CnoLEna.—The number of cholera cases reported during the week is
6,032 ; of deaths, 1,979; being an increase of 1,234 cases, and of 333 deaths. The number of cases now remaining amounts to.2,736. The entire cases since the commencement of the disease are 38,103; the entire deaths, 13,982. The towns in England where cholera chiefly rages are—Bilston, where there are at present 363 cases ; Bristol, where there are 210; Exeter, 203; Liverpool, 272; Ply- mouth, 164; Sheffield, 265; Glasgow, 174. In all these towns, with the exception of the first and last, the ratio of deaths to cases is about 1 to 3. In Bilston, the fatality has not much exceeded 1 in 6, and in Glasgow it has been 1 in 2. In Ireland, cholera seems to be abating : the only places in which it can at present be said to prevail are Dublin, Sligo, and Belfast. Among the more remarkable deaths reported during the week, are those of Dr. Keane, son of Mr. Keane of Beech Park, Clare ; and Lieutenant-Colonel Wetherington, brother-in-law of Wolfe Tone, at Dublin. The disease has again broken out at Newcastle, and has cut off several persons of a higher rank there than it had attacked on its previous visit. In Scotland, it has spread at length to the shores of Fife, which up to within a very short time had happily been free from.any attack. There was a serious riot at the village of Pathhead last week, in consequence of an attempt to enforce the orders of the Cholera Board for the interment of -a medical gentleman who had Mien a victim. Three or thur persons have since died there ; but we do not perceive that any reports have yet been made of the cases.
Dr. Tegart, a gentleman high on the Medical Staff of the Army, has published two cases, one his own, in which croton oil has been used successfully to prevent cholera. The oil in question has been long known and used in India, but it has only been recently admitted into the London Pharmacopmia. It is procured by expression from the ripe seeds of the Croton Tiglium, a tree found in the Eastern Archipelago. It operates with great violence as a purgative and emetic. From one to three drops are a dose. It has been more extensively employed in the rapid and dangerous fevers of the tropics than in the disorders of our latitudes. Some such powerful medicine seems well calculated to meet a disease which bears all the marks of -a tropical origin ; but it can hardly ever be safely applied unless by a medical practitioner.
There have been two convictions during the week, under the Cholera Act—one of a surgeon for not reporting a cholera case, and another of a surgeon for reporting a case as cholera which he had not visited. The
penalty was in the one case, and 20s. in the other.
Previous page
