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.

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$of morphine or laudanum or paregoric, and a graduated measure should be kejit in every house, place of business, factory, or wherever, in fact, there are a number of people gathered together. Persons traveling should always have it with them, easy of access. During the prevalence of an epidemic, one intelligent person in each factory, etc., should take charge of the health of the inmates, acting in the quasi capacity of house- physician, and urging all under his or her care to at once attend to the slightest relaxation of the bowels. He should warn them that absence of pain docs not signify absence of danger. G. Should the slightest diarrh(ea occur, the individual so attacked should receive at once the appropriate quantity marked on the bottle as corresponding to his age. The person attacked should be at once con- sidered a patient, aiid convej^ed home, placed in bed, and kept warm. If chilled, warm water bottles should be put to the feet. If the first dose of the cholera mixture has not checked the looseness, the patient should take a second after an interval of from one-half to one hour, A flannel cloth dipped in turpentine or essence of peppermint may also be placed all over the stomach and bowels for from forty minutes to an hour; or a large, soft, warm poultice of linseed meal and mustard for one or two hours. Medical assistance should be summoned if the diarrhoea has not promptly yielded. In the meantime a third and last dose of the medicine mav be taken, one or two hours after th' second one, 7. It is well for the patient to remani very quiet, preferably in bed for two or three days after the diarrhrea is checked. This is to be strongly urged, for the patient often feels so well that he objects to remain in bed, 8. To relieve thirst, a piece of ice may be given, or a mouthful of iced water, or plain soda water. In some cases, even more fluid can be taken at a time; but it should then be directed by the physician. All food should be abstained from for from fifteen to eighteen hours after the medicine has been- taken. Afterward the diet should for two or three days consist of such food as rice, sago, arrowroot, Indian corn flour, tea and toast, and similar bland substances. About the third day broths, chicken soup, or beef tea may be taken. Condiments, such as pepper, salt, cinnamon, etc., are useful. Green tea is more astringent than black. 9. Tliese rules are for the first stage, and for it o'hly, namehj, the cliar- rhma. If a person has neglected the first warning, and is in the second stage, having cramps, vomiting, and stools like rice-water, without smell, the patient should, until medical assistance arrives, be placed in bed between blankets and surrounded Avith bottles of hot water, lie may receive a little ice or an occasional mouthful of cold water. The limbs may be rubbed, but not too violently, with some liniment, quickly pro- curable, ' Xo medicine is to be given until the arrival of the doctor. If the invasion of cholera is not preceded by the mild manifestations of simple diarrhoea, but begins at once with watery pui'ging, the above plan may require certain modifications and additions that must necessarily again vary with the abruptness and severity of the onset. In order to insure quiet, overcome pain, and perhaps quickly influence the bowels, it is best to administer hypodermically from six to fifteen minims of ]\ragendie's solution of morphine. If it be found desirable to maintain the action of the drug, laudanum in spice water, or paregoric, may then be ' If there is time, an opium liniment may be made with one or two ounces of laudanum, one ounce ot soaj^ lininicul, und an ounce or two of cologne water. It is very elHcacious and ayreeable.$