CURE FOR DIPHTHERIA.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 229, 4 March 1875, Page 3

CURE FOR DIPHTHERIA.

The correspondent of a Victorian exchange furnishes the following as a certain cure for diphtheria :—"Take half a pint of good ordinary vinegar (not the white vinegar manufactured from wood), into which put as much camphor as will lie on a half-crown, well powdered with a hammer ; mix and boil together in a small saucepan. When boiled it is fit for use immediately, either for an inhaler or to place about the neck. For an inhaler the said quantity can be boiled twice or thrice; for the constant wetting of the neck rag it does not require more boiling, neither to be kept warm. It rarely happens that a second half pint of vinegar is required. Instructions: Should the patient be very young, or too feeble to move about, drop the lotion on the rag while on the neck, so as to keep it wet, until the patient is able to swallow liquids freely ; it can then be removed finally. Let the patient's age be what it may, promptly apply the above as soon as difficulty of swallowing is felt, or enlargement of the glands of the neck is perceptible. If the patient is old enough to take an inhaler from the spout of a tea-pot, it is prepared by boiling the mixture, placing the same in a tea-pot, from the spout of which the patient is to draw into the mouth the steam and swallow as much as possible. The inhaler and wet rag together often removes the disease within six hours, so that all sense of strangulation departs, be the disease however severe. Quinsey, and all other sore throats, will readilv succumb to this inhaler."