Cholera

(kol’-e-ra). An epidemic disease. Symptoms: Cramp, vomiting, and rice-water evacuations. “English” cholera is the mild form; “Asiatic” is the severe form. Much depends upon the nursing; the patient must be kept warm and recumbent, medicines for the alleviation of pain must be given promptly. The great danger is from collapse. Cramps can be alleviated by gentle rubbing. Raw-meat juice in spoonfuls is generally the only food; mustard poultices may be ordered on the pit of the stomach to stay the vomiting. The patient should, if po ible, be placed in a separate room. Only the persons in attendance should enter the room. If the apartment should not allow of sufficient isolation, the patient should be removed to a hospital. If the patient is kept at home, the bed shall be placed in the centre of the room so that the air may circulate freely. All hangings, rugs and curtains should be taken away. It is of the greatest importance that all the ejections of the patient should be immediately disinfected. This disinfection may be obtained by the addition of at least an equal quantity of a solution containing to each litre 50 grammes either of chloride of zinc, sulphate of copper, or sulphate of zinc. About a gla ful of one of these solutions should be beforehand poured into the receptacles. In the patient’s room the clothes, linen, sheets and blankets, should, after use, be immediately soaked in a disinfecting solution. Those who are in continued attendance upon choleraic patients, or who live with them, should obey the following rules: Neither food nor drink should be taken in a room occupied by a patient. The mouth should be carefully rinsed before each meal, and the hands and forearms washed with a solution of borax. The face, head and hands, and, if po ible, the whole body, should be washed daily with water containing 10 grammes of borax or 1 gramme of thymol per litre. Avoid the use of laxatives, and check any diarrhœa at once. The disease runs its course swiftly, and has been fatal in India in a few hours.