Did the General Board of Health make any scientific researches at the bedside to ascertain the connection which exists between epidemic diarrhoea & epidemic cholera : and were they the first to point out that cholera is invariably preceded by a diarrhoea for a few hours, or a few days, or for a few weeks, and that it is, consequently, in the power of human foresight to ward off an attack of cholera? : a letter addressed to John Simon, esq., F.R.S., Medical Officer to the General Board of Health / by David Macloughlin.

  • Macloughlin, David, 1786-1870.
Date:
[1856]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Did the General Board of Health make any scientific researches at the bedside to ascertain the connection which exists between epidemic diarrhoea & epidemic cholera : and were they the first to point out that cholera is invariably preceded by a diarrhoea for a few hours, or a few days, or for a few weeks, and that it is, consequently, in the power of human foresight to ward off an attack of cholera? : a letter addressed to John Simon, esq., F.R.S., Medical Officer to the General Board of Health / by David Macloughlin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/16 (page 9)
    Second P.S. Since the foregoing- has been in print, the Registrar General's Weekly Return, elated 8th March, 1856, has appeared, and in that Return it is stated, that at No. 11, Half Moon Street, Bishopsgate, on the 7th March, a journeyman black- smith, aged 48, died of cholera; ten hours illness. The house, adds the Registrar, is drained and ven- tilated, and there is no circumstance to account for the disease. I have been to the above house; I have seen the landlady, her husband, the medical gentleman who attended this man in his last moments, and the Apothecary of the Free Hospital, Devonshire Square, from where this man got advice and medicines for about three weeks before his death. From the landlady and her husband, I learnt that this man complained about three weeks before his death, of giddiness, and of a derangement of his stomach and bowels ; that he obtained advice and a bottle of medicine from the Free Hospital, Devonshire Square, of which medicine he took two table-spoonfuls three times a day ; that he was much purged for these three weeks that he took the medicine, and felt weak in consequence; that, however, he went to bed on the evening of the 6th instant not worse than usual; that at about one o'clock a.m., he was seized with vomiting and purging; that the landlady was called to him only at six o'clock in the morning, when she found him vomiting and purging severely, and in great pain in his limbs, and that she immediately sent for medical aid. From the medical gentleman who was called in, I learnt that he saw this man at about eight in the morning ; that he immediately recognised the disease B