128 ' 



An imnsual costiveness is a dangerous tliiug, and demands medical advice. 



And of the "uneasiness" attending this looseness, he says : 



"Speaking, then, of that sensation of uneasiness, without acute pain, in the 

 region named ('the belly,') it comes on more decidedly after an evacuation of 

 the bowels. In health, this act is followed by a sense of relief or comfortable- 

 ness ; but when the cholera influence is in the atmosphere, even a regular pas- 

 sage is followed by something of this sort, but more and more decided after each 

 action over one in twenty-four hours. The feeling is not all ; there is a sense 

 of tiredness or weariness which inclines you to take a seat ; to sit down and 

 maybe to bend over a little, or to curl up on a bed. This sensation is coming 

 cholera, and if heeded when first noticed, would save annually thousands." 



A marked weakness soon commences, growing constantly and perceptibly 

 greater. It was this, as well as the " looseness and iineasiness," that caused us, 

 under an attack of this disease, to instantly seek a physician, and barely in time 

 to save life. 



2. The remedies. — "What is to be done ? Not as hundreds and thousands 

 have done — seek a change of residence, hoping it is an infected atmosphere that 

 causes these symptoms, and to go out of it is to live; on the contrary it is to die. 

 The disease is within you. 



" Cholera," says Dr. Hall, "being a disease in which the bowels move too much, 

 the object should be to lessen that motion ; and as every step a man takes in- 

 creases intestinal motion, the very first thing to he done in a case of cholera is to 

 seek QUIETUDE. It requires but a small amount of intelligence to put these 

 ideas together, and if they could only be burnt in on every heart this fearful 

 scourge would be robbed of myriads of its victims. There can be no cure of 

 cholera without quietude — the quietude of lying on the back. Perfect quietude 

 on the back is the first, the niPERATiVE, the essential step towards the cure 

 of any case of cholera. 



" The second step to the making of this quietude more perfect is the binding 

 a cloth around the belly pretty firmly. This acts beneficially in diminishing 

 the room within the abdomen for motion. This bandage should be about a foot 

 broad, and long enough to be doubled over the belly ; pieces of tape should be 

 sewed to one end of the flannel, and a corresponding number to another part, be- 

 ing safer and more efl"ective fastenings than pins. If this cloth is of stout woollen 

 flannel, it has two additional advantages — its roughness in-itates the skin and 

 draws the blood to the surface from the interior, and by its warmth retains that 

 blood there ; thus preventing that cold, clammy condition of the skin which takes 

 place in the last stages of cholera." 



Attending every attack of cholera is a desire for water. And to quench this, 

 use ice broken into small pieces, and swallow them ; or if ice cannot be had, 

 which generally is the case in the coiantry, drink the coldest water. 



Dr. Hall thus sums up his advice : 



'■'■^\\.(i first step, then, to be taken where cholera prevails, and its symptoms 

 are present, is to lie down on a bed. 



" 2. Bind tlie abdomen tightly with woollen flannel. 



" 3. Swallow pellets of ice to the fullest extent practicable. 



" 4. Send for an established, resident, regular physician. Touch not an atom 

 of the thousand things proposed by brains as ' simple' as the remedies are rep- 

 resented to be, but wait quietly and patiently until the arrival of your medical 

 attendant." 



And this part which follows is especially applicable to the farmer : it is for 



