On the curative effect of carbonic acid gas or other forms of carbon in cholera, for different forms of fever, and other diseases / by C.J. Lewis.

  • Lewis, C. J. (Charles James), 1875-1937.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the curative effect of carbonic acid gas or other forms of carbon in cholera, for different forms of fever, and other diseases / by C.J. Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    prepared by himself, showing that of 358 cases tliere submitted to other modes of treatment 48 per cent, died, and of 120 cases in which he con- sidered ciirhonic acid gas to luxve heen employed only 22 per cent. died. The hospital authorities do not appear to liave issued any classification of cases or methods of treatment, and cannot be taken as responsible for these fioures. At King’s College Hospital, on the other hand, a table was issued showing the mortality under diflerent methods of treatment, and including all the thirty eases admitted. Ammonia, wine, and ice, in addition to a com- bination of vegetable astringents with efferveseing saline mixture, formed the method of treatment adopted in most of tlie cases, and with most suecess. Even by this method the mortality reached something like 50 per cent., and other methods were wholly unsuccessful. Among individual practitioners who tried the remedy, Lewis mentions, in the Lancet, that he preseribed an efferveseing mixture after each motion and to relieve vomiting. The mixture contained bicarbonate of soda, prepared chalk, carljonate of ammonia, and opium, and was combined with small doses of tartaric acid. Lewis does ]iot attrihxite so much good to the effervescence as to the excess of alkali; he is particular, however, to order it effervescing, and testifies that it is the only safe and certain method of arresting cholera as met with in England. Rarkin looks upon the good effects of such a mixture as entirely due to the carbonic acid gas derivable from the alkaline carbonates. Niddrie testifies that he was “ fully convinced of the great value of calomel and carbonic acid gas constantly and perseveringly administered at short intervals,” and adds that, although useful, they are “ as powerless as other means unless thrown constantly into the stomach.” In 1850 cholera commenced in Jamaica, and Parkin was enabled to study the disease in its tropical form, and to investigate there the effects of carbonic acid gas. The prevalent type of disease was extremely severe—so much so, that in several villages practically all the cases were fatal. Nevertheless, in tliose cases submitted to treatment with carbonic acid gas the case mortality only reached 11 per cent. Dr Parkin’s experience included several hundreds of cases, so that here one cannot allege tliat tlie figures were calculated on a small number of cases, nor that a few isolated recoveries sufficed to show a large percentage of good results. The death-rate from cholera in the wliole of Jamaica at this time reached tlie higli point of 10 per 1000 living, and in individual districts as many as one-third of the whole population succumlied. Moreover, the duration of the attack in fatal cases was extremely short, never exceeding twenty-four hours if the ea.se were untreated. Indeed, even in tliose cases that in spite of treatment died, the duration only exceeded twenty-four hours in 35 per cent. Of 740 cases treated with carbonic acid gas, 84 were fatal, thus showing a ca.se mortality of 11-20 per cent., as compared with a fatality of /O to 80 per cent, amongst cases in which this remedy was not used. Dr Parkin embodied his views with regard to the virtues of carbon and rous writings, of which the most important was tlio title of The Antidotal Treatment of the editions (the last of carbonic acid gas in nunier his book issued under the Epidemic Cholera. Tliis book passed through four wliich wa.s issued less than twenty years ago), and was translated into more than one Continental language. A ])amphlet i)ubli.shcd in 18.‘;6, On the efficacy of Carhomc Acid Gas %n the Diseases of Tropical Climates, with Jhrechom for the Ireatmeni oj the Acute and Chronic Stcu/es of Dysentery shows that the author advocated the use of this remedial agent, not only m cholera but in a large number of other diseases. Among.st these may he mentioned ague, dysentery, continued feyer and malarial affections