482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The flat-boat men who often contract the ague during a week's delay- 

 in a Southern inland port, need no quinine by the time they reach 

 New Orleans, a week or two of chill night-camps on the open river 

 having cured them as effectually as the first November frosts cure the 

 chlorotic city-dweller. 



For direct refrigeration a sjionge-bath is more effective as well as 

 less disagreeable than a wet-pack ; though an air-bath, before an open 

 window (under cover of night) is preferable to both, if the strength of 

 the patient is reduced by a protracted ague or injudicious medication. 

 In obstinately sultry weather an ice-pack will afford almost immediate 

 relief a pailful of crushed ice, stuffed into linen bags and wrapped 

 for a few minutes around the neck and arms, or around the wrists of 

 a bedridden patient. 



" Stuff a cold and starve a fever " was, in regard to fevers, at least, 

 not a bad plan, when " stuffing " implied a monster dose of beef and 

 beer. But the want of appetite which characterizes all febrile affec- 

 tions is properly defined as only an abhorrence of calorific food flesh, 

 hot soups, and greasy made-dishes. The mere sight of such comesti- 

 bles is enough to aggravate the sick-headache that precedes yellow 

 fever and follows an ague-fit, and, when the idea of food has become 

 closely associated with visions of smoking grease, the voice of instinct 

 is apt to be in favor of total abstinence. But that protest is always 

 accompanied by a passionate craving for cooling drinks, which easily 

 connives at an admixture of solid nourishment, after a refrigerating 

 diet has once been tasted in the form of cooling fruits. Cold sweet 

 milk, whipped eggs with a drop of lemon-flavor, a sherbet of ice- water, 

 sugar, and orange-juice, offered to the rebellious stomach of a fever- 

 patient, are not only tolerated, but absorbed with an almost conscious 

 satisfaction. Fruits, however, rank first among the dietetic febrifuges 

 of Nature, especially tropical fruits. "Under the exhaustion of a 

 blazing sun," says Sir Emerson Tennent,* " no more exquisite physical 

 enjoyment can be imagined than the chill and fragrant flesh of the 

 pineapple, or the abundant juice of the mango, which, when freshly 

 pulled, feels almost as cool as ice-water. ... It would almost seem 

 as if plants possessed a power of producing cold, analogous to that 

 exhibited by animals in producing heat. Dr. Hooker, when in the 

 valley of the Ganges, found the fresh, milky juice of the miidar (calo- 

 tropis) to be but 72, while the damp sand in the bed of the river 

 where it grew was from 90 to 104." 



With a biscuit or two, a sliced pineapple, two or three bananas or 

 a couple of oranges, will make a sufficient meal ; and in very warm 

 weather bananas alone would do for a couple of days, for the nutritive 

 value of saccharine fruit is generally underestimated ; our next rela- 

 tives, whose digestive organs are a close copy of our own, are exclu- 

 sively frugivorous, and withal the most active and indefatigable crea- 



*" Ceylon," p. 121. 



