THE CHOLERA.

113 ON THE USE OF EUPATORIUM VILLOSUM AND NERVOSUM IN THE TREATMENT OF CHOLERA. 1’o the .J!JcläOi’

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pool, and

THE 1.d..::BCET.

SiR,—A gentleman holding an official position in Jamaica, who is a frequent correspondent with the Royal Dublin Society, and a

liberal contributor to its museum of natural history and botanic garden, has, in his recent communications, called my attention to a remarkable and, I believe, novel addition to the remedies used in the treatment of cholera. I may premise that his statements are confirmed by a friend, also holding a high official station in the island. The following is quoted from his letter:"Ihave put up a box of the bitter bush, Eupatorium, for this packet; and, should an opportunity offer, I hope it will be tested, as I am satisfied it will be found a safe and sure in cholera. I have given it, with remarkable success, remedy in every stage of the disease, even after collapse, and have not heard of a single death when the remedy has been administered in time, and persevered in. It is used by making a strong decoction by boiling about two drachms in a pint of water, and giving a small teacupful, cold, every half-hour until the symptoms abate. In severe cases it is given alternately with the saline powders recommended by the Board of Health. In simple diarrhoea, one dose is generally found sufficient. The first dose often produces vomiting; in such cases repeat the dose immediately. It is certainly a wonderful remedy, and the effect of it sometimes appears to be magical. I have used two species of it, which appear to be Eupatori11?n Villosum and E. Nerv08um. That used in St. Ann’s is, I believe, the E. Rigiclum. We have several species here, all of which appear to possess the same active properties, but those I have named appear the best. The box I have sent contains the two species I have used; they are very similar, except that one (which I think the best, E. NelT081l?n,)is inodorous, and that the other possesses a strong fragrance, which we think to be E. Villoswn. The E. Otloratwn is also " common here. It is right to state that the writer of the foregoing is not in the medical profession; still his observations on this plant should not, on that account, be disregarded. We know that several of the Eupatoricl possess very active properties. Some are emetic and purgative, as our native E. C’aKM&MM?)’ while others are powerfully astringent, or even styptic, as the Matico E. Glutino8um. Probably, the E. Nervosw?l and E. Villosum, and others whose efficacy has thus been stated in cholera, are powerfully astringent, and on that account may have a decided effect in restraining the choleraic diarrhoea, and thus give time for using the other remedies for restoring the heat and vital powers, which, from the continued drain of the fluid part of the blood, would otherwise inevitably end ’

during the past fortnight. Its outbreak was very sudden, many of the cases are said to have occurred without any marked premonitory symptoms, and ended fatally very quickly. The principal portion of the village is situated on a hill, and is rather favourably placed for draining. The disease has been most fatal amongst the poorer and least prudent portion of the pitmen, though temperate, regular-living persons have fallen victims to it. On Sunday morning week, a Primitive Methodist local preacher conducted divine service in the chapel belonging to that denomination in the village; without any marked premonitory symptoms, he was seized with the disease at midnight, and was dead in four hours. There was one death on Monday, and the disease appears to be quite epidemic. Though surrounded by colliery villages, no cases have appeared in any of them but Trimdon, and it is thought, therefore, that the epidemic must have its origin in some unhealthy local condition not yet discovered. Great complaints have been made, arising out of the apparent negligence of the General Board of Health in London. Immediately upon the appearance of the cholera in a fatal form, Mr. Wood, the overseer of the colliery, wrote to the board, informing them of the circumstance. Down to Saturday night last no answer had been received to his communication. The cases had been attended to by Mr. Scott, the colliery surgeon; Mr. Gordon, his assistant; and Mr. Ruddock, the union surgeon. The colliery surgeons instituted a " houseto-house" visitation immediately on the appearance of the disease, and have continued it without intermission. The other parts of the county are reported to be healthy. We regret to say that the cholera has also appeared in a virulent form, during the present week, in Canterbury; and that fatal cases have occurred at opposite points of the City. At Fulham, Kennington, Chelsea, Lambeth, Whetstone, Southwark, Limehouse, Stepney, and Romney, fatal instances have likewise been recorded. The following account of its outbreak on board a troop-ship was received on Monday night by electric telegraph from. Plymouth :-" The teak-built barque, Lord A uckland, which left Gravesend on the 25th ult., bound to Kurrachee, East Indies, having on board 186 men of the 10th, 24th, 60th, and 87th regiments, put into Plymouth this afternoon with twentyOne private of the 24th, and two of seven ill of the cholera. the 87th, have died since leaving. It was deemed advisable to bear up for this port on Friday evening. The Lord A uckland is an old ship, and the breaking out of the fatal disease is attributed in part to bad ventilation. The authorities here have sent a hulk into the Sound to receive the cholera patients;;

five are now dangerously ill." In IRELAND the disease has also had its victims, as the Belfast TPetMKg)’, of a few days back, states that twenty-four ca,,e4 of cholera have occurred since that day week, and that the dis-

has assumed a very aggravated character, and proved fatal. The home of the disease is, as hitherto, the ill-ventilated and filthy alleys of the town. fatally. As regards SCOTLAND, we extract the following from the Not having as yet received the box, I am unable to give any Edinburyh lj’itaess:-" We have to announce the occurrence account of the drug from actual inspection. of two deaths from this disease in the course of last week, I am, Sir, your obedient servant, although we are happy to believe they may be considered WM. EDWARD STULO, M.B., sporadic. The parties were Mr. Livingstone, of Danube street, Assistant-Secretary to the Royal Dublin Society and a son of about four years of age. Mr. Livingstone had Royal Dublin Society, and & Fellow to the Registrar King’s Queen’s Kildare-street, gone to attend the funeral of his mother in Wishaw, who had College of Physicians. July, 1854. died of cholera. On his return home on Tuesday, he felt a little out of order, and took some medicine, but did not call in a medical man till Thursday, by which time all the symptoms. THE CHOLERA. of cholera had set in. He died on Friday morning. His boy took ill in the course of the week, and died on Saturday of the

IT becomes again our painful duty to record in a specific manner the increasing progress of malignant cholera, which is reappearing with considerable virulence in different parts of Great Britain, and in some cases assuming a character of great intensity and rapidity of symptoms. _ That we are partakers in the fatal influences of a simultaneously very widespread epidemic force, is clear from the ravages the disease is making in distant parts of the globe. We last week drew attention to its fatal effects at Barbadoes and the Mauritius, and now we may, en. passant, remark, that a despatch from Genoa announces that, at Leghorn, Florence, and Naples, the disease is prevailing to a considerable extent; at the former city above 124 cases occurring in one day. Turin and its

vicinity

are as

yet healthy.

In ENGLAND the disease has been very fatal in a colliery village called Trimdon, (in South Durham,) lying between the Ferryhill station of the York and Berwick railway and Hartle-

ease

unusually

same

disease

"

the pestilence has shown According to the Allou inA dve2,tiser, the immediate of Alloa.. itself in

Coalsnaughton,

vicinity

Two cases occurred on Saturday week, and one on Monday, all three terminating fatally within less than twelve hours’ illness. An interesting question connected with the pathology of cholera is that of its relation to the lower animals. Contemporaneous with the prevalence of the disease in different districts and towns of India and Europe, certain partial or distinctly localized epizootics have been observed, and believed by many to be examples of cholera in the lower animals.** But in reference to the majority of the examples which have been collected together of local epizootic disease, more or less coincident with and resembling cholera, the authority we havereferred to below remarks, that it unfortunately happens that neither the symptoms nor the post-mortem appearances have been made the subject of accurate medical investigation. W

of

See an able paper on the subject, by Mr. Marshall, in the eleventh volume the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review.

*

114 with Mr. Marshall, that we should at once reject in which he settled, some guarantee that he was a proper and them as positive evidences of the effects of a cholera agent upon safe practitioner. He recommended the Government to con. the animals concerned; and we would add. that a more accurate sider the general question during the recess, and to bring in a account should, for the future, be taken of any unusual amount Bill next session dealing with the whole subject. The Earl of GALLOWAY thought that enough had been said of disease amongst the lower animals during the time cholera is prevalent. We are led particularly to these remarks from to show that it was desirable to postpone the first clause of the ’observing that the Scotch papers refer to an micommon amount Bill, in order that the subject should be considered in all its of disease continuing amongst the grouse, and of its spread to branches. the young birds. According to the Greenock Advertiser, "in The Earl of DERBY had not much directed his attention to -Perthshire, the young broods of grouse are suffering so much the Bill, but from the conversation he had just heard, he was from a disease, which is supposed to be tape-worm, that in inclined to agree in the opinion that their lordships were hardly some districts there will be a total failure of young birds." in a condition to legislate, and that it was not -fitting they The more than warnings that are now prevailing of the should legislate in the partial manner proposed by the BilL fatality that will in all probability ensue before the summer The whole subject of the license to practise arising from degrees has passed away from us, should be made use of by the pro- granted by universities was worthy of the consideration of the fession and the public to their fullest available extent. By Government, and a partial measure ought not to be adopted the former, no opportunity should be lost of at once impressing without consideration. The measure had been introduced on upon public boards and private individuals how materially a the part of a private member, and he did not believe, so far as :defective hygiène and " medical police" tend to the wide-spread the University of Oxford was concerned, that the slightest development and increased malignancy of the disease, if not to jealousy would be entertained to granting the privilege of its actual genesis. As to the latter point, some, we know, conferring degrees to other universities. In this case the noble differ; as regards the former, none are at variance, and hence duke came forward on behalf of the Scotch universities, and no obliquity of purpose, whether scientific, political, or economic, asked why the Scotch universities should not be put upon a should be permitted to prevail in arresting for one moment the footing of perfect equality with the English universities. The furtherance of all those great sanitary regulations, whether noble duke, however, omitted to consider that a portion of the of general or individual reference, which tend to greatly clause would interfere with a measure of that nature. The Duke of ARGYLL said, he proposed to strike out that mitigate, if not entirely to arrest, the terrors of a pestilence so fearful as cholera. By the public, whilst it assists to the portion of the clause. utmost of its powers the endeavours of the medical practiThe Earl of DERBY thought that in that case the whole tioner in preventing the occurrence of the affection, care must character of the measure would be altered, and the new question be taken that it does not delay seeking that advice and curative would be introduced, whether the license to practise in England, attention which are so absolutely necessary on the very first Scotland, and Ireland, should not be co-extensive, and apply occasion of a single symptom or precursor of the disease. to each kingdom? observed, that there was no penalty Again and again have we said-and we here repeat it-in The Duke -cholera there is nothing so dangerous as delay. One hour, or whatever upon an English medical man practising in Scotland. even less, may settle the destiny of a man, for that which, as The Earl of DERBY confessed, that if they were to deal with a simple diarrhoea, was amenable to the resources of the healing the question at all, they ought to deal with it as a great ques’art, may pass with irresistible rapidity into the forlorn con- tion of medical reform on some established and avowed prindition of the stage of collapse, if unchecked by the early and ciple. They ought to be either prepared to legislate upon the thus useful interference of the medical practit ioner. question as a whole, or to introduce a measure which would Since the foregoing was written, we are glad to perceive not be opposed to any general legislation upon the subject that all the hospitals in London have prepared wards for the hereafter. It appeared to him that a question, involving prinimmediate reception of cholera patients. ciples of so much importance to the community at large, ought to be a question taken up by the Government, and dealt with as a Government measure. He did not, however, intend to take the sense of the House in opposition to proceeding with this Bill, but if the noble lord on the cross benches, or any other noble lord, thought that he ought to divide the House upon the further progress of the Bill, he should feel it his duty HOUSE OF LORDS. to do so. Lord MONTEAGLE remarked, that though the Bill was originally TUESDAY, AUGUST 1ST. brought forward as a private Bill, it had unquestionably been MEDICAL GRADUATES (UNIVERSITY OF LONDON) BILL. taken up by Government, and had been supported by every ON the motion of Lord MONTEAGLE, the House went into member of the Government. committee on this Bill. Lord CAMPBELL thought there was no prospect of proceeding The Duke of ARGYLL said, he should move the insertion ofwith a measure now which would be perfectly unobjectionable, the Scotch universities into the Bill. He had received several and if a motion were made that the Bill be further considered communications from the professors of the great medical schools! that day three months, he would second it. of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and he was assured that a large! Lord WYNFORD said that without intending to act in any number of medical men in the English provinces had taken the! way hostile to the Bill, but desiring that a general measure Scotch degree, every one of whom was now practising in should be introduced, he would move that the House go into violation of the law, and was liable to penalties, although it was! committee that day three months. not easy to put the law in force against them. He wished Their lordships then divided :to put these persons upon a legal footing, not as surgeons, apothecaries, or general practitioners, but as physicians in England. The University of Durham had been included in the The Bill, and he could not, therefore, understand how the insertion passed through com of the Scotch and Irish Universities could injure the Bill in any mittee.

admit, then,

of ARGYLL

,

,,,.

"

Parliamentary Intelligence.

.

.

Bill, with some amendments, then

degree.

THE BOARD OF HEALTH.

The Marquis of LANSDOWKTE wished to see some regular The Earl of SHAFTESBURY moved for certain papers connected uniform standard of medical examination throughout the with the Board of Health, and entered into some further ex. country, to the benefits of which all bodies and institutions planations as to the constitution of that body. admitted. The whole subject required consideration, might be THE’BURIALS BEYOND THE METROPOLIS BILL but it would be unjust to deny to the University of London the been led to which its medical had graduates privileges expect was read a third time and passed, after a statement by the He thought their were secured to them by their charter. Bishop of London as to the disgraceful way in which interthe if lordships might safely pass present Bill, surgery and ments were often conducted in unconsecrated cemeteries. pharmacy were excluded from its application. Lord CAMFBELL could not imagine that any objection could HOUSE OF COMMONS. be made to the introduction of the great medical schools of Edinburgh and Glasgow into the present Bill. MONDAY, JULY 31ST. Lord WYNFORD was not hostile to the present Bill, but BOARD OF HEALTH BILL. objected to partial legislation on a subject of so much importance. What was wanted was, that every man who obtained the Lord PALMERSTON moved the second reading of the Board Health Bill, and in so doing called on the House to recollect right to practise, should bring with him to the neighbourhood

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