The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1892-09-29
NOPAIN
CONNECTED WITH ASIATIC CHOL.
ERA.

DR.. Byron, the scientist and bac
! teriologist, is treating the cholera
patients a: Swinburn Island, New
York, says:
There is no pain connected with
Asiatic cholera. That is popular
fallacy. This is one of the things
which distinguish cholera Asiatic
from cholera norbus. In the latter
the pain comes at once. In true
cholera the patient becomes apa>
thetic and suffers hardly any pain.
1t is really an easy death to die.
Cholera patients die from asphyxia-
ton. The terrible vomiting and
discharges thin the blood SO greatly
that what material is LETT in the
blood coagulates and refuses to cir
culate. This produces an excess of
carbonic acid gas in the system
which causes asphyxiation: This
same carbonic acid gas is what
numbs the pain in manner and
renders the pctients, to a large ex-
tent, insensihle TO pain. The only
pain during the progress Of the dis
ease consists in cramps in the calves
of the legs, which are due to reflex
action. The cramps in the bowels
do not begin until the end, vixen
death approaches.
ave are treating the patients
now with the salt and water remedy
discovered by the Italian physician,
DIR. Catani, known as hypodermo-
clysis. We inject weak solution
of salt water, about l part of salt
to 1000 of water, warmed up to
the temperature Of the human body.
AS fast as the fluid matter of the
blood leaves the patient we renew
it by injecting this solution under
the skin. We use enormous guam
titles Of it, sometimes giving a pa
tient 20 to 30 litres a day. This
keeps the blood going. Then, to
check the diarrhea, injections of a
solution of tannin are put into the
stomach. We use about two or
three quarts day tor each patient.
1t not only checks the diarrhea, but
also produces coma in the bacteria
and kills them.
''The vomiting, which is so mark
ed "a feature of the dis case, is par
ticularly distressing to the physic-
ians, because it precludes the posi-.
bility of introducing medicine
through the mouth, and the stom>
ach, furthermore, will retain moth
ing. The general treatment, besides
the injections, is to give such drugs
as can give relief, with brandy and
water to keep up the vitality of the
system. The patients are kept
quiet as much as possible, and their
abdomens are kept warm and dry.
''The symptoms of the patients are
those of Asiatic cholera" said DR..
Byron. "'The dead people had all
the appearance Of cholera dead.
Their eyes were sunken deeply IN
their sockets, their skin was dry and
like parchment so it could be pulled
out from the body, and so inelastic
it would stay that way, and their
frames were of course wasted away
so that they looked like skeletons
with the skin stretched over it"
''Were their faces of the blush
black hue of which we have heard
so much as being the characteristic.
symptom of cholera in a dead pa
tent"
THAT blueism black hues is due
only to the fact that what is lett of
the venous blood has become coagu-
lated, and there is so little left of it
that the arterial blood shows through
the blue arteries, which produces a
peculiar livid hue and makes chol-
era dead look particularly awful"