36 
THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
back the rebound of the temperature which is so apt to follow the fall 
produced by the cold bath. The employment of antipyrine in sunstroke, we may 
say, is not altogether new, it having been reported upon favourably in New York. 
There is one point in the treatment of sunstroke to which all hospital 
authorities should have their attention earnestly directed. Many years ago, Dr. 
H. C. Wood, in experimenting upon animals, found that if the dog or rabbit 
was immersed in the cold bath so soon as it became unconscious, it recovered ; 
but if it was allowed to lie for a few moments, the withdrawal of the heat 
almost always failed to bring about recovery. Often the animal would become 
conscious ; but paraplegia and other paralytic symptoms would remain, and death 
soon come. Clinical experience abundantly affirms this. It is certain that 
minutes, even seconds, are in the cases of sunstroke of the utmost importance. 
With the ordinary covered ambulances that are now employed by our hospitals 
there would be no difficulty in stripping the patient, at least to his underclothes, 
and rubbing him with ice, administering antipyrine hypodermically, etc., etc., 
whilst en route for the hospital. During hot weather every ambulance sent out 
on telegraphic summons from our hospitals should be provided with a resident 
physician, ice, and all necessary appliances. In this way we believe that many 
lives would be saved. In our opinion a case ot sunstroke treated immediately 
would very rarely prove fatal. 
COCAINE IN HAY FEVER. 
Dr. Gr. H. Simmons, of Lincoln, Neb., has used cocaine for the relief of hay 
fever with marked success in several instances {Medical Record , 19 th 
September, 1885). He relates the following case:--" A farmer came into my 
office about three weeks ago, and, in a discouraged manner, asked me if there 
was nothing I could give him to relieve him of that terrible suffering and 
annoyance. His eyes were bloodshot, and his looks showed that he suffered all 
that he claimed to. Every little while he would have an attack of sneezing, 
which lasted three or four minutes, after which there would be profuse 
perspiration. He complained of great shortness of breath,, exhaustion, and 
dimness of sight. There was intense itching of the nares, frontal headache, 
and severe pain in the [eyes. It was the eye-trouble that suggested cocaine 
to my mind, and as I had only a few minutes before been using a two . per 
cent, solution in a case of cystitis (and with success), I, without hesitancy, 
concluded to try it in this case. I dropped 2 or 3 minims of the solution 
into each eye, and the effect was almost miraculous. I then with a®camel's-hair 
pencil applied a few drops to each nostril and well back into the posterior nares. 
The relief was immediate and complete. I gave my patient 2 drachms of the 
solution, and instructed him how to use it. I saw him again in ten days, and 
his praises in favour of the remedy were very profuse. He had used it about 
three times a day, and thus kept off all sj^mptoms of his annual trouble. It 
was the first time, he said, for years that he had been free from it during the 
latter part of July and the first two or three weeks of August. A second case 
in which the same remedy was used was hardly as severe, but the relief was 
just as complete and satisfactory. The patient is a married lady, who has 
never found relief before without going either to the lakes or to the mountains. 
In this case I used a four per cenu solution.” Dr. Simmons has also 
employed cocaine in a five per cent, solution in equal parts of vaseline and 
castor-oil, as recommended by Dr. Grelston, of Limerick. He was successful, 
but, nevertheless, prefers the simple aqueous solution. He notes that Mr. John 
Watson, of London, lias obtained relief in his own case by the use of tablets 
of cocaine inserted into each nostril. 
