News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-04-19
THE MEDICAL KtS2.N
PREVENTION OF DTPHTHTRTA.

Curative treatment of diphtheria is
admittedly so unreliabls that the
medical profession listens with interest
to every suggestion of preventing this
terrible disease. At q recent meeting
of the New York Academy of Medicine
this subject formed the staple of the
evenings discussion. Following is a
resume of the principal recommends
tions: In city with densely populated
districts the supervision of plumbing
and the erection of the air-shafts in
tenements are useful supplementary
sanitary measures against diphtheria,
and physicians should instruct the peo-
pie in such matters as often as oppor-
tunity presents. Overheating of school
rooms and of dwellings should be most
emphatically denounced as dangerous.
Isolation of the sick should be ex-
planned and insisted upon. The man.
agement of isolation houses for the
poor should be such as to readily gain
! their confidence. Enlarged tonsils
should be reduced. Carious teeth
should be removed or filled promptly;
the fee of the poor should therefor be
small or nothing. Parents should in
spect their children's mouths and
throats each day before they go to
school. Children should learn to gar.
gle at an early age. Children suffering
from apparently simple SORE throat
should not attend school until we'll.
Kissing upon the lips should be for
hidden. Children old enough to gar
gle should be taught to do so after each
meal with weak solution of an anti.
septic chemical, and in young children
a few drops should be dropped into the
nostrils.
THE ALCOHOL QUESTION.
Commenting upon the vehement de-
NAL by "the political enemies of alco-
hol," that this agent has any medical
value the Medical Record says advo-
Gates never help their cause in the long
run by denying facts. Misstatements
are like boomerangs, and the more
there are of them the more numerous
are the wounds of those that make
them. We agree with the prohibition
lists that, as Parkes says: eff alcohol
were unknown half the sin and large
part of the poverty and unhappiness in
the world would disappear" but we do
not agree with them when they assert
that alcohol is an unmitigated curse to
mankind. Alcohol when properly
used, is a great blessing and it has
saved countless numbers of human
beings who have lived to cheer the ex-
istence of others and to add greatly to
the sum of human happiness and to the
advancement of our race.
STRYCHNINE FOR DRUNKENNESS.
Some years since Jarochewski, q
Russian biologist, found by experiments
made on dogs that strychnine not only
destroys the narcotic action of alcohol
but enables the system to support Large
quantities of alcoholic spirits without
the usual injurious effects. Russian
physicians now report great success in
the treatment of dipsomania, or the
alcohol habit, by means of nitrate OF
strychnine The drug is said not only
to relieve the immediate after effects Of
alcoholic excess but in many cases
to destroy all craving for Intoxicating
liquors.
ALCOHOLIC COMA.
In cases of alcoholic poisoning-the
comatose condition of intoxication the
promptest recovery of consciousness
will follow the simultaneous injection
of mixture of one part of amonia with
two to six parts of water. Police sur
geons who have to deal with cases Of
Inconsistencies will find this con
venient method OF determining whethe,
a given case is due to whisky, compress.
sion of the brain, or nervous disorder.
SWEATING OF THE HANDS.
A lotion-composed of four ounces
of cologne water and half au ounce OF
tincture of belladonna - is highly
recommended as cure for the dis.
agreeable sweating of the hands and
feet from which many persons suffer.
The affected extremities should lie
rubbed two or three times day.
SICK HEADACHE.
DR.. J. Aulde says that sick head,
ache dependent on a bad condition OF
the stomach will often disappear in hall
an hour under the influence of tive
grains of iodide of potash dissolved in
an ounce of water, taken in teaspoon.
full doses at intervals of three to five
minutes.