Cholera gleanings, a family hand book, enabling readers of all classes to judge for themselves of the great error into which governments were unfortunately led by men looked upon as infallible guides, who very strenuously maintained the cholera to be a disease during which "The living shall fly from the sick they should cherish." / By J. Gillkrest.

Gillkrest, J. (James), -1853

Date:: 1848

Credit: Cholera gleanings, a family hand book, enabling readers of all classes to judge for themselves of the great error into which governments were unfortunately led by men looked upon as infallible guides, who very strenuously maintained the cholera to be a disease during which "The living shall fly from the sick they should cherish." / By J. Gillkrest. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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Surgeon, Mr. Marsilrn, enabled nic to be a frequent visitor to liis wards ; and it was fliere 1 had the first and most extensive opportunity of observing the benefits arising from his allow- ing his patients to take large draughts of the coldest water that could be procured, for the purpose of assuaging the insupportable thirst so remarkable in this disease, at periods when all else ivould seem to demand the unremitting ex- hibition of stimulants in every form. In one of the wards of Mr. Marsden, an Order to the servants had been posted up, directing them to mark the number of pints of water taken by each patient daily while labouring under a state of collapse ; and, were it not that I have before lue a slip from the Times of the 1st September, 1832, containing a letter of mine to the Editor, in which I called the attention of the profession to the facts just mentioned, I could hardly take upon myself to give, at such a distant period of time, the number of pints marked, in some cases, as having amounted to 20, 30, or even more, in the course of 24 hours. ]n the words used in that letter, I beg to say, that I feel strongly impelled by a sense of duty towards the public to state that, under the above treatment, I have been most agreeably surprised by the recovery of patients whose state gave but little hope of a favourable issue, under the employ- ment of any other remedies. In the letter above mentioned, I also referred to Dr. Pin- kard, the active and zealous Gentleman in charge of the St. Giles's Cholera Hospital, as having, if I mistake not, adopted the use of cold water in the treatment of the dise^ase. About the same time, a letter in the Lancet of 1st :Sept^ ember, 1832 (the very day on which my letter on the subject appeared in the Times), announced that Dr. Hard- wick Shute, of Gloucester, had, for some weeks before, em- ployed the same method. He stated, that he had gone so far as to have given some gallons of water in a few hours with success; that he excluded from his treatment stimulant emetics and stimulants of all kinds, internal and

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