Hypodermic injections of atropine and morphine have failed sadly in many cases. Subcutaneous injections of large quantities of salt and water, with some soda, and large rectal injections of tannin and laudanum have been very successful in Italy. If there is plenty of acid gastric juice in the stomach, the cholera poison and microbes may be swallowed with impunity. The worst cases of cholera are produced by drinking large quantities of cholera contaminated water, when the stomach is empty and alkaline. I think it probable that large quantities, as much as the thirst requires, of a weak acid water will prove very beneficial in cholera. Water slightly acidulated with sulphuric, nitric, or muriatic acid will probably be the best, but it is hoped that phosphoric, acetic, and lactic acids will prove equally good. Lemon juice and vinegar are merely acetates and citrates of potash, and are not as good.
It seems that the offensive smells noticed in the English Houses of Parliament last session have been traced to their source. It is found that the main sewer of the House of Commons is very large and out of all proportion to the requirements, is of two different levels, and discharges into the street sewer within eighteen inches of the bottom of the latter drain. There is thus a constant backflow of sewage. Another revelation is that the drain connected with the open furnace in the Clock Tower, for the purpose of ventilation, is hermetically closed at its opposite end.
Much attention has been paid in recent times to disinfecting agents, and among these sulphurous acid and sulphide of carbon must be placed in the list of the most efficient. Mr. Alf. Riche has recently summed up in the _Journal de Pharmacie et de Chimie_ the state of the question as regards these two agents, and we in turn shall furnish a few data on the subject in taking the above named scientist as a guide.
Mr. Dujardin Beaumetz some time ago asked Messrs. Pasteur and Roux's aid in making some new experiments on the question, and has made known the result of these to the Academy of Medicine. At the Cochin Hospital he selected two rooms of 3,530 cubic feet capacity located in wooden sheds. The walls of these rooms, which were formed of boards, allowed the air to enter through numerous chinks, although care had been taken to close the largest of these with paper. In each of the rooms were placed a bed, different pieces of furniture, and fabrics of various colors. Bromine, chlorine and sulphate of nitrosyle were successively rejected. Three sources of sulphurous acid were then experimented with, viz., the burning of sulphur, liquefied sulphurous acid, and the burning of sulphide of carbon. The rooms were closed for twenty-four hours, and tubes containing different proto-organisms, and particularly the comma bacillus made known by Koch, were placed therein, along with other tubes containing vaccine lymph. After each experiment these tubes were carried to Mr. Pasteur's laboratory and compared with others.