DIPTHERIA.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1083, 24 June 1873, Page 3

DIPTHERIA.

When Diptheria was raging at Castlemaine, Victoria, a correspondeat it the following to the editor of the M. A. Mail: —"Should you, or any of your family, be attacked, do not be alarmed, as it is both easily and speedily cured without going for a doctor. When it was raging in England a few years ago, I accompanied Dr Field on his rounds, both in town and country, to witness the socalled "wonderful cures" he performed, while the patients of other medical men were dropping off on all sides. Of course the remedy to be so efficacious and rapid must be simple. All that he took with him was powder of sulphur and a quill, and with these he cured every patient, withuot a single exception. He put a large teaspoonful of the flour of brimstone into a wineglass of water, and instead of a spoon ho used his finger in stirring it, as the sulphur does not readily almalgamate with water ; and as soon as the sulphur was pretty well mixed he gave it as a gargle, and in ten minutes the patient was out of danger—brimstone killing every species of fungus in man, beast, and plant, in a few minutes. Instead of spitting the gargle out as usual, ho recommended the patient to swallow it. In extreme cases, to which ho had been called just "in the nick of time" to rescue tho sufferer from doath, where tho fungus was too nearly closing to admit of sufficient breath passing to enable the patient to gargle, he blew the sulphur into the throat through a quill, and when the fungus had shrunk sufficiently to admit of sufficient wind passing to gargle, then giving the mixture, the whole occupying a few minutes only, and he never lost a patient from diptheria. If you should meet with a patient that cannot gargle tnke a live coal (stone or wood) from

the fire, put it on the Bhovel, and sprinkle the flour of brimstone upon it—a spoonful or two at a time—and let the sufferer inhale it, holding the head over it, and the fungus will die. If plentifully used, the • whole room will bo filled almost to suffocation, and the patient may walk about it, inhaling the fumes with the doors and windows shut. This mode of fumigating a room with sulphur has often cured most violent attacks of cold in the head, chest, &c, at one time.