Cold Extremities.

Related entries: Cold Feet - Cold Extremities

Editor Ellingwood's Therapeutist:

In the June number of your valuable journal, Dr. H. R. Powell states the fact that no patient ever does well so long as the feet are cold. In acute cases I find moist heat the best remedy to overcome this condition. A hot water bottle or a bottle holding about a quart of water is filled with hot water.

This is wrapped in a towel wrung out of hot water and the whole wrapped with a piece of flannel and then applied to the feet. This feels very gratifying to the patient; dry heat (hot irons etc.) causes a peculiar sensation of heaviness in the lower extremities and the effects on the circulation in the feet are far from satisfactory.

In the treatment of chronic cold feet I prescribe the alternating hot and cold foot bath. One vessel is filled with hot water, the other with cold water. The patient first takes the hot foot bath for two minutes and immediately follows with the cold for half of a minute. This he repeats four times, each time adding hot water to the first vessel. The patient generally takes three of these alternating foot baths a day for two or three days, then two, and after a few days one a day. Gradually he takes them every other day and so on until he finds his feet comfortably warm without the baths.

GEO. F. SAUTER, M. D.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.