CHOLERA REPORTS.

July3,Cases2Deaths2
4,10
5,74
6,122
7,103
8,113
9,185
10,227
11,289
12,103
13,287
14,276
15,176
16,297
17,238
Total,245Deaths,72

Board of Health, New York, July 20th, 1832.

To Walter Bowne, Esq. President, &c.

Sir—I have the honour to transmit to your Board of Health, an additional report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the history and origin of the disease at the Bellevue Alms-house, &c.

ALEX. H. STEVENS, M. D. President.

The committee consisting of Drs. Bailey, Macneven, and A. L. Anderson, to whom was referred the inquiry into the origin of the malignant cholera in the Alms-house and the different institutions connected with it, further report: the Penitentiary, situated about five hundred feet from the Alms-house, and containing three classes of criminals, have no communication with one another; but the Bridewell and Penitentiary prisoners have a common stairway to their apartments; and the yards of the Female State and Female Penitentiary prisoners are separated by a high open picket fence, near to which the Penitentiary prisoners pass to and from their work-house, and on the opposite side of the Female State prisoners yard, and at a little distance is situated the Cholera Hospital, first opened on the 5th or 6th of July. In this building were confined, on the 1st of July, fifty-four Female State, about one hundred and twenty Female Penitentiary, and about fifty Bridewell prisoners; and the first person who had malignant cholera in that prison was Ann Smith, taken up at the Five Points, and sent there July 2d—she sickened on the 5th, and died the next day, and on the 7th, four more Female Penitentiary prisoners had the disease. On the 8th of July, all the remaining prisoners of this class were sent to Blackwell’s Island, and put into a fresh white-washed building prepared for them. The removal of those persons to a healthy residence, and an unrestrained exercise in the open country air, appear to have checked the development of that disease among them, for not until the 10th did any of them sicken, when four of them were taken with that disease, and since then seven more. Dr. Spring, the physician stationed there, informed us that the disease had become milder since their removal to the Island, two only having died of thirteen patients, and the remaining eleven, visited by us, were doing well, except one.

The first State prisoner had that disease on the 9th of July, and eight more on the 12th and 13th, four each day; and since that time five more, the greater part of whom have died. They are all in one very large apartment, having three tier of windows on one side only, but the three stories are one open space from the top to the bottom of the building.

The first two cases occurred in the Bridewell class also on the 9th, the next on the 11th instant; since then, six more have had the disease.

When at Blackwell’s Island yesterday afternoon, pursuing our inquiries respecting the Female Penitentiary prisoners, sent there from Bellevue, we considered it appertaining to the duty assigned to us, to extend our inquiry to the occurrences relating to the same subject, which happened on that Island, the institution there being a part of the Bellevue establishment. We were informed by Dr. Spring, the physician stationed there, that the first case of malignant cholera which occurred on the Island, was an Alms-house pauper, who slept there, but worked on the Long Island farms; he was permitted to go as far as Brooklyn, July 1st, but he frolicked in the city all the next day, returned at night to Blackwell’s Island, and slept out of doors all night, and sickened and died July 3d—no other case took place there until the 11th, (three days after the Female Penitentiary prisoners were removed from Bellevue,) when three persons sickened and died the same day; one, a very feeble black man, aged sixty-five; another, a black lad, who had been much reduced by medical treatment for rheumatism—both patients in the hospital, and able to take exercise out of doors. Their building is about one hundred yards from that occupied by the Female Penitentiary prisoners. The third, a white pauper, aged sixty-five, who worked on the Long Island farms, but slept on Blackwell’s Island, formerly in the shanty now occupied by the sick blacks; but some days before he sickened, he slept in a small building at a considerable distance from his former lodging place; but he not being under confinement, would go to any part of the Island when unobserved, and without hindrance to the outside of the Black Hospital.—Since then, three blacks have had that disease.

We were also informed by Dr. Spring, that no case of malignant cholera had occurred among the two hundred and eight male Penitentiary prisoners—that a lad, aged sixteen, who frequently complained of being unwell, died on the 13th inst., after three or four hours sickness of common cholera. Those men are employed in the open air, and their prison is in the most perfect order; the air within was as free from any impure smell as the atmosphere without. We were informed by Col. Woodruff, the superintendent, that it was in contemplation to remove the Bridewell prisoners from Bellevue to this prison—and asked our opinion as to the propriety of the measure; we give it as our opinion, that as there was already a large number of men now confined there, and room only for about thirty more, that the crowding of the prison at this time, and especially from places where the malignant cholera existed, would be exposing the health of the prisoners to some hazard.

We were also informed by John Targee, Esq., one of the Commissioners of the Alms-house, that a boy, whose parents had both died in Laurens street with the malignant cholera, was sent from there in the beginning of July, to the house on Long Island Farms, where there are a large number of pauper boys; he sickened and died of that disease the day after, and no case of that disease has since occurred.

The foregoing being all the facts which have come to our knowledge after a strict examination, are respectfully submitted.

JOS. BAYLEY.

Magendie’s Treatment of Cholera.

M. Magendie’s success in the treatment of cholera has been vaunted in many of the journals, and we have been repeatedly applied to for information respecting the remedies prescribed by him. His treatment consisted in the administration during the cold stage of the following:—

1st. For common drink—℞. Infus. chamomil. ℔iv.; acet. ammon. ℥ij.; sacch. alb. ℔j M.

2d. Half a glass every hour of the following punch—℞. Infus. flor. Tiliæ Europeæ, ℔iv.; limon. iv.; alcohol, ℔j.; sacch. alb. ℔j. M.

3d. From time to time he gives half a glass of the following—℞. Vinum calefac. ℔ij.; tinct. cannel. ℥ij; sacch. alb. ℥ij. M.

By these stimulants, reaction was sometimes induced, and it was at once concluded that the patient was cured. But violent reaction is not less dangerous than collapse, and M. Magendie’s patients relieved from the latter condition by internal stimulants, soon exhibited evidences of congestion of the brain or digestive organs, which resisted, for the most part, general and local bleeding, cold to the head, and the most active revulsives to the feet. The patient became delirious, coma supervened, and death closed the scene.

It is shown by authentic documents in our possession, that the result of M. Magendie’s treatment was not less unfortunate than that of his colleagues; he lost more than one-half of his patients.

A careful examination of the results of the various modes of treatment adopted in India, Russia, Poland, Germany, Great Britain and France, has satisfied us that the internal administration of powerful stimulants in large doses, in the collapsed stage of cholera, has been eminently injurious, and such appears to have been ultimately the conviction of nearly all the practitioners who resorted to them. Panic struck, with the utter state of prostration of patients in the collapse of cholera, physicians appear every where to have at first been led to administer the most powerful stimulants in large and repeated doses, to rouse the action of the heart. Recovered from their first surprise, and admonished by their ill success, and by the violent and uncontrollable reaction sometimes induced, these remedies were subsequently abandoned, or only applied externally, and with incomparably better results.

Health of Philadelphia.

Bowel complaints continue to be the prevailing diseases, and within a few days several cases of cholera have assumed malignant characters.

July27ththe Board of Health reported2cases of malignant cholera.
28th6
29th6
30th15
31st19

The whole number of cases, as near as can be ascertained, is 52, of which, 30 have occurred in the districts, 6 in the Alms-house, 1 in the Arch street prison, and the remaining 15, in the outskirts and dirtiest parts of the city.

Report of the Board of Health for the twenty-four hours, ending August 1st, noon:—