One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed, C. A. Bogardus [reader novel txt] 📗

placed on the table, except the face, and all the rubbing carried on under the sheet or blanket. When they can be obtained, a number of tiles or bricks should be made tolerably hot in the fire, laid in a row on the table, covered with a blanket, and the body placed in such a manner on them that their heat may enter the spine. When the patient revives, apply smelling-salts to the nose, give warm wine or brandy and water. Cautions.—1. Never rub the body with salt or spirits. 2. Never roll the body on casks. 3. Continue the remedies for twelve hours without ceasing.

HANGING.—Loosen the cord, or whatever it may be by which the person has been suspended. Open the temporal artery or jugular vein, or bleed from the arm; employ electricity, if at hand, and proceed as for drowning, taking the additional precaution to apply eight or ten leeches to the temples.

APPARENT DEATH FROM DRUNKENNESS—Raise the head, loosen the clothes, maintain warmth of surface, and give a mustard emetic as soon as the person can swallow.

APOPLEXY AND FITS GENERALLY.—Raise the head; loosen all tight clothes, strings, etc.; apply cold lotions to the head, which should be shaved; apply leeches to the temples, bleed, and send for a surgeon.

SUFFOCATION FROM NOXIOUS GASES, ETC.—Remove to the fresh air; dash cold vinegar and water in the face, neck, and breast; keep up the warmth of the body; if necessary, apply mustard poultices to the soles of the feet and to the spine, and try artificial respirations as in drowning, with electricity.

LIGHTNING AND SUNSTROKE.—Treat the same as apoplexy.

 

MIND CURE.

THE MIND CURE, otherwise known in its various subdivisions as metaphysics, Christian science, mental science, etc., is a species of delusion quite popular at the present time. Every era of the world has cherished similar delusions, for the mass of the human race, even in what are considered the educated classes, are so unfamiliar with the processes of exact reasoning that they fall a ready prey to quacks of all kinds. The fundamental idea of the mind cure system is that there is no such thing as sickness. Disease, says one of their apostles, is an error of the mind, the result of fear. Fear is only faith inverted and perverted. God, who is all good Himself, and who made everything good, cannot have been the author of any disease. As disease, therefore, is not a creation, it has no existence, and when the healer has succeeded in impressing this fact upon the mind of the patient, the cure is effected. It is curious to note into what utter absurdities the need for consistency carries these apostles. Poisons, they say, would be quite harmless if the fear of them was removed, but we have yet to find the "mental science" teacher who will undertake to prove this by herself taking liberal doses of aconite and strychnine. The illnesses of children are explained by the hypothesis of hereditary fear. The majority of the teachers of this new faith are women, many of whom, no doubt, are sincere in their belief; but it may be safely stated that the men engaged as the so-called physicians of the new practice are, with few exceptions, unprincipled quacks, who have gone into the business for the money they can make by duping the ignorant. As far as there is any truth underlying the vagaries of mind cures, and their boasts of remarkable cases of healing, it may be admitted that the mind has much influence over the body. This fact has been recognized by intelligent physicians for centuries. And that the peculiar modern type of nervous diseases, which are so largely caused by excessive stimulus of the nerves and the imagination, should be amendable to cure through the imagination, is not strange. It will be noted that this mental cure has effected its miracles mainly among women, where it has the emotional temperament to work on, and almost wholly in the ranks of the wealthy and well-to-do, where there is little or no impoverishment of the system by insufficient food and excessive toil to hinder its effects. We have not heard, nor are we likely to hear, of an epidemic disease checked by the mind cure, or of the healing of acute affections or organic troubles through its agency. Nor do we hear of its seeking to carry its message of healing into the houses of the suffering poor in large cities, where hunger, exposure and foul airs open wide the door to fevers and all deadly diseases, nor yet into the hospitals for contagious or incurable affections. In the presence of such realities it would prove, as its votaries probably understand, a too-painful mockery. Intelligently analyzed, therefore, this new revelation amounts to nothing more than a quite striking proof of the remarkable influence of the mind over the nervous system. Beyond this, the craze, in attempting to disprove the existence of disease, and to show that poisons do not kill, is simply running against the plain and inevitable facts of life, and can safely be left to perish through its own rashness.

While it must be admitted that many upright and worthy people are followers of this faith, it can be asserted that to say "disease is only a mental derangement" is carrying the idea of the power of mind over matter entirely too far.

 

POISONS AND THEIR ANTIDOTES.

Always send immediately for a medical man. Save all fluids vomited, and articles of food, cups, glasses, etc., used by the patient before taken ill, and lock them up.

As a rule give emetics after poisons that cause sleepiness and raving; chalk, milk, eggs, butter and warm water, or oil, after poisons that cause vomiting and pain in the stomach and bowels, with purging; and when there is no inflammation about the throat, tickle it with a feather to excite vomiting.

Vomiting may be caused by giving warm water, with a teaspoonful of mustard to the tumblerful, well stirred up. Sulphate of zinc (white vitriol) may be used in place of the mustard, or powdered alum. Powder of ipecacuanha, a teaspoonful rubbed up with molasses, may be employed for children. Tartar emetic should never be given, as it is excessively depressing, and uncontrolable in its effects. The stomach pump can only be used by skillful hands, and even then with caution.

Opium and Other Narcotics.—After vomiting has occurred, cold water should be dashed over the face and head. The patient must be kept awake, walked about between two strong persons, made to grasp the handles of a galvanic battery, dosed with strong coffee, and vigorously slapped. Belladonna is an antidote for opium and for morphia, etc., its active principles; and, on the other hand, the latter counteract the effects of belladonna. But a knowledge of medicine is necessary for dealing with these articles.

Strychnia.—After emetics have been freely and successfully given, the patient should be allowed to breathe the vapor of sulphuric ether, poured on a handkerchief and held to the face, in such quantities as to keep down the tendency to convulsions. Bromide of potassium, twenty grains at a dose, dissolved in syrup, may be given every hour.

Alcoholic Poisoning should be combated by emetics, of which the sulphate of zinc given as above directed, is the best. After that, strong coffee internally, and stimulation by heat externally, should be used.

Acids are sometimes swallowed by mistake. Alkalies, lime water, magnesia, or common chalk mixed with water, may be freely given, and afterward mucilaginous drinks, such as thick gum water or flaxseed tea.

Alkalies are less frequently taken in injurious strength or quantity, but sometimes children swallow lye by mistake. Common vinegar may be given freely, and then castor or sweet oil in full doses—a tablespoonful at a time, repeated every half hour or two.

Nitrate of Silver when swallowed is neutralized by common table salt freely given in solution in water.

The salts of mercury or arsenic (often kept as bedbug poison), which are powerful irritants, are apt to be very quickly fatal. Milk or the whites of eggs may be freely given, and afterward a very thin paste of flour is neutralized.

Phosphorus paste, kept for roach poison or in parlor matches, is sometimes eaten by children, and has been wilfully taken for the purpose of suicide. It is a powerful irritant. The first thing to be done is to give freely of magnesia and water; then to give mucilaginous drinks, as flaxseed tea, gum water or sassafras pith and water; and lastly to administer finely-powdered bone-charcoal, either in pill or in mixture with water.

In no case of poisoning should there be any avoidable delay in obtaining the advice of a physician, and, meanwhile, the friends or by-standers should endeavor to find out exactly what has been taken, so that the treatment adopted may be as prompt and effective as possible.

 

CHAPTER III.

INK DEPARTMENT.

RED INK.—Two ounces Cochineal, bruised; pour over it one quart Boiling Water, let it stand eight hours. Boil two ounces Brazil Wood in one pint of Water, let it stand eight hours and then add the two together. Dissolve one-half ounce Gum Arabic in one-half pint Hot Water; add all together and let stand four days. Strain and bottle for use.

BLUE INK.—Six parts Persian Blue, one quart Oxalic Acid; triturate with little Water to smoothe paste, add Gum Arabic and the necessary quantity of Water.

INDELIBLE INK TO MARK LINEN.—One and a half ounces Nitrate of Silver dissolved in six ounces Liquor Ammonia Fortis, one ounce Archill, for coloring; one-half ounce Gum Arabic. Mix.

FOR YELLOW.—Write with Muriate of Antimony; when dry wash with Tincture of Galls.

BLACK.—Write with a Solution of Green Vitriol and wash with Tincture of Galls.

BLUE.—Nitrate of Cobate, wash with Oxalic Acid.

YELLOW.—Subacetate of Lead, wash with Hydrochloric Acid.

GREEN.—Arsenate of Potash, wash with Nitrate of Copper.

PURPLE.—Solution of Gold and Muriate of Tin.

BLACK.—Perchloride of Mercury, the wash is Hydrochloric of Tin.

BLACK INK.—Extract of Logwood one ounce, Bicromate of Potash one-quarter ounce. Pulverize and mix in a quart of soft hot water. This makes a beautiful jet black ink, which will not spoil by freezing.

COPYING INK.—One-half gallon of soft water, one ounce Gum Arabic, one ounce Brown Sugar, one ounce clean Copperas, three ounces powdered Nut Gall. Mix and shake occasionally from 7 to 10 days and strain. The best copying ink made.

BLACK INK.—Shellac four ounces, Borax two ounces, Water one quart; boil till dissolved and add two ounces Gum Arabic, dissolved in a little hot water; boil and add enough of a well triturated mixture of equal parts of Indigo and Lampblack to produce a copper color. After standing several hours draw off and bottle.

GREEN INK.—Dissolve 180 grains Bichromate of Potash in one fluid ounce of Water; add while warm one-half ounce Spirits of Wine, then decompose the mixture with concentrated sulphuric acid until it assumes a brown color; evaporate this liquid until its quantity is reduced one-half, dilute it with two ounces distilled water, filter it, add one-half ounce Alcohol, followed by a few drops of strong sulphuric acid; it is now allowed to rest, and after a time it assumes a beautiful green color. Add a small quantity Gum Arabic and it is ready for use.

BEAUTIFUL BLUE WRITING FLUID.—Dissolve Basic or Soluble Prussian Blue in pure water. This is the most permanent and beautiful blue ink known.

VIOLET COPYING INK.—For blue violet dissolve in 300 parts of boiling water, Methyl Violet, 5 B, Hofman's Violet, 3 B, or Gentiana Violet, B. For reddish violet dissolve in a similar quantity of water Methyl Violet BR. A small quantity of sugar added to these inks improves their copying qualities. If the writing when dry retains a bronzy appearance, more water must be added.

NEW INVISIBLE INK.—C. Wideman communicates a new method of making an invisible ink to Die Natur. To make the writing or drawing appear which has been made upon paper it is sufficient to dip it in water. On drying the traces disappear again, and reappear again at each succeeding