No. 6.
List of Queries addressed to Drs. Lewins and Latta, by the Central Board of Health, London, relative to the preceding cases, &c.
QUERIES BY THE CENTRAL BOARD.
1. Were any of your patients bled previously to, or after the saline injections into their veins?
2. Were the evacuations by purging, vomiting, or perspiration, increased by the injections?
3. Did any of the patients submitted to the saline injection plan die; and if examined after death, what were the appearances?
4. Had the pulse at the wrist absolutely ceased, and for how long; or had blueness of the surface taken place, and to what extent, in any of your patients before the injection of the saline fluids; and how many of such patients recovered under that treatment?
5. Had suppression of urine been perfectly established, and for how long, in any of your cases previously to the saline injection, and what effect did that practice appear to produce on the urinary secretions?
6. What effect did the injections appear to have on the temperature of the patient?
7. Were the blood and evacuations analysed before and after the injections?
8. Did consecutive fever occur in any, and if so, in how many of your cases, whether successful or otherwise?
9. Was the quantity of the evacuations noted before and after the injections in any of your cases?
10. Please to give the details of two or three cases treated by saline injections, with age, condition of life, temperament, habits, &c., and particulars of such other treatment as may have been adopted in addition to the saline injections.
ANSWERS BY DR. LEWINS.
1. None before. One to the amount of twelve ounces immediately after the first injection.
2. The evacuations by purging and vomiting, in most of the cases continued. In some of them the purging, the discharge from the bowels at least, was increased. Perspiration was increased in all.
3. Yes; no less than ten of the fifteen that have been injected up to the present day; but under such circumstances as do not detract from the general merits of the practice: this will be made evident by the history of the cases that will be sent by to-morrow’s post.
4. Yes; even at the axilla in some of the cases, blueness of the surface had taken place to a considerable extent. Five of these patients recovered.
5. Complete suppression, I think, in all except two, and for hours. In all the successful, and in some of the unsuccessful cases, the effects of the injection in restoring the secretion of urine were most evident.
6. The injections raised the temperature of the body; but in all the successful cases, where the veins were injected, the patients complained of cold soon after the injection.
7. Neither the blood nor the evacuations were analysed, but I sent some of the blood of a patient that had been injected by the veins, to Dr. Reed for analysis to-day.
8. The consecutive fever in all the patients who were injected, has been slight.
9. No; but they were excessive in most of the cases.
10. Question ten shall be fully answered by to-morrow’s post.
ROBERT LEWINS, M. D.
6 Quality Street, May 26th, 2 o’clock, A. M.