got stronger and were able to endure more.
With these two practices the dipping in of the arms up to the shoulders (see means of hardening), is generally connected, as a second means of hardening. But in addition to this manner of hardening, I use this whole application (consisting of two part-applications) especially against cold feet.
No. 3, the real half-bath, is well worthy of attention; I recommend it most impressively to all healthy persons. The disorders and diseases of the lower part of the body - and their number is legion; their cause in reality but one, want of hardening, effemination — are by this bath suffocated in the germ, or removed where they are already settled. These half-baths strengthen the bowels, and preserve and increase their strength. Thousands and thousands of persons wear one, two, or even more bandages and similar things. Do they get help from them? Many times quite the contrary; by them the effemination, the fragility, is even as it were, forced into the poor boy.
Only once try our half-baths, slowly, but decidedly, and the complaints of hemorrhoids, wind-colic, hypochondria, -hysteria, will soon greatly diminish; these diseases which now make their bewildering sport in the diseased and weakened body.
I should advise healthy people to wash the upper part of their body when rising in the morning, and then in the afternoon or evening to take our half-bath. If there is no time for the early washing, they may wash their chest and back in the half-bath.
A few incidents may show how the one or the other of these three applications is to be made in diseases.
A young man had been so much weakened by typhus, that he was quite unable to work. He tried the kneeling in the water every second or third day, first for 1 minute, later on for 2 or 3 minutes After having done so for some time, he improved from week to week, and became as strong as he had been before.
A person was suffering from violent congestions, which originated in the body. (as is often the case). The upper part of the body was washed one day, and the next day the kneeling in the water was undertaken. This was repeated for some time, and the congestions ceased.
Pains in the stomach, caused by retained wind, are cured in the same way.
The evacuation of such gases, which are so very troublesome after diseases, is quite a special effect of our half-bath.
III. Sitting-baths.
The sitting-baths are taken both cold and warm.
1. The cold sitting-bath
is taken as follows. The vessel made expressly for these baths (fig. 2) or in default of it, the wide, but not deep vessel of wood, tin or zinc (fig. 3) is filled to the fourth or fifth part with cold water. The patient sits down undressed in this bath as on a chair; the lower part of the body up to the kidneys, and the upper part of the legs being in the water (fig. 4).
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
It is not necessary to undress entirely. This bath is to be taken for half a minute to three minutes.
These