It is, however, not only of importance that an attack of cholera should be properly treated before medical assistance is procured, but also that the diarrhœa which may be present for days before the serious symptoms present themselves, should be checked at once. This may generally be effectually accomplished by causing persons so affected, and who are usually very thirsty, to drink freely of cold water to which elixir of vitriol has been added in the proportion of half a teaspoonful of elixir to the tumbler of water. Should the diarrhœa, in spite of the above treatment, continue for, say, two hours, a lead and opium pill should be given, and the dose should be repeated every time after the patient has been affected by the diarrhœa. If the patient, from weakness, be unable to follow his usual employment, he should be put to bed—care being taken that the limbs are kept warm, and that the bed is kept dry by means of a sheet of oilcloth, gutta-percha, or mackintosh between the sheet and the mattress. Should the discharge present the appearance of rice-water, and should there be urgent vomiting, cramps of the limbs, together with general sinking or collapse, the case should be regarded as most serious; and in the absence of a medical man, mustard poultices should be applied to the stomach and chest for half an hour at a time, and should be followed either by fomentations with warm water, or by bran or porridge poultices on the same parts of the body. These mustard and soft poultices should be alternated from time to time. Meanwhile the limbs should be well rubbed with warm cloths, and the lead and opium pills regularly administered, as directed above.
This treatment may be advantageously employed for all persons above fifteen years of age. From ten to fifteen years, the only change recommended in the treatment is that half a lead and opium pill, instead of an entire pill, should be given as a dose. Below ten years of age, the aromatic powder of chalk and opium should be substituted for the pill, and may be administered in doses of one grain for each year of life. Thus, an infant of one year should have one grain for a dose; and under one year, half a grain; while a child of six years should have six grains. The treatment otherwise is the same—care, however, being taken in the case of children not to allow the mustard to remain beyond ten minutes in contact with the skin.
Should there be no hospital at the disposal of the local authority, and should the house of the patient consist of one or two apartments, the other members of the household should be at once removed. The room in which the sick person is lying should as far as possible be cleared of furniture; and the other apartment, if any, should be devoted to the preparation of articles of food and to the residence of the attendants, limited in number to a day and a night nurse.
Granton Marine Station.—We have to acknowledge receipt of the following sum in behalf of the Granton Marine Station:
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Aug. 4. A Friend, | 1 | 0 | 0 |
EN PASSANT.
A sidelong glance like April sunlight shining
Through drifting clouds, a moment rent apart—
A glance which reads with swift, occult divining
Fond thoughts deep hidden in the inmost heart.