166 THE ABORTIVE TREATMENT OF CHOIiERA. 



there were pre-existing debility, languor, lassitude, and general mal- 

 aise, without any positive sickness, or any diarrhoea, or other symp- 

 tom referrible to the bowels. 



The attention of the writer is the more drawn to Dr. Poznanski's 

 propositions, in respect to the state of the pulse in incipient cholera, 

 from a case witnessed within the last three years. A patient who 

 •was seen almost daily by the writer, had occasion to visit some family 

 relatives, at a considerable distance from his home, during hot wea- 

 ther, and whilst they were suffering from a malignant form of an 

 eruptive fever. The gentleman in question found the air of the house 

 so unpleasant that he rose in the night and spent the remainder of it 

 in the open air. Returning home, he felt so exceedingly weak that 

 he had to maintain the recumbent position for many days, without 

 any obvious symptoms more than a pulse depressed to 36 or 40, a 

 tendency to syncope on getting up, and an eruption of about six spots 

 of a measles character on the chest. Under the use of brandy, qui- 

 nine, and animal broths, he slowly convalesced. Some of the family 

 he had been visiting had died after about 24 hours illness of what 

 was termed malignant measles. The patient whose case is now re- 

 lated had previously had measles in its usual form. 



Dr. Bell, of Philadelphia, says of a patient in the first stage of 

 cholera, that " His countenance is sharp and dark. He knows not of 

 this symptom, and it is only recognizable to the eye of experience." 

 Physicians have occasionally observed it in persons well-known to 

 them, during the period preceding an attack, and have noticed, in 

 connection with it, that the subjects were particularly irritable on 

 being taxed with illness, and refused to submit to treatment. In 

 many cases, a fatal result follows such obstinacy. A case was related 

 to the writer, which occurred in this city, in the epidemic of 1849, 

 where the patient had some undefinable feeling of illness, but without 

 diarrhoea, for one day; on retiring to rest, at night, he took a glass of 

 punch, and, falling asleep, was wakened, in the morning, by cramps 

 drawing up his legs and flexing his thighs strongly on the abdomen. 

 His voice was nearly lost, and collapse, with all its symptoms, was 

 actually on him. "With prompt treatment, he recovered, and is still 

 living. A distinguished writer on cholera states that collapse has 

 even come on before any evacuation by stool had taken place. 



Very lately, M. DeWouves has published a memoir, in which he 

 states that albuminuria is present, in the urine of patients, some days 



