g, the size you wish the poultice to
be. Mix one tablespoonful of mustard with 8 tablespoonfuls of flour,
before wetting. Have water about as hot as the hand can stand. Do not
use boiling water. Stir the water into the mustard and flour gradually
so that it will not lump. Make the paste stiff enough to spread thinly
on the paper, about a quarter of an inch thick. Turn the margins of the
cloth over the paste. Fold the long end over so that all the paste is
covered and tuck the end under the turned-in edges of the sides. Fold it
and take it to the patient in a hot towel or between hot plates. The
skin where it is to be placed should be oiled. Test the heat by holding
it against the back of your own hand. Put on slowly and leave for two
minutes. Watch and remove sooner if the skin becomes reddened or if it
is uncomfortable. After removing wipe away the moisture from the skin
and cover with a soft piece of muslin, and place a piece of flannel over
that. A blister after a mustard paste shows very careless nursing. Never
let a patient go to sleep with a mustard plaster on.

[Illustration: ADMINISTERING AN INHALATION]

_Fomentations or stupes_ are pieces of flannel wrung out of very hot
water and placed on the skin. They should be two or three times as large
as the part to be treated, and should be applied as hot as the patient
can bear them, without burning the skin. Have two sets, so that one set
will be ready to put on when the other is taken off. The stupes should
be wrung as dry as possible and as they must be very hot to do any good,
a fomentation wringer is a great protection for the hands. One may be
made by putting halves of a broom handle through the ends of a short
roller towel in the middle of which the fomentation has been placed. By
twisting the sticks in the opposite direction the fomentation can be
wrung very dry. Take it to the bed in the wringer and do not open until
ready to place on the skin, as it will lose its heat very quickly. Put a
little oil or vaseline on the skin and apply the fomentation gradually.
Cover with a dry flannel and put wadding over that. A piece of oiled
skin or oiled paper between the wadding and the dry flannel helps to
keep in the heat and moisture. Hold in place with a towel or binder
pinned tightly.

_Cold_ is applied by means of ice bags and by cold compresses. In
filling an ice bag the ice should be in small pieces, and the bag not
too full. Expel the air as from a hot water ba