DIPHTHERIA AND CROUP CURE. Details of a Dangerous Case-Something Which is Worth Trying.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 118, 5 September 1885, Page 6

DIPHTHERIA AND CROUP CURE. Details of a Dangerous Case -Something Which is Worth Trying.

In a report to the French Academy of Medicine, Dr. Delthell stated that the vapours of liquid tar and turpentine would dissolve the fibrinous exhalations wfcich choke up the throat in croup and diphtheria. He described the process thus : " Take equal parts (say two tablespoonfuls) of turpentine and liquid tar, put them into a tin pan or cup and Bet fire to the mixture, taking care to have a large pan under it as safeguard against fire. A dense resinous smoke arises, making the room dark. The patient immediately seems to experience relief; the choking and the rattlo stop ; the patient fall 3 into a slumber, and seems to inhale the smoke with pleasure. The fibrinous membrane soon becomes detached, and the patient coughs up microbiedee. These when caught in a glass may be eeen to dissols r e in ths smoke. In the course of three or four days the patient entirely recovers." The above information has been quite largely copied into the papers, and with it the relief and cured iii Locfcwood, a nine-year old child, who was dat.gerously sick with diphthar a, but the disease readily yielded to the above mode of treatment, and the child was cured. A case occurring in Bostcn recently is worthy of note at this particular time, when the two forma of disease are quite prevalent. The facts in the case, in brief, are as follows : Jennie Brown, a child of some five years of age, was dangerously sick with diphtheria ; he.* attending physician had no hopes of her recovery ; he declaied to a person" that out of the many cisea under his treatment three M r ere beyond cure, and little Jennie was one of that number. The father of the child had read cf the above treatment, and, on his own responsibility- and that, too, without consultation with tho attending physician —he obtained the mixture, taking two tablespoonfuls of each, but he now considers that one of each would have been sufficent, and there would have been less danger of burning the carpet, etc. The child was in bed, breathing so loud that it could be heard all over the house ; but as soon as the tar and turpentine began to burn she was ! relieved, and breathed quite freely, and soon commenced to cough and raise ; and to the fathei's surprise and delight she commenced to gain from that moment. He followed up this treatment for three nighty, the attending phj sician approving it, and the child to-day is well The other two children alluded to above did not have this form of treatment, and they are numbered with the dead. This remedy may not be an infallible cure in all cases, and with all persons, but surely it could do no harm in cafes that have been given up as incurable by medical men. The father said that he would advise the removal from the apartment where this treatment is to be applied of all articles that would be likely to be injured by the smoke of the ingredients, before setting fire to the mixture.— "St Louis Globe-Democrat."