Government regulations for the prevention of cholera : also instructions prepared by the Edinburgh Board of Health and approved of by the Royal College of Physicians.
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Government regulations for the prevention of cholera : also instructions prepared by the Edinburgh Board of Health and approved of by the Royal College of Physicians. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![Dispensaries for bowel complaints should be established at convenient stations, at which the neighbouring inhabi- tants may apply for the proper remedies and advice the moment they are attacked by the premonitory symptom. Experience having shown that the establishment of cholera hospitals was not successful, the best provision practicable must be made for aifording assistance to the individuals who may need it at their own houses ; and one of the best modes of effecting this object will probably be the selection of proper persons who may be instructed as nurses, in the special services required on this occasion, and paid for devoting their whole time to attendance on the sick at their own habitations, under the direction of the medical officers. It will also be necessary to engage a sufficient number of medical officers, at suitable remuneration, some to devote their whole time, by day and night, to the service of the dispensaries, and others to attend the sick at their own dwellings. v As, however, cases may occur of extreme destitution in neighbourhoods and houses wholly unfit for the curative treatment of the sick, provision should be made for the reception of such cases, either in the common hospitals, in the union-houses, or in separate apartments specially pre- pared for the purpose, and properly warmed and venti- lated. Medical authorities are agreed that the remedies pro- per for the premonitory symptom are the same as those found efficacious in common diarrhoea; that the most simple remedies will suffice, if given on the first manifes- tation of this symptom ; and that the following, wliich are within the reach and management of every one, may be regarded as among the most useful, namely, twenty grains of opiate confection,* mixed with two table spoonsful of peppermint water, or with a little weak brandy and water, and repeated every three or four hours, or oftener, if the attack is severe, until the looseness of the bowels is stopped ; or an ounce of the compound chalk mixture, with ten or fifteen grains of the aromatic confection,t and from five to ten drops of laudanum, repeated in the same manner. From half a drachm to a draclim of tincture of catechu may be added to this last, if the attack is severe. [* Scottish Fornnilaj—Electuary of Oi)ium, 20 grs.] [t Scottish Forraulaj—Aromatic Towder, 10 or 15 grs.J](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21450730_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
