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.
| July | 27th | the Board of Health reported | 2 | cases of malignant cholera. |
| 28th | 6 | |||
| 29th | 6 | |||
| 30th | 15 | |||
| 31st | 19 |
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:—