ins in constant use, especially if they are used to hold
disinfectant, need to be well scoured with sapolio from time to time.
Nothing is more shiftless looking than a dark rim of dirt or stain
around a basin.

Hot water bags should be emptied when not in use and hung upside down.
The stoppers should be kept fastened to them.

Ice caps should be dried inside and out and stuffed with cotton or
tissue paper to keep the sides from sticking together.

Hot and Cold Applications

Hot applications are used to relieve pain, to supply heat, and to bring
down temperature. Both moist and dry heat are used. Hot water bags,
metal heaters, electric pads, hot flannels are the commonest forms of
dry heat. Fomentations, poultices, and baths are the simplest forms of
moist heat.

In applying heat, one should be ever on the watch to avoid burning a
patient. The skin of babies, children, old people, and of those who have
been ill a long time, is very easily burned. Again, the same heat that
is easily tolerated by one person, may burn another.

_Hot water bags_ or their substitute, electric pads or metal heaters
should always be wrapped in towels or have their own coverings. Never
fill a hot water bag more than two-thirds full. The water should not be
hot enough to scald a patient if the bag should spring a leak. Before
putting in the cork, expel the air by twisting the upper part between
the neck and the level of the water before putting in the cork. Be sure
to cork tightly. If the bag is to be where the patient will bear the
weight, put in a very little water and renew from time to time. Where
there is no hot water bag, stone bottles may be used, or bags of salt or
sand may be heated in the oven. The practice of using ordinary glass
bottles is an unsafe one, as the corks are not always to be depended on
to stay tight and the glass breaks easily. When bags of salt or sand are
used the coverings should be thick enough to prevent the particles from
sifting through. Pieces of flannel the right size may in some cases
supply all the heat that is necessary. They should be covered with
another flannel to keep in the warmth.

_To make a mustard plaster._ Have ready a piece of old muslin (a piece
of an old nightgown will do) two inches wide and two inches longer than
twice the length of the poultice required. On one end of it, with a
margin of an inch on three sides, place a piece of oiled paper or shelf
paper or a piece of clean paper ba