The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-05 00:00:00

CHOLERA MORBUS.

(From the Bath Herald.)

SIR,—I should have taken advantage of your kind
offer to receive my farther communications on the
subject connected with my last, but I have been in
correspondence with the Central Board of Health,
and have made every effort to be allowed to put my
plan of treatment in operation at Sunderland in
person, with what I consider, every probable hope
of destroying the attendant terrors on that dread
malady, the Asiatic cholera, which has already de-
stroyed 40 millions of persons.
However, I am sure my proposed means must be
had recourse to, and though the originality of the
hot air bath in this disease has been given to me as
under certified, yet I doubt not but others will here-
after ascribe to themselves, this only mode of effec-
tual destruction of the first cause of this malady.
Though I am assured it cannot be confirmed to them
by that high authority, which, I very much regret, I
could not influence in my favour, so as to personally,
propound its efficiency, and confirm its decided supe-
riority over every other mode of treatment hitherto
had recourse to.

(EXTRACT.)
" Sunderland Herald, Nov. 19.
" I beg at the same time to remark, that I have
constructed an air heating apparatus, es a pattern for
cholera patients, agreeably to the instructions kindly
given to me by Captain Carden, R.N., which
answers the purpose most effectually, and has porta-
bility, convenience, and cheapness to recommend ir.
(Signed) " AV. REID CLANNY, M.D."
The disease called Asiatic cholera, is nothing
more or less than the hermetically sealing the por-
ous system by their impregnation with a pestiferous
animalcule, which has been wafted to this country,
and through all the nations of Asia and Europe, be-
tween this and China. In northern climates, this
malady must be retarded in its progress or spread,
by the approach if winter, the pores are compara-
tively closed, and the very generation of the animal-
cule must be naturally checked; but as spring and
summer returns, it must spread, in spite of cordons,
quarantines, or other communicative restrictions,
which are as useless and unnecessary as our means
to prevent Egyptian plague, which never could be
brought to this country, or exist in it by any possible
means. Some months since I foretold the approach
of pestilence in this country from the appearance of
a vast cloud of the precursor pr st fly ; I showed
them to a person of the first respecarbility at the
time, and did then pronounce the more than proba-
ble mission of this ill-omened insect, the identity
arid knowledge of which 1 am as confident of, as I
am of that of the domestic bee. The symptoms of
this disease called Asiatic cholera, will, I think,
roost strongly corroborate my hypothesis as to its
cause, namely, a chillness arid numbness of the
whole frame, and have been described as equal to that
of a: marble statue, cessation of perspiration, of the
action of the liver, arid of the urinary secretions,
closing of the biller), ducts, and a consequent debi-
lity of the action of the heart to that extent, that the
blood not being returned from the extremities is
there coagulated, and progressively rises in that
state till it reaches its vital valve. Here this malady
originating in any other cause than that I have de-
signated, the head would suffer otherwise thari it is
described to do. But the fact is, the patient retains
his senses until the vital spark is extinct. It has
been reported from the Continent, that in this rms.
lady the breath of the patient is even cold, and I am
convinced of its very near approximation to cases I
have seen in India, which were most successfully
treated by similar means to those I now recommend,
and which by striking at first cause, will carry con-
viction of its undoubted efficacy above all means
hitherto opposed to its appalling progress. No mar:
Carl be deemed presumptive in giving an opinion on
the subject in q jestion, panicularly when long ex-
perience leads him to form conclusions. Mine has
not been collected from what is generally termed
the world, for the world to every min, is the extent
of his sphere of action in it; but my experience is
collected from every quarter of the globe, while in
the command of one or other of his Majesty's ships,
where diseases of all kinds, and of every climate,
have assailed me or my crew. The medical men of
die world tell you plainly, that to this day they
know of no treatment which can oppose or prevent
this disease of Asiatic cholara—they even declare
that those patients who have not had medical at-
tendance, have not died in greater proportion than
those who had, arid certainly as great a proportion
of deaths, to the number attacked, have occurred at
Sunderland as at any other place in Europe.
Promptness of treatment, is the great and only hope
of success, arid with it every hope is manifest. At
the earliest period of symptoms, give the patient
(according to age) from 15 to 25 drops of Cajeput
oil, in one dessert or table-spoon full of Barbadoes
Naphtha—the former has the most stimulating
effect, the latter possesses at least four parts out of
six of charcoal, which will correct the putrescent
state which commences internally, acts promptly on
the kidneys and passes through the pores with that
avidity, that you will be soon sensible of its progress
by its smell on the surface of the body. Every pa-
tient's house, where a separate bed can be allowed,
being the best hospital, consign him to bed direct,
and place over him the bath apparatus, and the bee
clothes over all, casing the head with hot flannels,
and tucking the clothes well in round the neck and
sides of the bed; then apply the tube and flame by
spirits of wine in the cups, regulating the heat, to
the feelings of the patient. At the conclusion of
the bath, put a lump of camphor in one of the cups,
which will produce flame equal to the spirits, and
have the effect of destroying the animalcule ejected
from the pores, purify the bed and room most per-
fectly, and render the nurse or person present
secure from the disease, while in attendance. Dur-
ing the operation of the bath give as much strong
coffee, without milk or sugar, as the patient can take.
With these means perspiration will be soon obtained,
a consequent facility of respiration, and of urinary
secretions, and a happy indication of pulse, that the
heart is renovated in power, and the hand of death
arrested, through the mercy of that God, who has
permitted temporal as well as spiritual means to heal
and restore the creature of his creation. You may
continue the bath as long as the patient can bear it,
and repeat it on the least appearance of relapse.
The next effort is to obtain a free passage of the
bowels, by one ounce of castor oil floating on a
table-spoonfull of brandy, and repeat half the
quantity every half hour if necessary, using
as much as the patient can take of good
strong Embden grits gruel with a little brandy,
being the most simple, prompt, and safe means of
coating with healthy mucus the thorax arid intes-
tines. It will be necessary to give five grains of
blue pill every eight hours till ocular proof of the
passage of bile. The convalescent state will be too
plain to need comment; no acids, solid food, or it:-
digestible matter to be takers till returning strength
is visible. I read in the last mode of treatment
suggested at Sunderland, and copied from foreign
diction, that the poor dying patient should be placed
on a stool, wrapped in blankets, and a cup of burn-
ing spirits of wine under it, but, if not able
i to per-
form this ill judged penance, to be placed n a bed
with a boarded bottom, and cups of the same flame
under it on the floor, to obtain heat and the hoped-
for perspiration, which must be precarious in most
cases, even to exclusion; also friction, which must
necessarily bare the patient, already described as
cold as a marble statue. Now, Sir, by my plan, I
will i
answer to have the hot air bath in operation
in
three minutes from my entering the patient's house,
(and so may any inmate in it) in ten minutes I will
Produce confined heat to the body of 110 degrees,
and in fifteen, to that of 130 or more, if necessary,
such heat being soft, genial, and comforting. This
bath is removed in one minute without the patient
being necessitated to move a finger to extricate ir,
arid without the least soil or dirt to the bed or patient.
Thea t bed-clothesfall
d
impregnated with
he
apparatus is withdrawn, and all its benefits continue
on being
gentlythoroughly
o n
the
patient as the bath
without the chance of chill. This bath is of Ame-
rican origin, but improved and brought into a port-