THE TREATMENT OF ENTERIC FEVER BY COLD BATHS.Read in the Section of Practice of Medicine, at the Forty-fourth Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association.

Abstract

The treatment of enteric fever by cold baths according to the Brand system,<i>i. e.</i>, by sudden immersion in cold water accompanied by vigorous rubbing, has been slowly but steadily gaining adherents in this country. My own experience with it includes ninety-five cases treated during the past three years at the New York Hospital, where Dr. Peabody first employed the system, and at the Presbyterian Hospital, where I introduced it last year. While the number of cases thus far treated at these two institutions is not yet large enough to furnish absolutely convincing statistics, the figures already obtained are certainly significant. Thus 340 cases treated by other methods at the Presbyterian Hospital, New York, from 1892 to 1892 gave a mortality of 17.8 per cent., and 501 cases treated by other methods at the New York Hospital from 1877 to 1889 gave a mortality of 19.4 per cent. Ten years