THE LADIES' HOME AT CANNES.

THE LADIES' HOME AT CANNES.

1028 continued to show improvement. By the each inmate, while there are a common dining-room anda hours after the first carbolic injection- sitting-ro...

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1028 continued to show improvement. By the each inmate, while there are a common dining-room anda hours after the first carbolic injection- sitting-room and also a private chapel. The home is under morning--60 the pain in the head was much better and the mouth could the supervision of two British physicians of Cannes whose ser. be opened and the neck moved ; the reflex spasms, too, had vices are given gratuitously during the season which extends disappeared, also the photophobia and the pain in the foot. from Nov. 1st to the end of April. There are also an ex. Two more injections were given on that day and one on perienced lady superintendent and a trained nurse on the each of the two following days, at the end of which time- staff. The accommodation provided is for 34 ladies..This i.e., five days from the commencement of the treatment- institution does excellent work and is entirely supported by all the distinctive symptoms of tetanus had disappeared. subscriptions and donations of the British and American The urine was carefully examined all through and no signs of residents and visitors to Cannes. It deserves wider recogni. carbolic acid poisoning were detected. The patient was able tion and it should only be necessary to make the existence of to leave her bed in a few days, when general lassitude and the institution better known to the medical profession of this marked weakness of the jaw and right side only remained. country to insure an increased financial support and an The carbolic treatment of tetanus, combined with the admini- increased supply of fitting candidates. Application should stration of chloral or antitetanic serum, has’ of late attracted be made to Miss Hankey (Hotel des Anglais, Cannes, during a certain amount of attention and is generally associated the winter, and the Palace, Much Hadham, Herts, in the with the name ofj Professor Baccelli, though it does summer), who will be pleased to give full particulars. not seem certain that he was the first to employ it. It has the great advantage of being always at hand, and although THE CHOLERA IN RUSSIA. the hypodermic method of administration is usually adopted, THE extension of cholera to the Black Sea has affected the solution may be given by the mouth or per rectum. several southern Russian ports. The disease has been Dr. Osherovski more than 13 years ago reported in a Russian officially reported as having occurred recently at Odessa, medical journal1 the case of a man who ten days after a Rostov, Kieff, Kherson, Kronstadt, and Ekaterinoslav ; while gunshot wound in the leg began to show symptoms of newspaper accounts also mention its presence at Warsaw, tetanus which in spite of huge doses of morphine and chloral Kertch, Taganrog, Theodosia, Nicolaieff, and Azov. Similar increased in severity for another ten days. Carbolic acid reports from St. Petersburg state that there is a decline in the was then tried. Of this a 2 per cent. solution was employedI number of cases, the daily returns now being well below 300. and 12 drops were administered hypodermically every three Whereas on Sept. 22nd the incidence had reached 419 cases hours. In two days there was a marked improvement and with 177 deaths, on Sept. 30th 228 cases with 93 deaths were the patient was convalescent after 28 injections. Dr. Sbrana2 the returns from the provinces showing a like decline. reported, used a 2 per cent. solution of carbolic acid successfully in the The disease has been chiefly confined to the poorer classes. It case of an Arab who developed tetanus after receiving a is to be hoped that this drastic lesson will induce the wound which had been dressed with cobwebs and washed authorities of the Russian capital to instal a proper waterwith urine. Mr. A. B. J. Eddowes of Loughborough reported and supply drainage system throughout the city, even though in THE LANCET, Jan. 16th, 1897, p. 168, the case of a man they disregarded the even more terrible warning which the who had received a punctured wound in the great toe of the cholera gave them in the last decade of the last century. At left foot which suppurated and was followed in three weeks the very least it may be expected that adequate provision of by stiffness of the jaw, which rapidly became more marked infectious wards may be made against the contingency of and a week later, in spite of treatment by bromides and another outbreak. The reports of the overcrowding of dying chloral, convulsions occurred. Hypodermic injections of patients and the deficiency of sanitary equipment are 5 minims of a 2 per cent. solution of carbolic acid were then only redeemed by the accounts of the devoted service which given night and morning for four days, when the patient’s the medical officers attached to the hospitals have given condition was greatly improved. He made a good recovery. despite such grave disabilities. Concerning the etiology of Professor Baccelli3 has treated a considerable number of the disease a correspondent has forwarded us the followacid. cases with carbolic He seems at first to have ing curious communication from a relative resident in the employed a 1 per cent. solution, but afterwards to have neighbourhood of Minsk and Bobrinsk : "A doctor in Petersincreased the strength to 2, 3, 4, and even 5 per cent. burg told E- earlier in the year that there was sure to be Symmers4 gives a review of 75 cases treated by carbolic acid a, bad outbreak of cholera this autumn in the town as the with a total mortality of only 23 per cent. Felici and influenza outbreak in the winter was always accompanied Maremmialso publish successful cases. by colic and pain in the stomach, and he said whenever this happened there was always an outbreak of cholera the THE LADIES’ HOME AT CANNES. iext autumn. True enough, it has come." Our correspondent SITUATED above the town of Cannes, in the healthiest Lsks if there can be some mysterious connexion between surroundings, the Ladies’ Home, which was established a he two diseases. The observation is interesting but we quarter of a century ago with the object of affording rest tre not aware that any causal relationship has been and change of scene to British and American ladies ofsmall ’ecognised by expert observers between the gastric form )f influenza and cholera. It is perfectly true that means who are in feeble health or are suffering from the effects of overwork, continues to fulfil the purpose for which severe epidemic enteritis is often the precursor of an mtbreak of cholera in eastern countries, but it is it was founded. The inmates, who must not be in actual " ill health or invalids requiring constant nursing, pay their nore than probable that the name " choleraic diarrhoea" s simply an euphemism for the dreaded disease itself own fares out and home and
symptoms