Hydrotherapy Benefits For Common Cold, Flu, Pneumonia, Coughs

Below are natural remedies for the treatment of common colds, flu, coughs and pneumonia from Dr Agatha Thrash.

A. Common cold, flu, pneumonia:

Hot foot bath with cold water pour. Used in the earliest stage of the infectious process, this may be sufficient alone. Legs should not touch tub rim. Keep feet in hottest tub tolerated for twenty minutes. Finish off by pouring ice water over feet and frictioning dry with a towel. Follow by thirty minutes bed rest. See "Cautions in the use of heat" under the section “Mechanism of Hydrotherapy.”

Revulsive to chest, abdomen, or both for three to five minutes hot and twenty to thirty seconds cold. May use with hot foot bath, hot pack to back, or cold mitten friction at end.

Hot sweat bath. Sit in hot tub ten to twenty minutes until sweating is profuse. Dry quickly. Put to bed with hot water bottles and blankets and give hot drink of weak lemonade (no sugar). After one hour of sweating, give quick alcohol sponge or cold mitten friction (CMF). Change clothes and bed. Remain in bed another hour if possible.

Hot saline nasal bath. Pour one tablespoon of hot saline into palm, snuff into one nostril, catch it in the nasopharynx and expectorate. Make saline with one pint hot water and one teaspoon salt.

Heat lamp to face. Lie in bed with a 100-watt bulb held four to six inches from nose for twenty minutes. Finish with dash of cold water or alcohol sponge to face.

Keep bowels constantly cleansed with enemas.

B. Cough:

Quick set of three revulsives to chest (two minutes hot, twenty seconds cold), hot foot bath, CMF at end.

Heating compresses to chest overnight. Place a thin washcloth squeezed from ice water on the chest. Cover entirely with one inch to spare on all sides with one of the following: a thick piece of wool or synthetic pinned in place, or plastic piece cut from a bread bag. Dress warmly in a sweater. When removing, sponge chest with cold water or alcohol.

Cough syrup: Mix two tablespoons honey, two tablespoons water, and a drop of eucalyptus—as much as will stay on a toothpick.

C. Sinusitis:

Revulsive to face.

Bowl bath to face: Fill a ten-inch bowl with hot saline and immerse face in it, keeping lower jaw outside of bowl to provide for breathing. Continue for twenty minutes, and finish with a cold water splash.

D. Sore throat:

Hot water gargle and mouth wash. Gargle for ten minutes.

Hot foot bath.

Heating compresses to neck. Squeeze thin cotton cloth from cold water, place on neck and cover well with strip of dry wool, or plastic piece cut from bread bag. Leave on until dry or overnight. Finish off with cold water or alcohol rub.

It may be necessary in severe cases to give simultaneously all of the following: a heating compress to the neck, a revulsive to the chest, and a hot foot bath, followed by a Cold Mitten Friction.

For more detailed and scientifically analysed explanations and equipment and instructions on hydrotherapy, I would urge you to buy Dr Agatha Thrash's book Home Remedies.