CHOLERA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2404, 27 September 1892, Page 3

CHOLERA.

The following directions have been approved by the Melbourne Board of Health, and ordered to be printed ready for distribution if necessary : BOARD OF PUBLIC HEALTH. CHOLERA. Cholera is fatal in about half the severer cases. Looseness of the bowels, unattended it may be with pain, comes on generally within three days, often within a few hours of exposure to infection. When this has continued for a few hours, or a few days, violent vomiting and purging set in, so that an enormous amount of fluid (like whey or water in which rice has been boiled) is discharged ; there are severe griping pains in the bowels and cramps in the muscles, especially of the legs, great thirst and prostration, and 1 the patient rapidly sinks. There may be only Diarrhoea throughout and recovery, and the patient may recover even when collapse is marked. Cholera is due to entrance of particles of the discharge of a cholera patient into the body as a result of taking water, milk, or food contaminated directly or indirectly (through the air) so that it is a filth disease, and will prevail were filth prevails, and is not infectious, in the ordinary sense. Therefore in order to avoid this disease, protect the water, milk, food, and as far as possible, the air from liability to pollution and in particular : 1. Boil all water you drink for half an hour, or at least filter it through either a Chamberlain-Pasteur or a Jeffray filter either of which can be obtained in Melbourne. Spirituous liquor added to foul water do not destroy its foulness. 2. Take no drinks of any sort, no ice, no ice cream, unless satisfied that the i water or milk or both (as the case may be) used in the manufacture of them has been boiled or filtered. 3. Take milk only from persons who satisfy you that cleanliness and wolesomeness prevail throughout the service by which milk from healthy cows is brought to your door, and always thoroughly scald it by floating it for half an hour in water kept boiling. 4. Thoroughly wash in wholesome water all fruits (even dates) and vegetables. 5. Keep your foods from foul air, from dußt, and from filth laden flies. 6. Keep your house thoroughly clean. Allow no dampness, or defilement of soil with any sort of foul m.ttter whatever about your house. Whitewash in the house and outhouses repeatedly. " Apply chlorinated lime to the drain and to all unclean surfaces every day. Keep your house thoroughly ventilated, and do not allow any pipe conveying wash water, slops or other sewage from your house whether the pipe be trapped or not, to discharge directly into any closed receptacle, whatever, or into any closed outdoor drain. 7. Obtain if possible the double pan service, by which a clean pan is placed in the closest at frequent intervals. Apply dried earth or other deodorant to the pan at least daily. 8. See that the closet and rubbish box are scavenged at regular and frequent intervals. 9. Keep children from playing about the closet, over and in the gutters, in the right of way and in the street, as also from making mud pies, and from taking food with dirty hands. 10. Keep animals out of your house; they convey filth from all quarters. 11. Open letters from a place infected with cholera in the open air, and do not keep such letters unless first soaked for an hour in methylated spirit or an absolute alcohol. Notify the receipt of parcels and packages from the infected house at once to the council of your district, so that they may be opened under the advice of the officer of health. All articles of bedding and clothing from an infected i house should either be thoroughly washed or if possible, be soaked for an hour in a solution of one part corrosive sublimate (a deadly poison) in a thousand parts of water. Cholera is aided in its deadly effects by every condition that lowers the system. Therefore in addition 12. Take only simple and digestible food, avoiding such articles as salted meat and uncipe fruits. 13. Avoid all excesses in eating, drinking, taking of exercise or otherwise. 14. Wear wool next the skin to prevent chilling. 15. Take only mild purgatives if any be required. Fear, too, lowers the system. There is but little occasion for fear, so long as you see that the precautions herein stated are observed. Treatment.—lf there be cholera in the country, looseness of the bowels, unless obviously due to some other cause than cholera, and no matter how slight it be, demands immediate attention. Give at once a dose of oompound chalk and opium powder, as sold by the chemists, and allow but little fluid to drink. If the looseness continue for three hours give another dose, and at once seek medical aid. Keep the patient warm in bed in an isolated room, and for three full days after the looseness stops, and feed the patient on arrowroot, beaf tea, and boiled milk with a little brandy. In the second stage, when there are viole it vomiting, intense thirst, and prostration,give drinks freely and ice if possible ; rub the cramped muscles, and maintain the heat of the body by warm applications (ho!; water bottles, &c). All clothing and bedding must be kept as clean as possible, and all articles soiled by vomiting p,r excretal matters must at pncc bo put into water and boiled, or be soaked for an hour in a cold solution of 1 part of corrosive sublimate in 1000 parts of water in a wooden vessel.