The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1866-06-26
PREF 'are for Hot Weather.

Every revoiV ing season has its need OF time
| ly preparation. On the approach of winter,
we prepare for cold weather, stopping the crew.
ices of our buildings, banking up the cellars,
putting the stoves in order, covering tender
vines and plants, procuring heavy garments
&c. No less care is necessary on the approach
OF the sultry heats of July and August
These heats facilitate the decomposition of de-
cayed vegetable and animal substances, by
which means the air becomes charged with
malignant particles that generate disease and
infiict death upon the human system What
are the preventivesa They are Obvious
Clean out your cellars of evrything, even of
rotten wood-that can pollute the atmosphere;
for the bad air of an uncleansed cellar is sure
70 rise and difuse itself thorugh every room
and closet of the house. Examine sink
drains, hog-yards, privies, stables, heneries,
&C., and have all offensive matter removed
and generous quaint ties of chloride of lime or
other disinfecting agents, thrown in. Let, too,
the walls of outbuildings be whitewashed.-
From daylight to sunrise when the weather
will permit, let the windows and doors of the
dwelling-house, especially ofthe chambers and
sleeping rooms, be opened, so as to ventilate
every part with pure, fresh air. If you are in
the habit oil sleeping on feather beds, just put
them aside till cold weather approaches, and
meanwhile sleep on mattresses, or on husk or
straw under beds. By such timely attentions,
you may keep things pure and sweet, and in a
great measure prevent the diseases of the sea-
son. These are. mostly, bowel complaints, in
the form of diarrhoea and dysentery. For
these diseases oftenss fatal, we do not think
active medicines are necessary, or so useful as
milder ones. A single dose of castor oil, TAX
en- in order to remove offending matter in the
stomach and bowels, is enough of physic in
the first place, and this should be followed by
cold Cruel of raw wheaton flour and water,
which at once nourishes the system and cools
the :rritated and infamed stomach. When
diarrhoea has SO long worn upon the surface of
the intestines as to render them raw and
bleeding, it has then become dysentery, very
formidable disease, and reason would say that
no such stuff as brandy, calomel, or other ac-
tive and drastic application should be suffered
to come in contact with the raw and inflamed
intestines. Suppose your hand or arm was so
grazed from any cause as to ooze blood from
every pore; would you battle it in brandy or
give it a plaster of capslcum-cayenne pepper?
No-no-you would beware of such powerful
irritants; rather you would apply cold water,
or some mucilaginous dressing So with the
bedding surface of the stomach and bowels
which is dysentery, or bloody fux. Let no
violent applications be made there, but take
arrow-root, slippery elm bark, mallows. or
other cooling and sheathing mucilage to COW
er and quiet the parts, which soon otherwise
must become mortified, and then death en-
sues.
In state of health more matter passes from
the body through the external pores, than by
all the other excavations. In dysentery these
pores are closed and all the discharges of the
system are turned from outward to inward,
and so iniame the bowels and pass out by the
rectum. What, then, should be the first care?
Manifestly it should be, to restore the deter
limitations outacard again, through the skin;
and this is to be done only by sweating. Let
the patient first take dose of castor oil,
which passes, not as cathartic but by its
own weight through the bowels, to remove
whatever offending matter is already in the
same, and give him or her a hearty sweat, by
any of the convenient means, external or in
ternal, at hand. The bleeding will stop and
the dysentery cease when the action is then
restored from inward to external pores of the
skin. Believe us, reader, we are right in
this; try it, if you or any of your family are af-
flicted the coming season with that fearful
malady, the bloody dysentery. TRAxI.