88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the patients were dying of starvation in fact, the treatment I 

 had been pursuing. Aided by this book, I had the pleasure of 

 making a convert of my senior. 



The next three years are barren of incident. I served in the 

 Channel Islands the greater part of the time with a battery about 

 one hundred strong, and quite isolated. After this I returned to 

 India, and was put in medical charge of the Artillery Division at 

 Mooltan. It was in this station that I studied the heat fever, in 

 which I was led to adopt a modification of treatment, which in- 

 cluded, I may add, an avoidance of alcohol. I early made ob- 

 servation of another troublesome and prevalent Indian ailment 

 diarrhoea. Patients admitted to hospital with diarrhoea very 

 rapidly recovered by dietetic means alone, and without drugs. 

 The climate of the Punjab is dry, very different from that of 

 Bengal, where, we know, diarrhoea does not always tend to cure 

 itself. In truth, the diarrhoea was curative, proceeding from 

 some improper ingesta, very frequently a symptom of alcoholic 

 poisoning. On coming to hospital, milk and arrowroot were 

 given as diet, and, with rest and quiet, in a day or two the 

 man was well. Similarly among the children diarrhoea, which 

 was in any case rare, proceeded from something unwholesome 

 they had eaten, or from fever. That arising from the former 

 cause cured itself, and fevers in the hospital, cooled artificially, 

 quiet, and darkened, seldom lasted over the second day. So that 

 a child brought to hospital almost insensible with vomiting and 

 diarrhoea would be quite lively next day, and without any special 

 treatment other than cold applications. Thus, in addition to 

 delirium tremens, which was very rare, two other important In- 

 dian diseases, diarrhoea and heat fever, were treated by sanitary 

 measures, any drugs employed being mere adjuncts, and alcohol 

 would only have marred the cure. 



There were many cases of acute chest disease in the cold 

 weather. On admission to hospital, they had plainly one thing 

 in common with those suffering from alcohol: they were ex- 

 hausted from sheer want of food. It was the first and main point 

 of my treatment that this should be met by prompt feeding, most 

 generally by repeated cupfuls of arrowroot and milk. I gave 

 niter or other neutral alkaline salt, and morphine for hacking 

 cough. The tongue began to clean at once and the temperature 

 to fall, and the haggard and worn patient got refreshing sleep 

 and began to convalesce. In fact, the cases ran parallel with the 

 former ailments I have mentioned, and I soon ceased to employ 

 with them any form of alcohol. They usually passed through a 

 crisis, sometimes extremely severe. The temperature became 

 subnormal at least, as evidenced by the thermometer ; the face 

 shrunken, with feeble pulse. My practice was, at first, to give 



