Essay on the nature and treatment of cholera and fever : with medical remarks on the treatment of cattle plague : also an appendix on public health / by James Tucker.

  • Tucker, James.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay on the nature and treatment of cholera and fever : with medical remarks on the treatment of cattle plague : also an appendix on public health / by James Tucker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    with warm towels or flannels. A pure air to breathe was a matter of great importance to the person whose blood was contaminated with poisoned air. ^ Drs. Russell and Barry, in their instructions published by the London Board of Health, recommended “ opiates and astringents to check diarrhea; leeching if the patient be plethoric ; cordials and quinine if there be cold sweats ; confine the patient to bed; keep up heat by diet—by emetics.” “ If there be no medical man at hand put the patient into warm blankets, and give immediately, and at once if he be an adult, two tablespoonfuls of common salt in six ounces of warm water.” These learned lights imagined that there was softening of the spinal cord; they accordingly recommended that the actual cautery be freely applied on one, two, or more places on each side of the spine. During the six weeks visitation of cholera in Sligo, 1849, I had recourse to the saline treatment in about 100 cases. The result was successful in evei'y case where I had commenced the treatment before the stage of collapse set in; whilst many who seemed beyond all hope recovered under the use of the electric salts, blisters, sprinkled with turpentine applied over the heart, and sinapisms to other parts. I was first induced to try bleeding in a young man aged twenty- three years, who had been for some hours under saline treatment in a close, ill-ventilated, crowded cabin, where the poisoned air probably interfered with the effects of the remedies, and prevented reaction. I could only get an ounce of black gore. I despaired of recovery, from the bad quality of the blood, and the languid pulse, scarcely perceptible. I applied the turpentine blister over the heart, sinapisms to other parts, gave beef-tea seasoned with salt, and steadily continued the electric non-purgative salts of Dr. Stevens. In two hours I visited him, found that reaction had taken place, the vein bled freely, blood of a brighter hue, and the patient much improved. This recovery without opium, alcoholic, or other stimulants, induced me to pursue the saline practice in other severe cases, and with equal success. I had nothing like consecutive fever to contend with. In no instance did I attempt to check the vomiting