Cold compress

“Warming and cooling foods. Yakuzen sorts foods by five natures. Ginger, garlic, negi and root vegetables count as warming, cucumber, watermelon and tomato as cooling. Sources disagree on some (daikon, tofu). It is the kitchen side of the same way of seeing: ginger and negi in winter, cucumber in summer.”

“Warming and cooling foods. Yakuzen (medicinal cooking) sorts foods by five natures (cold, cool, neutral, warm, hot), from Chinese medicine via Kampo. Warming: garlic, ginger, negi, lamb, spices. Cooling: watermelon, cucumber, tomato, tofu. Winter and root foods tend warm, summer foods cool. Sources disagree on some (daikon, tofu). In the kitchen: ginger and negi in winter, cucumber and goya in summer.”

“Koelen. Ice pack in a cloth, no rubbing or scratching. An antihistamine cream or tablet for the itch, ask the pharmacist.”

“Aloë vera. After the cooling, on a small superficial burn or sunburn. Never instead of cooling, never on blisters.”

“After cooling, a small surface burn: marigold, the way Baba did, or honey. The kitchen jar is not sterile, medical-grade honey is the one made for wounds.”

“Children, what helps instead: extra drinks (water, an ice lolly), rest (bed not required, outside is fine), light loose clothes, a grown-up who checks regularly. Fever often passes within a week, and the number of days says little about how sick the child is.”

“Summer: the season of heat and of cooling food. Mung bean soup, watermelon, cucumber, green vegetables, chrysanthemum tea. Cantonese summer soups "clear heat", the most common soup function of all. Heating foods (fried food, alcohol, red meat and innards) are kept back.”

“Cool and cold: green vegetables. Pear (sweet), cooling and moistening, for autumn and a dry cough. Watermelon and cucumber, for summer. Mung bean, eaten in China for more than 2,000 years "for detoxification and to cool the body in summer". Chrysanthemum flowers, the gentle summer tea.”

“Ghormeh sabzi. Cooling beef balanced with warming kidney beans, onions and dried limes, and a great deal of cooked herbs.”

“What the household keeps back. Ice, iced drinks and a pile of cold foods at once. If something sard is on the table, it gets its warm partner.”

“A digestion lesson without a single dose. Heavy and rich first, sweet in the middle, then sour, light and cooling, buttermilk and ginger at the end. No one has written that this follows Charaka, but it sits beautifully beside his rules: warm, a little ghee, the right amount, all six tastes on one leaf. "Charaka's table of tastes, served on a banana leaf."”

“Her habit. A glass of warm water on waking. Warm or room-temperature water through the day rather than iced drinks. A little water with meals, Charaka's third of the stomach for liquid, not a litre at once. "Ice water on a fire. You know what happens."”

“The ice hole by the shore. In winter Nicolai and his neighbours cut a hole in the lake ice by the shore and go between the hot banya and the black water. They go in where they can stand, they never put their heads under, they come straight out, and someone always stands on the ice with a towel and a rope. By the end of a long evening new ice is forming on the hole.”

“Thin ice. If someone goes through the ice: call 112, do not go onto the ice yourself, reach with a pole, a rope or a branch from the bank.”

“Tamarind. Aradaib, the sour brown pulp, soaked and sweetened into a dark drink, cooling in the heat.”

“Hot bath/shower 1-2 hours before bed (paradoxical cooling - vasodilation dumps heat)”

“Cooling mattress pads (Eight Sleep, ChiliPad): effective but expensive”