Volume 1

A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds.

Date:
1866-1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    concerned ; the deaths to cases have not diminished. Without doubt there are certain risks to be encountered in moving out, hut they are smaller than the dangers left behind. The risks will vary with the weather and the seasons; but these moves have sometimes been made even in hot weather and rains, without increase of other sickness. These are the cases in which the discomforts and risks of tents must be accepted as preferable to remaining in the midst of the poison. It would be better to have lived under a tree or an umbrella than in some of the hospitals during the late epidemic at Meean Meer. It is not necessary to move far; a few miles are sufficient, and the march should be at right angles to the wind. Of course, in removal into camp, there should be realized absence of fatigue, good food, pure water, and thorough camp conservancy, or else there is no reason why troops should not suffer just as much from the disease as the Madras regi- ments seem to do, and as the regiments marching down from the lulls to the siege of Delhi did in 1857. Good food and pure water should be especially attended to in Cholera epidemics. Even without these being more than predisposing causes, there is sufficient necessity for attending to them. All indi- gestible food and all tainted articles should be specially avoided. It is well to bear in mind the teachings of Dr. Snow and Dr. W. Budd; and whether we believe that the exciting cause can be conveyed into the system by drinking water, or not, take care that all water con- sumed be entirely free from any ffecal pollution. On the same grounds that all food or water likely to produce irritation of the in- testines, and thus determine choleraic action, are to be avoided, we should be extremely cautious about the administration of purgative medicines in the times of Cholera epidemics. Of course, occasionally they will be required, but they should not be given without decided necessity, and then never of the saline or hydragogue character, and never at bedtime. It has not been intended to give in this paper a full account of the hygienic measures required in the Cholera epidemics, and for lessening their severity. Fortunately these are fully treated of in Dr. Parkes’s recent work on Practical Hygiene, Dr. 1ST. Chevers’s Review of the Means of Preserving the Health of European Troops in India, and the Report of the Commission appointed to Inquire into the Cholera Epidemic of 1861 in Northern India, which last may, I believe, be obtained in India. These from their nature are mostly applicable to troops, but their teaching may be made equally useful for all classes and for all communities.