344 On Delirium Tremens. 



only when the metal is subjected to a full red-heat in a 

 current of air. 



The peculiar advantage of these methods is, that under cir- 

 cumstances in which tests and apparatus cannot be procured, 

 the first stage of the processes alone may be performed: 

 the copper may be boiled in the acidulated liquids, and should 

 a metallic coating be deposited upon it, it may be preserved 

 unaltered for any length of time, and in this convenient form 

 the poison may be transmitted to the Presidency for final 

 examination. 



On Delirium Tremens. By W. A. Green, Esq., Bengal 

 Medical Service. 



The treatment of Delirium Tremens, in severe and pro- 

 tracted cases more particularly, is yet even, occasionally, a 

 matter of difficulty and doubt. With this view I have col- 

 lected together the results of my experience scattered over 

 several years, in the present record of a few cases, adding the 

 pathological condition of the brain observed in four instances 

 where death closed the disease. 



The difficulty of the treatment and the danger of the 

 prognosis are greater in the cases of confirmed drunkards 

 than where the disease occurs in younger and less practised 

 drinkers. When the disease occurs in the comparatively 

 healthy, and is presented to the physician in the state of ex- 

 citement immediately following large potations, when, from 

 the heat of skin, forcible pulse, and high excitement, the 

 disease approaches nearly to meningitis and encephalitis, 

 the case generally yields to depletion by active purgatives, 

 vesicatories and rubefacients and the application of cold to the 

 accelerated circulation of the brain, followed by opium in 

 repeated doses, or opium combined with tartar emetic, given 

 to soothe and tranquillize the irritated brain and nerves. In 

 another kind of cases alluded to above, the treatment is not 

 so clear and smooth, where the case is first seen many hours 

 after the withdrawal of the excessive, perhaps long continued, 

 stimulus, and after the subsidence of the first stage of excite- 



