Cholera morbus ... / Mr. Archer ... made the following report: the Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom has been referred a memorial of the Board of Health of the city of New York, on the subject of the disease known as Indian or Asiatic cholera.

  • United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Date:
[1832]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cholera morbus ... / Mr. Archer ... made the following report: the Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom has been referred a memorial of the Board of Health of the city of New York, on the subject of the disease known as Indian or Asiatic cholera. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    C 22d Congress, 1st Session. 3> CHOLERA MORBUS. [ To be annexed to the Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, No. 226.] at m Mr. Howard submitted the following document, which was read, and or¬ dered to be printed. The following document is the production of an J2gent sent to Russia by the French Government, to investigate the Cholera. Suggestions on the Indian or Asiatic Cholera. The object of the following observations, is to make known, in a popular manner, the symptoms of this dreadful scourge, and, as far as practicable, the means of preservation and treatment until medical aid can be procured. These observations were collected from the works published on this subject, and from experiments made at St. Petersburg last summer, upon more than two hundred and fifty patients, treated both at the hospital of which I have the care, and in my private practice. The first thing to be recommended, is a consultation with the doctor who is already acquainted with all the peculiarities of our temperament and con¬ stitution, in order to modify, according to our particular case, the general means of precaution and succor. If there be rules of a universal applica¬ tion, there are also some which vary with the different circumstances of constitution, temper, age, and sex. In diseases less rapid in their progress, the physician can, by a repeated and more minute examination, supply what may have escaped him; but in a disease which, in consequence of the ex¬ traordinary rapidity of its progress, requires a great promptitude in the examination, and the immediate recourse to most active treatment, it is an invaluable advantage to be in the hands of a physician so familiar with the physical and moral constitution of his patient, that he can, without loss of time, indicate the best remedies. We cannot warn to much those, who, in consequence of their want of confidence in medicine for this dreadful plague, lose often the precious mo¬ ments which may secure their safety. The great mortality which has reigned everywhere during the eourse of the cholera, and the great diversi¬ ty of remedies recommended, have given birth to those doubts; but, though it be certain that we are yet in want of a specific remedy, it is not less cer¬ tain that there have been, in all places, a great number of well authenti¬ cated cures. We have been so fortunate as to cure, not only the greater number of our patients attacked in the inferior degree, but we have even succeeded in many cases, in which the malady was in so advanced a stage that the patient appeared to be too far gone to recover. Besides, it is proved by experience, that the greatest mortality has taken place wherever no re-