Ixxxiv Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XV. 
PERMANGANATES AND OTHER DRUGS IN THE TREATMENT OF 
CHOLERA. 
The success of the hypertonic saline injections in enabling 
the collapse stage of cholera to be largely overcome opened the 
way to a trial of drug treatment such as had never before been 
possible; for it is clear that unless the circulation can be res- 
tored and maintained drugs given by the mouth will not even 
be absorbed, and can have no chance of exerting their beneficial 
action. Great care is required to make such tests reliable on 
account of the numerous sources of fallacy in estimating the 
effects of a given treatment. For example, I found from an 
examination of the Calcutta Medical College records of the eleven 
years before I commenced my new treatment that the case mor- 
tality was 66-7 per cent in the first quarter of the year, but steadi- 
ly declined to only 46°7 per cent in the third quarter. Again 
in a Karachi epidemic the death-rate in the first one hundred 
cases was 79 per cent, and in the last one hundred only 40 per 
use specially printed forms, the regular filling in of all the 
headings and columns of which ensures completeness of the 
notes in every particular—the two series can be compared as 
regards all points which previous studies have shown to be the 
causes of the high mortality. To takean example of this method 
of investigation, the late Sir Lauder Brunton, some years ago 
SESE f 
conclusive results. I therefore gave the drug hypodermically 
in addition to the routine treatment in every other case 0 
cholera in my wards for a whole year, with the result that the 
mortality was much lower in the atropine series, while a care- 
comparison of the two sets of cases as regards their severity 
showed them to be strictly comparable. I have therefore 
added atropine to my system of treatment with, I am sure, 
beneficial results. In a similar manner emetine was found to 
be useless in cholera. 
