Vandalia Whig and Illinois intelligencer. [volume] (Vandalia, Ill.) 1832-183?, 1832-10-17
FoRr ARMSTRONG, Sept. %, 1882.

upon the SpasmodIC Cholera, as it appeared II
our army recently at this pace. These illustra
tons, although very imperfect, will hold good il
every part of the United Safes, and the treat
ment will probably be the same. Should am
exceptions prevail, they wilIresult from some &C
cidental causes, the chief ofwhich is intemper
ance. For reasons presently to be assigned, an
assured that a collapsed stae of this disease il
absolutely incurabe; hence tits imperative upoi
all interested, to apply with pr,mptitude for cura
rative means, the instant the great premonitor
symptom, Diarrhea, occurs. Happily this warn
ling IS universal, and, for the most part, of sucl
duration, as to afford ample tine to eIude danger
The great majority of cases tiat occurred afte
The fatal 29th and Both of August, were remedia
| e from knowledge that thisalsidious looseness
t the bowels was the prelude to destruction; 400
or the sake of those who so miserably perishel
in the onset, it Is to be lamented that it had no
cen earlier known. About the ooh of Angus
II was apparent to any observer that diarrhe
Very generally prevailed among the troops, and
gave to the atmosphere very peculiar odour.
served 1t to che late Doct Coleman, who admit
tied it, and attributed 1t to change in the hab.
lot the men. As no one complained, there was
no alarm. The garrison and camp were, howev-
Ter, fully prepared for infection, painful
10 infested six days afterwards. On the 26th OF
August, two sick rangers from Captain Ford's
company, then just from the Chicago route, were
rought into the garrison and conducted to the
hospital, without having been reported to the at
ending surgeon, notwithstanding an express or
der from General Scott that there should be no
intercourse with these troops As as d..
Coleman saw the men, he expressed an apprehen-
sion hat they might have the Cholera; but an
afhcer, much conversant with the disease, gave II
his opinion that it was not the Spasmodic
Cholera; hence the men were not removed on
hai on day One of them died. The next day
? man of the same company was reported i'll III
he camp established on the west shore of the
Mississippi, and l was ordered 10 visit him.
t und him without pulse; shrunken; discolored
speechless, and almost senseless. He had been
poking and purging all night, and grievousiy
ramped. There was no installing this disease
He died soon after having been conveyed, by a
c,rcuitous route, to a separate hospital on Rock
Island, some distance in the rear Of the garrison
man, who was In the hospital at. the time the
wo rangers were admitted into it, and who iay
contiguous to them on the night Of The 26th, was
taken with Cholera, on the 9th and died in five
hours. By an accidental arrangement, the bake
Try was next door to the hospital, and proved a
pest house to all engaged in il for, as fast de
tails could be made and bakers sent to it, they
sickened and died. OF eleven men so detailed
leight died IN about seventy-tvo hours! There
were Indian prisoners under guard on each sids
Of the hospi!al--seme of these lied. Two steam
coats from 81. Louis, that hal intercourse with
Rock Island, contracted the di,ease and lost sons
men; and some U. s. rangers, located severa
miies below fort Armstrong, also received the
injection from us and suffered severely. l have
been more particular in these details than might
seem necessary, but have done it to express my
convictions that, under some circumstances, this
iell disease is certainly CONTAGIOUS, and that all
Unnecessary intercourse between the sick and
well should he sedulously inerdicted. On the
nights of the 2Sth and Doth of August, there was
a severe storm of cold rain, which inundated the
tents. Before dawn, more than twenty men were
brought in from the camp, Of whom eighteen died
before ten O'Clock in the morning. A strict In
vestigation of these, and some of the preceding
cases, proved that rice water DiarrhGa had pre-
vailed universally. Measures were now prompt
lily adopted to alarm those afflicted with purgng
and, before IL O'Clock, l45 such persons were
undo medical treatment, very few Of whom wen
into collapse. BY particular attention to every
the disease soon lost its ferocity, and
at the end of fifteen days from its first appear
ance 1t ceased among the troops. The man firs
taken in the hospital Che who had slept near the
lrangers.) being under the direction Of DIR. Cole
man, had been spasmodic thirty minutes when
was requested to see him. His appearance was
'so inanimate that he seemed long since dead
The face was sunken, as if wasted by lingering
consumption; perfectly angular, and rendered
peculiarly CHASTITY by the complete removal of all
the soft solids, and their places supplied by dark
lead coored lines; the hands and feet were blush
white. wrinkled as when long macerated in cold
water; the eyes had fallen to the bottom of theiI
orbs, and evinced glaring vitality, but without
mobility; and the surface Of the body was colo
and bedewed with an eely emulation. lstood ga
|zing in mute horror upon the revolving object
when sudden spasm CONFUSING his limbs caus
ed him to screech in a voice so unearlhly, that
Iinvoluntarily covered my ears with my hands,
The strongest stimuli, both externally and inter
naly applied for several hours, made no impress
ion upon him, and he expired in the 9Th hour
In the succeeding fifty hours, many men weFs
removed in a manner equally distressing. i
would be needless to enumerate all the probabit
and possible remedies, that were increasingly EN-
ployed, in vain, for their relief They were as
water poured upon the sand. l had witnessed
expiring nature in almost every form, but has
hitherto been sustained by the belief that m
profession was lofty intelligence, inadequa,
only from some neglected counteracting forces
but here all selfsuficiency was utterly subdued