CHOLERA.
THE Cholera works abroad, and if we may believe the reports of those who
" Bode ruin
From what they fear, yet know not what they fear,"
it works at home also. Abroad it has extended to St. Petersburg; where, however, its symptoms are said to be milder than at Riga. It has visited the Grand Duke CONSTANTINE at Witepsk, but in no mild mood : the legitimate heir of all the Russias sleeps with his fathers. Some of our politicians will have it that " Mordechi" or " Dogs-bane," as the Hindoos denominate the disease, is in CONSTANTINE'S case but a courtly term for a disease to which, in the course of Russian history, not a few of its Princes have fallen victims.
At home, the alarm has been undoubted, but the evidence, as in the case of the Archduke, is somewhat open to dispute. " A great sensation" was created in Bury St. Edmunds, last week, by a death which was supposed to be the result of Cholera; but which the Jury have declared to proceed from " natural causes." On Tues- day morning, the terrible disease was said to have lighted down in the New Road. The spot, according to a correspondent of the Globe, who went for the express purpose of being infected, in order that he might speak experimentally on the subject, was " Grove Place, near the Macclesfield Arms." The Globe's cor- respondent found Grove Place guarded by a rsliceman, who had orders to permit neither ingress nor egress ; so he was not infected after all his trouble. If the Cholera be able to master the Police, it is not improperly represented as a formidable personage. The next alarm came from a different quarter—a decided case of Cholera, we were told, had been observed at Mevagissey. A full, true, and particular account of this case has been drawn up and transmitted—not to the Lord Chancellor, but—to the Sheriff of the county. The last report that has reached the metropolis is from Glasgow, where a sailor, escaped from a vessel stranded at Storm away (we believe they call it), was caught walking quite coolly among the cannie citizens, with all his sins physical and moral on his back—and all his fortune also, we dare say. He has been seized, and we hope will get enough to teach him, the next time he is shipwrecked, to allow himself to be drowned, as a choleric Christian ought to do. The Glasgow Chronicle says he seems to be in good health. Seems!—truly, if the Cholera once plant itself down in the Gallowgate, or the Salt-market, or the Candleriggs, as it.has done at Grove Place near the Macclesfield Arms, and at Mevagissey, it will seam and run and cross-stitch the "ca' the shuttle bodies" after a fashion that they little anticipate.
While these reports are flying thick around our heads and sides, per casait et 'circa saliunt haus"—
the Memoir of M. KERAUDREN* comes in excellent time to give something like a genuine picture of a dwmon, bad enough in all
conscience, but, like, other daemons, not quite so bad as it is called. M. KERAUDREN has never seen Cholera,—and in this respect he is in no better plight than ourselves ; but he is a clear-headed, expe-
rienced physician ;. and he is not only capable of weighing cor- rectly the facts which he has collected, but of drawing conclu- sions, both medically and logically sound, from the consideration of them. M. KERAUDREN gives seven cases, three of females and four of males ; in six of which the result was favourable, and in one unfavourable. The treatment does not seem to have much differed. A mixture of laudanum and ether was administered in doses of a spoonful, at intervals of a quarter of an hour, till the more urgent symptoms gave way ; sago or arrow-root, flavoured with canella, was afterwards given with bitters .s as a tonic. The recovery seems to be for the greater part as rapid as the disease.. The patient is seized with shivering ; vomiting and purging ensue, with severe cramps of the legs, excessive pain in the stomach and abdomen, total prostration of strength, that expression of deadly anxiety which medical writers denominate the fades hippocratica, feeble and intermittent pulse, general coldness of the skin and extremities—death. This course, if not interrupted, the disease generally runs in twelve hours—sometimes in ten—in eight, six, four, two—it has been known to kill in twenty minutes ! When medicine is promptly applied, the vomiting gradually abates, the rigors of the limbs cease, the natural heat returns, the pulse rises, the patient begins to perspire, drops asleep—and, in about the same space of time that he would otherwise have been the inhabitant of another world, awakes in health to sojourn a little longer in this.
The disease gives no warning, unless we call the headache and pain of the stomach, which indicate the disease as already formed, a warning. It attacks at all hours—by day, by night ;—the patient not unfrequently awakes from a dream of disease to find himself grasped by the deadly reality. In addition to opium and ether, which, when promptly exhibited, seem to be the most effectual re- medies, the warm saline bath, where it can be readily procured, bathing the feet in hot water and mustard, the actual cautery ap- plied to the soles of the feet, have all been found extremely bene- ficial. Bleeding, at least in the first stage of the disease, is of less than doubtful value ; Cholera seems to he nervous rather than inflammatory. In India, the natives have always suffered most, which is attributed to their poor diet and scanty clothing ; the less careful livers among the Europeans are the next greatest sufferers; persons of moderate habits, who use a mixed vegetable and animal diet, almost to a man, escape.
The question of the contagiousness of Cholera Dr. KERAUDREN does not decide. That under certain circumstances it may become contagious is extremely probable ; but there is nothing to prove that where cleanliness and ventilation are strictly attended to it is more contagious than other nervous disorders. Indeed, at Dant- zic, we find the opinion universally entertained that Cholera is not contagious. But this needs not preclude sanatory regulations. Where these have been resorted to, the disease has-been without difficulty localized. They have, in fact, either produced cleanliness and ventilation, or they have confined within narrow limits the evils consequent on neglecting them. There is no proof, no alle- gation even, that Cholera ever was propagated by any means but human beings. The stoppage of goods has not a shadow of reason or evidence on which to rest; it is as unnecessary as it is un- profitable. Cholera Morbus, we may in conclusion remark, is no new dis- ease. It has raged with great virulence in various parts of India since 1817 ; but there is no reason for supposing that its first ap- pearance was in that year, or that it had not been known there for ages. The natives call it Mordechi, and the French Europeans Mal de Chien. It may be recollected, that when it first appeared at Moscow, immense numbers of small green flies accompanied its arrival. A Dr. HAHNEMAN, the Augsburg Gazette tells us, has improved on this fact. He imagines that Cholera itself is na- thing but an attack of small insects, which fasten themselves to the hair, the clothes, and the skin, and thus destroy the unsuspect- ing patient. These insects, it seems, have a great aversion to camphor, and hence the doctor recommends camphorated' gar- Ments as a preventive. It is curious that camphor-bags have been frequently used in this country as safeguards against infection. As one of the worst symptoms of the disease is the coldness of the skin, camphorated liniments will probably not be without their use in case of an attack ; but, as a preventive, a flannel shirt is worth a hundredweight of campOor or any other medicine.
• Memoir on the Cholera Morlms of India, by P. F. KERAUDREN, Inspector-Ge- neral of the department of Health of the French Marine. 1- The translation calls it "bitter wine;;" we suppose the vinous-extract of gentian, &c. is meant.
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