Treatment

However distressing the present symptoms, the patient may be confidently assured of speedy relief. This may be most promptly brought about by adopting the following somewhat vigorous treatment: Put the patient into a warm bath and let him soak for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then let him be rubbed thoroughly all over with soft soap, assisted with a flesh-brush. Every part of the body from the neck down should receive a thorough application of the soft soap and water and brush, in order to break over the burrows of the insects. The soap is then washed off and the surface rubbed dry. Then rub the entire surface with alkaline sulphur ointment to each ounce of which a drachm of iodide of potassium has been added. After a thorough inunction the patient should go to bed and stay there until the following morning. When morning comes a warm bath should be given to remove the ointment, and the patient should put on new under-clothes. The under-clothes and bedding that have been in use should be thoroughly disinfected by boiling or baking, in order to destroy any wandering acari. This treatment is effective but harsh, and for a day or two the patient's skin will be far from comfortable, and the eczematous and other secondary lesions will be greatly aggravated. Emollient treatment, therefore, will in almost every instance be needed for a few days longer, and the use of the oxide of zinc ointment is as good as any.