A treatise on Asiatic cholera / edited and prepared by Edmund Charles Wendt, in association with Drs. John C. Peters, Ely McClellan, John B. Hamilton, and Geo. M. Sternberg.

Edmund Charles Wendt

Date:: 1885

Credit: A treatise on Asiatic cholera / edited and prepared by Edmund Charles Wendt, in association with Drs. John C. Peters, Ely McClellan, John B. Hamilton, and Geo. M. Sternberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

396/440 page 370

$To this sliort list a few other views, more recently propounded, may bo added in further illustration of the subject. Thus Dr. Grotius, a former naval surgeon, who was decorated for his services duriiig the epi- demic of 1865-G6, and who a^jpears to have an irrepressibly facetious vein, thinks that cholera is a disease characterized by a little colic and diarrhoea, and a vast amount of fear.' Hence this learned gentleman, in all seriousness, advises patients in the algid stage of cholera simply to react from their fear and colic and thus to turn the crocodile tears of the expectant heirs into genuine grief. For he IS convinced that, as a rule, cholera is a bad joke invented for the terror- ization of mankind. It seems incredible that such extravagant nonsense sliould be published by physicians who have enjoyed the privileges of a liberal education. Yet examples of this kind might be multiplied almost ad libitum. Take the following statements, made by an Italian, who proves, to his own satisfaction at least, that cholera is nothing move than a conseqvience of the displacement of tlie worms of which we are made vip. A sudden fear, an indigestion, or any other disorder which shakes but does not Ivili the delicate mass of worms, will arouse them, and they, leaving their normal place, will assail and suffocate tlie patient, as frequently' happens in nursing children. The rice pap discharges are nothing else but a mass of smaller \vornis with their excreta, triturated by the current of the larger worms which assail the belly, stomach and throat. The greater or less intensity' of the assault is proportionate to the greater or less intensity of the disease, and hence the cholerine, the cholera, and the cliolerone.'^ In accordance with this brilliant etiological conception of the disease, the inventor thereof proposes the use of remedies to pacify and replace the Avornis, and to kill those which are enraged when they threaten our lives with deadly assaults, viz.: For cholera and cholerine, strong coffee, olive oil, rum, bitter decoctions, etc. For the cliolerone the same . . . according to the strength of the patient. A recent French writer, M. Alliot,^ defines cholera as an obliteration or chemical modification of the metachemical essence (nervous or electric fluid) which constitutes the vital principle of man. Such being the case the proper remedy is pilocarpine. This may not appear to Ije cpiite logical, but it is certainly very amusing. From this digression we turn now to the serious consideration of the best means at our command for a rational treatment of patients attacked vvith the disease. And here, at the very outset, we would ask the reader to remember that the power of drugs to influence an aggravated attack of Asiatic cholera is often nil, and at best exceedingly limited. But is not the same thing observed in other truly malignant diseases, as well as in accidents that have disabled some vital organ? AVe must not ascribe, as has been done, the occasional marvelous recovery from cholera to any cura- tive effects of the particular medicinal agents employed in such exceptional cases. Enlightened physicians, all the world over, freely admit that certain grave types of fever, some attacks of malignant scarlatina or diphtheria, may so quickly and completely overwhelm the system, as with a deadly venom, that the ageiicy of drugs, even when combined with the most judicious gen- ■ La Verite sur li; Cholera. Precautions a pi-endre pour eviter surement le fleau, et moj-ens radicaux ])Our le guerir. Brussels, 18!~i4. -' Quoted from an Italian letter published in the Chicago Medical Joiii'nal and Examiner, January, IHSo. 2 Traitement du Cholera par la Pilocarpine. Paris, 1884.$