TJie Coiuitry Gentleman s Magazim 



A'^7 



THE SULPHUR TREATMENT FOR THE LUNG DISEASE TV 



CA TTLE. 



AMONG thevarious remedies propounded 

 as a specific for the lung disease in 

 horned stock, is the inhalation of the fumes 

 given off from burning sulphur. It is, how- 

 ever, by no means a new discovery, as one 

 might be led to suppose from the vague ac- 

 counts which have recently appeared in 

 various local papers, and we are somewhat 

 puzzled to answer for the fact that this once 

 popular, vaunted, iJwroughly tried, and now 

 exploded remedy, should crop up again. 



The great sulphur cure gair ed a most un- 

 enviable notoriety during 1S67, in the city of 

 Glasgow. The life of the remedy was ex- 

 tremely vigorous while it lasted, and the 

 contest between its enthusiastic advocates and 

 their opponents, hot and high-spirited ; but 

 after being carefully tested by men less san- 

 guine, having cool heads and weighty judg- 

 ment, the affair rapidly collapsed, and at the 

 end of a few months was only remembered 

 as a ridiculous attempt to curry favour with 

 the public, and draw money from its pocket. 



To use an Irish metaphor we, liowever, 

 must say " there was more than nothing 'in 

 it." The " sulphur cure," hitherto heard 

 little of, was by no means a stranger among 

 the remedies of the medical man and veteri- 

 narian. Its properties, when composing acid 

 fumes, or converted into the form of watery 

 solution, were more or less known and ac- 

 knowledged from remote times, as being 

 either very dangerous when used indiscrimi- 

 nately, or of little or no service iii chronic 

 and extensive diseases. It was due to the 

 zealous gentlemen already named to say they 

 made the sulphur cure " great," and in their 

 hands it became " a great mistake." 



Some time before, since 185S, the use of 

 medicated inhalations was attracting notice 

 among medical men, particularly as ad- 

 ministered by instruments known as "ato- 

 mizers," "pulverizers/' or "spray producers." 



The most simple illustration of the instrument 

 in question is that in use for the spreading 

 of perfumes, which consists of two pointed 

 glass tubes, placed at right angles to each 

 other, one of which dips perpendicularly into 

 the fluid to be dispersed, while the other 

 serves as a means for blowing a current of 

 air, and this, exhausting that from the upright 

 tube, causes the fluid to rise, and eventually be 

 distributed in a mist or vapour. In broncliial 

 and pulmonary diseases, medicated fluids 

 were found to be useful ip allaying irritation 

 or promoting secretion, and thus relieving 

 the distended vessels gave rise to easy 

 breathing. Amongst the many remedies, 

 solutions of sulphurous acid, i.e., the fumes 

 of burning sulphur passed through water, 

 ranked as one, and was found useful in pro- 

 ducing copious secretion from thickened 

 membranes, with easy breathing, and almost 

 painless expectoration. The more primitive 

 method of inhaling the fumes direct from the 

 burning sulphur, however, constituted '■ the 

 perfect cure," and soon became established 

 as such, for many diseases which had no 

 existence whatever, except in the wreck of 

 minds that belong only to hypochondriacs, 

 were dissipated by it. Men who ha(\ 

 slight aftections of the tonsils and others ot 

 a chronic catarrhal nature, were said to be 

 cured of asthma, and even consumption, and 

 the remedy became at once undoubted. 

 There were the men, alive and well, and 

 their being in the flesh was due to the 

 " sulphur cure." However, shortly some 

 really asthmatic took the cure and rarely 

 escaped dying, others with acute diseases- 

 aggravated them still more, and the medical 

 men of Glasgow exposed the whole matter. 



More than four years have elapsed since 

 the above events took place, yet, like the 

 phojnix, the " great cure " rises again from 

 its ashes, and people are quite as ready to 



