GREAT EPIDEMICS ASIATIC CHOLERA. 397 



induced to preach up antispasmodic drugs. In a word, rem- 

 edies have almost all seemed to fail of useful effect, and the 

 most sensible treatment is still the same as that of cholera 

 in the early days, the treatment of symptoms. It consists, 

 not in prostrating the disease solidly by making one single 

 heroic attack on it, but in fighting it through successive 

 skirmishes by attacking the various symptoms of the evil, 

 one after the other. Cholera-patients have cramps we 

 endeavor to check them. They suffer cold we warm them 

 by frictions and drinks. Their circulation becomes slow 

 and languid we try to restore its regular conditions by 

 stimulating the flow of the blood. The secretions diminish 

 we provoke them by suitable means. Thus, and without 

 attacking the evil at its root, we often reach fortunate re- 

 sults. The great obstacle to the action of remedies on 

 cholera-patients is the fact that they can absorb nothing. 

 Some doctors have had the idea of injecting medicinal prin- 

 ciples directly, either beneath the skin, or into the veins. 

 Some attempts of this kind have succeeded, and this method 

 is the right one. Only we need to continue our advances 

 in it with persistent and systematic boldness, if we would 

 secure certain advance in the treatment of cholera and other 

 diseases. Instead of feeling the way blindly and timidly 

 in experiments on the living subject, there is need of force 

 and directness in proceeding. It is the only way to have 

 at some future day strong and tempered weapons for our 

 contests with disease. 



It is perhaps proper in connection with this to point 

 out to the attention of physicians the remarkable proper- 

 ties of the alkaline borates and silicates recently disclosed 

 by Dumas. These salts, which exert no very striking 

 poisonous influence upon superior organisms, are on the 

 contrary fatal to the microscopic beings and the subtile 

 agents, organized or formless, which take an undeniable 

 part in infectious diseases. Experiments made quite late- 



