Infantile Paralysis and Fomentations

The life saving results of hydrotherapy treatments and other simple methods.

By G. K. ABBOTT, M. D., Medical Director, St. Helena Sanitarium, California

Those who were trained and able to give hydrotherapy treatments during the great pandemic of influenza of 1918 and 1919, saw many lifesaving results from these simple methods. In 1941 hydrotherapy was again to astonish this country by saving the life of a few patients taken suddenly with infantile paralysis in its worst form, the type which attacks the nerve cells of the respiratory centers in the spinal cord.

Four persons sent into a large hospital in Minneapolis to be put into the "iron lung" (the Drinker respirator) were treated instead with "hot foments" by Sister Kenny, and all survived. Four others, put into this apparatus, died. Some in whom the disease attacked the nerve centers of other muscles recovered en­tirely under hydrotherapy treatment, with no permanent paralyses. Here is an outstanding accomplishment, for this disease has failed to yield to the united research of hundreds of men of science who have sought and are seeking a knowledge of the disease and the virus that causes it.

In 1924 I saw a little child who had been attacked by this disease, which affected the heart and respiratory centers. The doctor was first called at midnight, and by two o'clock the following day the child was dead. Thousands of crippled adults and children the world over attest to the terrible ravages of this great plague. Yet in equally severe cases the sim­plest kind of fomentations seem to have pre­vented such dire results. What does moist heat do to accomplish such astonishing results?

Arthur Locke discovered by experimentation that animals with a vigorous heat mechanism, so that they could recover from severe chilling in twenty minutes, could destroy in thirty to sixty minutes highly virulent pneumococci injected directly into the blood stream, and 92 per cent of such animals revealed no symptoms whatever of fever or infection. Here again is something far more efficient in lifesaving re­sults than all the sulfonamide drugs that have been produced in the last five years. What is it? How does it work ? How can such internal body forces be utilized? How did the hot foot baths, fomentations, and cold-mitten fric­tions save the lives of those attacked by influ­enza in such a severe form? How do "hot foments" save the victims of this mysterious disease, infantile paralysis, from permanent crippling ? These are questions we would like to have answered, if anyone knows how such simple treatment can so efficiently save life.

The basis of a vigorous physiological heat mechanism is of course oxidation. Just how it acts in destroying bacteria is a matter for in­vestigation.

A search of experimental work reveals some interesting clues to the answers to these ques­tions. Claus Jungeblut mixed small amounts of vitamin C with death-dealing doses of the poliomyelitis virus, and injected them into the brains of monkeys. The monkeys lived, while others, injected with the same lethal doses of the poliovirus which were not mixed with vitamin C, all died. In endeavoring to deter-, mine the mechanism by which this vitamin destroys the virus, Jungeblut found evidence that oxidation might be the secret of its action. This conclusion seems to accord with the prin­ciples of the lifesaving effects of a vigorous body heat mechanism, discovered by Arthur Locke. There are many other bacterial toxins and viruses which are inactivated or destroyed by vitamin C. Among these are vaccinia virus, herpes virus, rabies virus, tobacco mosaic virus, and even bacteriophage, also the toxins of diphtheria, tetanus, dysentery, staphylococcus, and the anaerobic toxins. Jungeblut's conclu­sions from a large amount of experimental work are:

"There are reasons to believe that the inactivation occurring in virus-vitamin C systems is brought about by oxidation through some peroxide. This assumption finds support in our observations that poliomyelitis virus, like tobacco mosaic virus, diph­theria toxin, and tetanus toxin, is highly vulnerable to the action of hydrogen peroxide. This exquisite susceptibility to oxidizing agents stands in marked contrast to the remarkable resistance of the same viruses and toxins to protoplasmic poisons, such as phenol (carbolic acid), for instance."

Physicians and nurses trained in hydrotherapy will at once remember that applications of either heat or cold increase the body proc­esses of oxidation by stimulation. They are also familiar with the reduction of internal congestions and edema by derivative heat, whether this be in the lungs or the spinal cord. Edema of the soft spinal-cord tissue inside the resistant, nonexpansile dura mater is one of the most notable conditions in acute poliomyelitis. Boyd's work on pathology states: "When the meninges [covering of the spinal cord] are opened, the cord bulges out. It is firmer than normal. When cut across, this bulging is very noticeable. It is due to marked edema."

By the derivative heat of fomentations, this edema is lessened, and the relief of pressure allows a freer circulation of blood and lymph, carrying oxygen to the nerve cells, while the stimulation of the heat increases oxidative processes. This bringing of oxygen to the motor nerve cells of the spinal cord, saving them from asphyxiation, is important, for only ten to fifteen minutes of total deprivation pro­duces nerve-cell death. But even more im­portant is the destruction of the virus caused by the oxygen which reaches its lodging place about and within these same nerve cells; and the stimulated oxidation kills the virus, as does vitamin C, by the same oxidation mechanism.

Effective Results of Fomentations

This research work regarding the heat mechanism of the body, the effects of heat on oxidation, relief of congestion, edema, and the oxidation effects of vitamin C, give a fuller explanation of the means by which the Kenny "foments" produce such remarkable results. This treatment, including the nonuse of splints, and its program of rehabilitation, has now received the endorsement of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. An edi­torial in the Journal of the American Medical Association for December 6, 1941, also en­dorses the Kenny methods of re-education and the nonuse of splinting. Sanitarium-trained nurses who have read of the Kenny technique will recognize that the larger, thicker wrapped fomentations they have been taught to use re­tain heat much longer than the smaller, un­wrapped "foments," and produce more surface derivation.

Like many such hydrotherapy methods, the technique is not difficult to learn. I personally trained and used scores of mothers, daugh­ters, and even a few fathers, to give similar treatments during the pandemic of influenza in 1918-19. Here again is another tribute to the science of hydrotherapy and its vastly superior results over many another agency which has been used to treat diseases of an infectious nature. Dr. W. 5. Mayo years ago said: "When the relationship of bacteria to infectious disease was first brought to the attention of the scientific world, for a long time the specific germ was the chief object of study. Experience soon taught us, however, that in combating infectious disease, it is even more important that we familiarize ourselves with those conditions of the body by which nature combats disease."—Collected Papers of the Mayo Clinic, 1910, p. 118. And another who has given us greatly enlightened counsel states further: "Fever cases have been lost, when, had physicians . . . put their wits to work, and wisely and persistently used the Lord's own remedies, plenty of air and water, the patients would have recovered."—"Medical Ministry," p. 228. (See also p. 229.)

In the early days of the Seventh-day Ad­ventist denomination, hydrotherapy and diet were considered almost an essential part of their religion and faith. Here is a mysterious disease in which both of these are basic fac­tors in treatment and prevention. Man's failure through the years to stay the ravages of this disease have served to make more prominent and decisive the success of very simple means—fomentations, fruit, and vege­tables. Yet back of it all is a physical and chemical basis which reveals a little of the depth of God's own means of protection and treatment, which is far superior to any that man has or can devise.

The scientific basis of both hydrotherapy and diet is fundamental, co-ordinated, and far reaching. They protect against many differ­ent infections, viruses, and toxins and give methods of treatment of wide application. Even more notable is their superiority to man-made germicidal chemical poisons, such as the sulfonamide drugs, in that they do not damage the delicate mechanisms of human physiology. The red cells and hemoglobin are not deranged in function, nor destroyed, as they may be and often are, by the coal-tar and sulfa drugs. The multiple protective mecha­nisms of the white blood cells and other body cells are not damaged by fomentations and vitamin C, as they may be by such drugs. Rather, they serve to supply the body cells with the much-needed element, life-giving oxygen.

In this feature lies a marvelous co-ordina­tion of the Creator's handiwork. Men's re­searches have indeed discovered some very wonderful things, and the scientists are de­serving of much honor. But it is God alone who devised these mechanisms, and then re­vealed to man in these last days just where he might by searching find something of the greatest stores of wisdom and knowledge. Might we not, by heeding the God-given in­struction given to us and studying nature's mechanism of protection, discover many more wonderful means such as was almost by chance discovered by Sister Kenny with her "hot foments"?


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By G. K. ABBOTT, M. D., Medical Director, St. Helena Sanitarium, California

April 1942

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