324 | '-B, SCHWARZBACH. 
In this short paper, which is read to a partly non-medical 
assembly, I cannot go into details about the disease as such, I 
mean about its symptomology, anatomical pathology and therapy. 
In regard to the last named let me mention, that no specific 
against cholera has as yet been discovered. In most cases the 
treatment is a symptomatical treatment. The only advance in 
therapeutics which the last epidemic has developed is the hyper- 
dermic transfusion of a 37 solution of salt in warm water. The 
manipulation of this method is much easier and quite as effective 
as the transfusion into the blood-vessels direct. This was practiced 
in a few instances by Dr. Catain in conjunction with the tannin- 
injections already introduced at the cholera epidemic of Naples. 
I have seen patients in a perfectly comatose state magically bene- 
fited by the subcutaneous or hyperdermic injection of large quanti- 
ties of the physiological salt water solution. The syrup-like 
condition of the blood becomes diluted and circulates again ; the 
previous lifeless pulse is again detectable, and after a time—involv- 
ing perhaps the transfusion of several quarts of fluid—the kidneys 
are once more active and with the re-appearance of urinary func- 
tions the danger, in most cases, 1s averted. 
Of the many would-be specifics against cholera, the plan of 
inoculating the cholera virus and trying to make the human 
system immune to infection, as is the case in vaccination to guard 
against smallpox, has claimed some attention, but nothing what- 
ever has been proved by it. An American reporter, Mr. Stanhope 
who after being vaccinated in Paris visited Hamburg and mixed 
freely with cholera patients, can certainly not be looked on in 
a serious scientific light. A cablegram told us a week or two 
ago that two German Professors at Munich intentionally swal- 
lowed Cholera bacilli, without any bad effect to themselves. 
Indeed, many people seemed to be eo ipso immune against infection 
without any precaution whatever, while with proper precautions 
there is certainly much less danger from dying of cholera during 
a cholera epidemic in town, than of dying from the effects of 
influenza during an influenza epidemic. Of the one hundred and 
