Vol. XXII. No. 11.] 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



171 



A CASE of partial sloughing of the cornea, due 

 to exposure to cold for nine hours on a Russian 

 steppe, in driving against a snow-storm, is reported 

 by Dr. Kuritzin {Lancet). Both ej'es were simi- 

 larly affected, somewhat deep ulcers having formed, 

 in shape and position corresponding to the openings 

 between the eyelids. The other parts of the eyes 

 were scarcely affected. The patient had never pre- 

 viously suffered from any affection of the eyes, and 

 made a good recovery. 



The Sydney Board of Health having requested 

 Dr. W. Peirce, of the Coast Hospital, to report 

 upon his treatment of typhoid-fever, — the rate of 

 mortality having been remarkably low, — Dr. 

 Peirce states {Lomlon Lancet) that, in cases received 

 ■within the first ten days of the disease, calomel 

 (three to five grains) is administered, and after 

 that acetanilide, in five-grain doses, whenever the 

 temperature exceeds a certain point (101° to 103°), 

 up to six or eight times in the twenty-four hours. 

 The effect of this is to cause a fall of temperature 

 in about forty minutes, attaining its minimum in 

 from two to four hours, with lowering of the pulse 

 and respiration rates, and with decrease of arterial 

 tension, and profuse sweating. 



The tendency to delirium is diminished, and 

 there follows a sense of repose. AVhen the effect 

 of the drug passes off, the temperature often rises 

 with great rapidity, and the dose must be repeated. 



Dr. Peirce considers this treatment to have ad- 

 vantages over cold bathing. The drug may be 

 given for several weeks; and he has not found it 

 contra-indicated, even when there were cardiac com- 

 plications. In all cases where it is freehj given, 

 there is liability to occasional cyanosis of extremi- 

 ties and face, with irregular pulse. 



Alcohol was sparingly given, and generally only 

 in cases of failing heart. 



The Board of Health complimented Dr. Peirce 

 on the favorable results of his treatment. 



Dr. Huchard reports that salicylate of magne- 

 sium has rendered him wonderful services in the 

 treatment of typhoid-fever. The ataxic symptoms 

 disappeared, the fetor of the breath vanished, the 

 distended abdomen was diminished in size, and 

 the foul odor of the stools was banished. 



Ho believes that the death-rate from ileo-typhus 

 can be greatly lessened by the employment of salicy- 

 late of magnesium. The dose may be fixed at ten 

 to fifteen grains, three times daily. It is soluble 

 in water, also in alcohol. 



Dr. R. Sanderson, at the Brighton and Sussex 

 Medico-Chirurgical Society {British Medical Jour- 

 nal), read a paper on diphtheria, according to which 

 the local lesion should be regarded, bacteriologi- 

 cally, as a "cultivation" upon human mucous 

 membrane, and that the constitutional poisoning 

 was directly proportional to the area occupied by 

 the cultivation. 



The diphtheritic membranes were a protecting 

 blanket under which, and in which, this cultivation 

 throve, and, moreover, were in themselves a me- 

 chanical danger, and aided the spread of the culti- 

 vation by transplantation and continuity. 



They should therefore be thoroughly dissolved 

 early, and re-dissolved as soon as re-formed. 



He knew of no solvent better than Tinkler's 

 papain. Having exposed the cultivation, a germi- 

 cide should be used ; he preferred acid carbolic, 

 3i. ; glycerine, 5 i. — M. 



He maintained that by taking a case early, and 

 treating the local lesion as above indicated, the 

 area, and consequently the toxaemia, could be con- 

 trolled, and the danger of invasion of the nose and 

 larynx minimized. 



A NOVEL treatment of hydrocephalus in infants 

 is published by Dr. Somma (Deu^sc/ie Zeitung), who 

 has availed himself of the heat of the sun in cur- 

 ing five cases of this disease in its chronic stage. 

 The treatment is as follows : — 



The child is given to an assistant, whose head is 

 covered. With a clear sky, the occiput of the child 

 is exposed to the rays of the sun, — the assistant 

 seated and immovable. 



In the first four or five days the exposure may 

 last a half-hour or less ; later, forty or fifty min- 

 utes. The treatment must be continued for a 

 month. Dr. Somma believes the action of the heat 

 of the sun produces ab-wrptiou of the collection of 

 intra-cranial serum, and gives a healthy stimulus to 

 the vaso-motor system. 



Dr. Little (Dublin Journal Medical Science) 

 states that migranous headache is best relieved by 

 twenty grains of salicylate of sodium in a wine- 

 glassful of water, made effervescent by the addi- 

 tion of a dessertspoonful of effervescent granular 

 citrate of caffeine. The doctor has not found the 

 latter alone efficient. 



For the expulsion of tape- worm, with its head. 

 Professor Pepper of Philadelphia successfully 

 employed the following procedure: The patient 

 fasted during the day, and took a saline purge in 

 the evening. The next day two fluid drachms of 

 oleo-resin of male fern was given, rubbed up with 

 sugar, at 7 a.m., 8'a.m., and 10 a.m. 



AVith the la,st dose a saline purge was given. 



He says it is useless to trifle with smaller doses 

 of male fern. 



For the immediate relief of cramps in the legs, 

 Dr. St. Clair {Aledical Age) winds a coil of string 

 around the leg over tlie place that is cramped, and, 

 taking an end in each hand, gives it a sharp pull, 

 one that will decidedly hurt. Instantly, he claims, 

 the cramp will let up, and the sufferer may rest as- 

 sured the cramp will not come on again that night. 

 For a permanent cure he recommends galvanism, 

 the negative pole being applied over the seat of the 

 cramp, the positive pole on the thigh. 



iloRE suggestions are in circulation regarding 

 the arrest of bleeding from the nose. Dr. Wade 

 {Deutsche Med. Woch.) recommends that the hands 

 and feet of the patient be placed in water as hot as 

 can be borne, and asserts that this will check the 

 most obstinate epistaxis. 



Dr. Robinson of Kansas, speaking of this sub- 

 ject, says it is well known to anatomists that the 

 hemorrhage, in the vast majority of cases, proceeds 

 from the septum nares, supplied by a branch of the 

 superior coronary, given off from the facial. It 

 enters the nose just below the alfe nasi, crossing 

 the superior maxillary bone at that point. 



Firm pressure over this point is the treatment. 



Both these plans may be adopted simultaneously. 



WHOOPING-COUGH. 



AVnoopiNG-couGH is a disease with which all 

 parents are more or less familiar. A lengthy dis- 

 cussion of it is, therefore, not advisable; but there 

 are a few facts of interest which are not generally 

 known, and which can properly be herein touched 

 upon. The disease in question is infectious, and 

 is easily transmitted from a child suffering from it 

 to others who have not experienced it. Whooping- 

 cough is attended with, and owes its existence to, 

 a catarrhal inflammation of the lining membrane 

 of the air-passages. This inflammation comes on, 

 runs its course, and gradually subsides, much in the 

 same way that an ordinary acute catarrh does; but 



during its course, at its height, the peculiar spas- 

 modic cough exists for a time, and then disappears. 

 Whooping-cough, as stated, is contagious, and 

 highly .so. The contagious principle, or the peculiar 

 element which excites the disease, is given off in 

 the breath and in the exhalations from the body 

 of a patient suffering from it. After a person 

 becomes exposed, and receives into his system this 

 element, a certain period of development must pass 

 before the disease is brought into existence. Smith 

 has fixed this at four days. He tells of a case 

 where a woman, having a cough for two weeks, 

 which was afterward ascertained to be whooping- 

 cough, went from Boston to a family in New York, 

 She remained with this family several hours, and 

 then left the city. During her stay she held and 

 kissed an infant that was previously well, and had 

 never been removed from the tenement in which 

 it w^as born. Whooping-cough was not at that 

 time prevailing in New York. Five days after the 

 exposure the infant began to cough, and this proved 

 to be the beginning of a severe whooping-cough. 



Tlie disease under consideration may attack per- 

 sons at any age, but it is most common in children 

 between the ages of one and eight or nine years. 

 Occasionally infants under one year suffer from it, 

 but such cases are comparatively rare. It is be- 

 lieved at the present time that a specific poison, or 

 contagious principle, is alone capable of giving rise 

 to whooping-cough ; that without this principle the 

 disease cannot be brought into existence. In other 

 words, a child must take whooping-cough from an 

 infected child or adult, or the contagious principle 

 or poison must be conveyed to it by a third person. 

 Whether it can be transmitted through a third 

 person, and that person be in good health, is not 

 known; but some authorities are inclined to believe 

 in the affirmative. Accepting the germ theory, or 

 that a contagious principle is present in all cases, 

 then the only way to escape the disease is to avoid 

 exposure, and never come within the presence of 

 one suffering with it. Whooping-cough can only 

 be experienced once by the same person ; that is 

 the rule in many contagious diseases. 



When a child is first attacked with the catarrh 

 which ushers in whooping-cough, it is absolutely 

 impossible to determine from the symptoms then 

 piesented that that disease exists. They differ 

 little or none from those which appear in an ordi- 

 nary catarrh; and until the characteristic cough is 

 heard, no one, not even a physician, can say that 

 the attack is more than the simple consequence 

 of taking cold. Not infrequently parents call in 

 their family physician during the first or catarrhal 

 stage, and he considers and treats the attack as a 

 common cold. Later on, when the peculiar spas- 

 modic cough has appeared, and they di.scover that 

 the child has whooping-cough, then they very often 

 blame him for what they consider his lack of dis- 

 cernment. That is, of course, wholly undeserved. 

 If the disease was prevalent, or it was known that 

 the patient had been exposed to the contagion, he 

 would naturally suspect that whooping-cough was 

 coming on ; but to determine positively, in the ab- 

 sence of the characteristic cough, would be impos- 

 sible for him or any one else. 



The symptoms of the catarrh are redness of the 

 eyes, " running of the eyes and nose," sneezing, 

 and some cough, at first similar to that which ap- 

 pears in bronchitis. It is dry, rather hollow, and 

 may be quite annoying. There is usually some 

 fever, more or less thirst, and impairment of the 

 appetite. The young patient, as in all febrile at- 

 tacks, is somewhat fretful, and with difficultj' 

 amused. Much of this condition of things lasts 

 for a variable period. It may be for only two or 

 three days, and it may be from four to six weeks; 

 two weeks is about the average. As a general rule, 



