HINTS TO THOSE GOING TO KIMBERLEY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2189, 20 July 1886, Page 3

HINTS TO THOSE GOING TO KIMBERLEY.

The following notes from a tropical traveller will be m\d with interest by all who intend paying Kimberley a visit :— The diseases most to be feared by the Kimberley miner are fever and dysentery. For fever they will want quinine in full doses (20 grains, repeated if necessary the same day, and continued in smaller doses for a week or ten days). If they cannot get quinine, I believe an effectual substitute may be found in the leaf of the red gum or ironbark, if they grow about Kimberley. Failing them I should try the eucalyptus. A handful of leaves boiled for ten minutes in a pint of water, and then allowed to stand for an hour, will make a drink whioh may be taken once, twice, or even three times in the course of twenty-four hours. I treated thirty-seven cases of malarious fever in this way in a very malarious district, in New South Wales, and in every case the fever was " cut " (as we used to say in the WestIndies) in twenty-four hours. But after the fe\er has stopped it is absolutely necessaiyto continue the same dose for a week, or the patient will have a relapse. I believe it would be a very good precaution against fever to take a drink of eucalyptus tea daily instead of Chinese tea, The flavour in quite the same, but it. ia all a matter of taste. Dysentery, and the worst form of it (scorbutic dysentery), is sure to attack the camp unless they can get supplied with fresh vegetable food or limejuice. Of course any wild fruit that is not poisonous or any edible herb, will prevent scurvy. It is no use telling intending diggers to take a few ounces of the seeds of easily grown garden plants, such as lettuce, mustard, radish, and suchlike, .because they will only laugh at the idea, but they will find it no laughing: matter when they are laid upjWith dysentery, and have the option of either dying at Kimberley, or being carted 300 miles to Derby. If I were going, I should get an ounce bottle of Howard's quinine, jam it down into one-fourth the space it occupies in the bottle, and fill up with a box of 48 pillu, each containing one grain of extract of opium, and one of powder ipecacuanah, a box of good antibilious pills, and a small (2 drachm) phial of the stron^^t homoeopathic tincture of arnica. Tnuart might all be got into the quinine bottle. Then I would re-cork it, re-seal it, and never open it again until I was at the diggings, for myself or anyone else. I would wrap it round with several folds of lint, cover it with oiled silk, put it in a small tin case, and suspend it. round my neck by a strap, and ne\er part from it night or day. The arnica (half a teaspomiful to a pint of water) will telicvp any sprain or bruise to which it is applied, if the sk*in be not broken. For wounds, or where the skin is broken, the 'digger has the finest antispptie m the world growing all round him. Wash the wound well with a decoction of eucalyptus lca\es ; put a racr dipped in the decoction all over the wound, and surround with a thick layer of bruised fre^h leaves. You will thus keep out insects and keep the wound under antiseptic influences. On the whole, were I young, strong man, of temperate habits, sound constitution, and with £150 in my pocket, I would certainly try my luck at Kirn barley. One can but die once, and it is not by excessive care and anxiety about one's physical health that we English Iwe carried our flag into every corner of the glnbp. I candidly confess that I don't think much of your extremely prudent young men, who are afraid to brave hardship; or even death, for a sufficient cause.

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