The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1878-07-22
ST. LOUIS NEWS.
THE PANIC CREATED EN THE CITY BY
THE DEATHS FROM sUNsTROKE.
How Patients are Treated-HOt weather
FashiOns-The Out-Of-DO0rs Dress
of st, E0uHSIams.

FashiOns-The Out-Of-DOOrs Dress
of st. L0u1sIans. |
Especial Correspondence of the Democratl
ST. LOUIS, July 18, 1878.
ST. LOUIS Is IN MOURNING
over the dead she has buried the past few
days. The cty's mortality record counts up
nearly 500 deaths since July 8, and the most
Of them were due wholly or in part to the hot
weather. The cases in which heat was given
as the direct cause or one of the direct causes |
of death numbered something less than 200,
but almost as many other deaths resulted
indirectly from heat. The first two
FATAL CASES OF sUNsTRoKE
reported in st. Louis this summer occurred
Tuesday, July 8. Two more cases were re-
ported the next day and three additional ones
last Thursday. For nearly q week the weather
had been getting warmer all the time, every
day being degree or two hotter than the day
before, but very little notice was taken of it
by thepeople generally until Friday, when a
score or more cases of sunstroke were re
ported by the afternoon papers. Ten deaths
occurred that day from sunstroke and at least
twice as many persons were prostrated. The
number of deaths had increased on Saturday
eight the following day, Sunday. Since then
from twenty to thirty fatal cases have oc-
Cured every day, and
THE HOT WEATHER STILL CONTINUES.
These are the fatal cases alone, and do not
form one-tenth of the whole number of people
prostrated by the heat. From one to two hum
dred mild cases are reported daily by the po-
lice, and perhaps as many more occur that
are not reported at all, large number Of
cases are treated every day at the City Dis
pensary and there is hardly physician in the
city that hasn't case or two. The health
commissioners commenced making prepara-
tions last Thursday for the reception Of sun
struck patients.
THE DISPENsARY
is in the City Hall, on the ground floor of the
Market street ell The health department oc-
cupies nearly all of the rooms on the first
floor of the ell. The assembly room of the
Board of Health and the clerks office face on
Market street An ante-room leads out into
q wide hall running from Market street to an
open court between the two ellis OF the build
ing, and wall separates the rooms from the
dispensary rooms, which consist of an apoth-
ecary, dispensary, physician,s Office general
waiting room, female waiting room, ex-
amining room, storeroom, and sleeping
apartment for the night ambulance
driver. Across the hall are two rooms
occupied by the health commissioner,
sanitary officer and the half-dozen health Off
GERS whose duty it Is to hunt up and report
on filthy dairies, hog-penS, laughter-houses,
stagnant ponds and all other nuisances sup
posed to be dangerous to the public health.
Friday morning found these different apart
ments turned into hospital. Half dozen
hospital cots had been arranged along the
sides of the big hall, the coolest portion OF
that part of the building, and ice bags and
air pillows were scattered about ready for use.
1t was we'll that these preparations were made.
Before 10 o'clock q telegram for an ambulance
for sunstruck man was received from the
Carr street police station. The telegram was
answered, and half an hour afterwards the
patient was stretched out on one Of the dis
pensary cots and being rubbed with ice bags
and blocks of ice and sprinkled with ice water.
This was the treatment given in most of the
cases afterwards received there, ether and
ammo Onia being given, however, as stimulantS
in desperate cases., and hydrate OF choral and
bromide OF potash where convusions were
present Some seven or eight more cases
were received and treated at the dispen-
sary the first day, and all of them, in
cluding the first one brought in, were
restored. For the next five day the number
of sunstruck patients received and treated
| there increased every day, the number yester
day being thirty-eight. Five ambulances are
kept running constantly, most of the patients
| being brought there in them and then taken
1
| City Hospital. The two dispensary physi-
clans are assisted every day by two or three
outside physicians, who have volunteered
their services, and force of hospital nurses
| is kept there all the time. A great
crowd of people - men, women and
children - stand around the outside
of the building all day long, but
are not allowed to pass the ropes stretched in
themselves with watching the ambulances as
they drive in and out Of the court, and with
occasionally catching glimpse Of q patient
as he is carried into the hallway and placed
upon cot. Everything inside wears the ap-
pearance of hospital By O'Clock in the
afternoon nearly every cot in the hallway is
occupied by patient A wire screen separ-
ates the hall into two apartments, one for
patients requiring the personal attendance Of
the doctors, and the other for convalescent
patients. In
THE WORST CASES
the patients are stripped naked as soon as
brought in and ice water poured on to them,
! the head and breast principally. Ice bags are
! also placed about the head and slab OF ice
rubbed over the breast Stimulants are some
times given, either internally or by hyper
dermic injections, and occasionally mustard
plasters are applied to the breast and RENE
! dies for cOnvulsiOns given. The treatment of
course, varies to sIlit the particular cases. If
the patient is drunk land many of them are
! drunk, the ice water shower bath Is all that
is needed. He is ready to be removed to the
convalescent ward five minutes after being
received at the dispensary. The shower bath,
indeed, has the effect of reviving majority
of the patients. OF the whole number received
and treated at the dispensary, five died there
and four died after being removed to the city
hospital. The rest, including some of the most
hopeless cases brought there, were restored
and are now out of danger. All kinds Of peo-
pie have been treated there, gray y-haired old
men and women, and little children scarcely
able to walk, merchants, manufacturers and
decrepit paupers, negroes as we'll as white
men, non-residents as well as residents of the
city, lawyers, doctors, preachers teachers,
makers, bakers, printers, newspaper report
ers, draymen, river roustabouts, farmers,
saloon keepers, and men, in fact, in almost
every kind Of business or employment. Some
twenty or tnlFGy 1Fy women a nave nay p peen received
MORE AFFECTED BY WHISKY THAN THE HOT
| A1rTI