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DARKNESS AT HOME: ALSO, CAUSE, PREVENTIVE AND CURE OF >l ASIATIC CHOLERA. 

BY H. J. HULCE, M. D. 

THE WISE READ AND THEN JUDGE. 

Why have every age and nation slumbered over new truths, and died uncheered by the light and genial rays of past experience? Is it because almost every improvement has eclipsed the fame of those in power, or inpinged upon their daily income? Are self-aggrandizement and money the fulcrum and lever that move the world? Are the main arteries of civilization only filled by slow and insensible percolation in harmony with the fame and interest of those who sway the press, the grand machinery that charms and beguiles the public ear? Has the infantile mind of every age been thus trained and fettered, to suit the fancy of designing persons, before its mental powers were developed or enlightened? Observe the influence upon a youth that has been reared and rigorously schooled under any particular form of government, morals, or profession — Induce him to sing and pray the sentiments, bow and kneel to the altar ©f any religious denomination, and you will start his physical constitution and habits so far in advance of his mental, at this plastic poriod of hi-? life, that you daily shape or mould his mind, and finally chain it to a certain standard or ring beyond which it can seldom if ever step. Thus communities, nations and empires, as well as professors of the arts and sciences, authors of books, and physicians scattered over the world, have been shaped, or moulded and chained; and they in their turn are shaping or moulding and changing in this subtle manner, plastic mortals to suit their fancy or interest. An honest eclectic reformer, (not botanic or steam) with fair physico perceptive powers, causality, comparison and benevolence, is willing to learn his duty from any and every source, and then faithfully discharge it — to travel through the storm of ignorance, envy and strong opposition to advance the happiness and prosperity of mankind. He soars above the crude elements of professional strife, and is free from the dogmas and trammels of scholastic speculation. He looks not upon the varied phenomena of life with superstitious awe, or reprehensible supineness, but through the sunbeams of cautious induction, step by. step, resolves into first principles and arranges in a systematic order, side by side, each individual element. He measures all things with the analytical rule 



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of practical observation and experience: Thus having correct data or base line to start from, and compare with, he faithfully records the rigid deduction. But he that will not see his error, is unfaithful to himself, to society, and to his God. He fixes a low estimate upon himself, upon society, and human happiness. He looks down, instead of up, to secure a seat; and then supinely floats down the common stream with the floodwood, trash and scum, with the useful and useless of every grade and hue, gathered by the tide of time from the dikes, sewers and ravines along its low, sandy and overflowing banks. Eeformers, who build safely above high-water mark, upon the rock of truth, have always been, still are, and always will be the beacon-lights of the^*orld — the life of every useful art and science — the salt of every civilizexNand independent nation. Look you to the illustrious reformers in government, morals, and religion, who adorn the brightest pages of the world's Mstory — yea, behold the few master-spirits of medical reform marching against an empire of colleges and courtiers, measuring mind with mind, and redeeming a deluded world from professional bondage, torture, and premature death — not with the sword of malice or intrigue, but with the demonstrative blade of facts and reason. Annihilate this spirit of free inquiry, of progression, onward and upward, and as suddenly would every torch-light of civilization and religion, feebly glimmer over the waste of human ignorance and superstition, and every star that now so brilliantly shines over our free and luminous horizon, would be eclipsed by the barbarous penumbra that would mantle the world. 

For upwards of two hundred years a large and respectable class of mankind have been rocked to sleep in the medical cradle of cupidity, during their childhood dreams, and knowing nothing, they were excusable for believing anything. Hence they have been unconsciously drilled into one common road of thinking, not by correct data and reason, but by parrot conversation, praising and recommending, they know not what: and often compelled to employ calomel doctors or none at all, or submit to the most shifting and hazardous practice, many times against their own judgment or wish from past experience. At other times, like young birds, open their mouths and gulp down whatever the doctor orders, however poisonous or deadly. How common to hear doctors condemning strong or poisonous medicines, at the same time daily exhibiting or prescribing calomel or blue pill in every case, however mild, very frequently acitate of lead, sulphate of copper, zinc, arsenic, and the like. The patients believe these are mild and entirely safe, forgetting that familiarity with the serpent's tooth, does not destroy its virus. In this manner the popular world continue to creep and cringe in the dark, close by the side of their medical guides, through weal and woe, until they have been shocked or powerfully alarmed by startling facts, and dread realities arising from this ruinous and fatal practice. Who employ the Homoeopathic with his billionth part of a drop or decillionth part of a grain at a dose? The hocuspocus placebo. Who employ the Hydropathic or Steam doctor as he may fancy hot or cold, as though man was all skin and nothing but skin? Who employ the German, Indian, or root doctor? Who use patent medicines or nostrums? And finally, who dread the calomel physicians more than the disease? The disappointed, the pennyless and ruind; the last echo of sad experience. Then like a weary traveller on the verge of the morning, an obscure gleam of light begins to dawn upon them — then they begin to see that their medical mentors are human, fallible, and erring mortals, influenced by money and fame, using every power of mind and means to suppress a reform in medicine by pouring terror upon a 



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credulous community, and refusing to hear or practically learn; thereby barring and shutting out all means of correct information, then publicly trying to preach or sneer according to their capacity, or write down or privately whisper away, by misrepresentation, a better, safer, and more scientific system of practice. Why? because they have begot and nursed a babe of their own fancy, and notwithstanding its profligate career, their parental bowels of mercy yearn for this perfidious dolt. 

But all those who have passed through the school of sad experience, are determined to think for themselves, and establish a practical, safe, and healthy reform in medicine. Ist. Because the old Faculty have no correct pathology or science of disease. 2d. Because their Materia Medica is a mere collection of imperfect observations and one-sided experience. 3d. Because of their hazardous and too often fatal use of the lancet. We need no stronger proof that the old school have no correct science of disease, than the multifarious and discordant opinions expressed by their authors, professors, and disciples confidently believed by one, and as boldly denied by another. I ask their best and bravest veterans, their wisest and best historians to point out, if they can, one single disease in the arbitrary and almost boundless catalogue filed off into class, order, genera, species, and variety by Sauvage, Cullen, John Mason, Good, and others, from the days of Hypocrates down to the last made text book that does not contain as much fiction as truth, and upon which any two agree. This may seem so startling, I shall give a few brief examples, nor will it be necessary to go into the labyrinth of human maladies as their palpable deficiences are in bold relief upon the very threshold of their pathology. Fever, the medical touch-stone, their opprobrium medicorum, — examine the humoral doctrine of Boerhaave on typhus fever, to be removed by purgatives. Then mark its overthrow by the doctrine of nervous debility by Cullen, to be cnved by tonics and stimulants. The physician had no doubt of the nature of the disease, the only question was, whether the patient could bear quantum sumcit to consummate a cure! Reaping much disappointment, this was overturned by the cerebral doctrine of Clutterbuck, and the sanitary powers of cold effusion, it being simple and easily aptplied. The strong testimonials in its favor bore down all opposition, and the physicians now fancied they had chained the formidable monster. — But, alas! the hydropathic chain soon evaporated — lpaving the patient to struggle, gasp, and die in the arms of anxious friends— .mocking the boasted knowledge and vacant stare of sapient doctors — inscribing in its march Ichabod upon the walls of their colleges, and fiction upon their libraries. Next came the gastro enteric doctrine of Broussais, leeches, gum water, and for a short time, the lancet. These were eclipsed by the omnipresence of the dothinteric of the French masters and others of the present day. Thus revolution succeeded revolution, respecting a disease of the most decisive and urgent symptoms and quite common occurrence. One theory and practice right and defended to day; wrong and condemned tomorro — overturned by the weight of direful experience, and only remembered to distinguish those who can learn in a dear school from those who cannot or will not; or as datum of worthless wrecks of antiquity, like the crumbling walls and moss-grown ruins in desolate lands — serve as mementoes of errors and follies of past ages. 

Again, on the very confines of chronic diseases we not only observe prefatory confusiou and egregious empiricisms, but fatal blunders, outstripping the most extorsive credulity. To illustrate, we shall single out consumption. Desault attributed its frequency to the use of vinegar. Galen considered vinegar the best preventive. The celebrated Stahl 



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charged its common occurrence to the use of Peruvian bark. Morton, equally celebrated, considered bark the best remedy. Reid and others said mercury frequently induced consumption. Brillonet and many of his compeers extolled mercury as the best remedy. Dr. Beddoes recommended fox-glove as a specific ; Dr. Pair condemned it. Rush said consumption was an inflammatory disease, to be met with the lancet, purgatives, cooling medicines, and starvation. Salvadore said it was a disease of debility, curable only with tonics, stimulating medicine, and generous diet. But time would fail us to speak of Laennec, Johnson, Liston, Hall, and Baillie, the celebrated medical teacher and author, who swayed the medical scepter over London, after he retired, openly confessed he had no confidence in physic whatever. Professor Gregory acknowledged to his class that ninety-nine out of every hundred medical facts were only so many medical lies — and that medical doctrines were for the most part little better than stark staring nonsense. Thus groping and experimenting in the dark. In this way thousands are annually slaughtered in the quiet sick-room. Remember this. Can any art or science, based upon truth with the least logical precision, ever exhibit such a protean face? And what is more astounding? It is equally true, that if the inquisitive fears of the community were to bring the actual state of the present science of disease and remedies of the Old School to the bar of public view, and there plainly and fairly array before the mind of every man and woman, the continual imposition upon the public, played off by the vanity and interest of physicians, along the mystic road of fiction, which always .allures, and draws more listeners than logic or truth, thereby giving to the mediocrity and often to the positively weak the leading influence; nor are the folly and confusion scarcely less remarkable in any other medical topics of their art. We prove this by their general vagueness of opinion respecting the nature of disease in the onset, progress, acme, and decline. Like the fish which muddies the water to hide in, they cover their ignorance with such dreggy terms as nervous, bilious, dyspeptic, spasmodic, and the like; nor is it possible ever to advance until they deduce pathological principles, by correctly observing the rise, progress, and systematically exploring their causes, seats and effects. 

Again, we have remarked that their Materia Medica is a mere collection of partial and one-sided experience, from premature, hypothetical, and eutapian attempt to generalize medicine, from assumed and imaginary properties; from fallacious facts and reasoning— the ligitimate offspring of error. 

Every tyro knows that when he has anything like principle to guide him, his prescriptions are extremely limited; and all learned professors know that when they cannot read intelligibly the language of disease, or in their prescriptions trace satisfactorily the operation of each element upon each other, and also upon the living system, they accumulate with empirical rapidity. Their long catalogue of opposite and incompatible remedies recommended in many diseases is prima facie evidence that the first is likely to fail, and that each in regular turn may be required without benefit, and often with serious and irreparable injury, thus guessing, groping, and experimenting on suffering, deluded, and unfortunate beings, from mere probable data, not a priora but a posteriora. Will you prove this? Let every family or person who employs a physic cian to treat a chronic or stubborn disease, open one eye and know what is first prescribed, (in plain English), then observe how often the doctor changes his opinions and prescriptions— trys one thing, then another, and: 



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so on through his worn catalogue; and finally recommends a patent medicin — thus beginning with what he knows little, and ending with what he knows less. Then open the other eye and behold the similarity between regular and irregular quackery — both running through their catalogue of specifics of merely different remedies. Look at plain, every-day facts, and see if the old and once popular fashion of physic is not a blind routine practice, with a few unsafe, remedies in nearly all diseases however dissimilar in nature. Take from the regular quack — calomel, blue pill, tartar, opium, quinine, sugar of lead, and the lancet; and from the irregular quack his specifics, and see if they will not be compelled to close doors. Then ask the regular quack where is all his boasted skill, learning, and knowledge of all the light and experience of past ages up to the present time, — true he has other things, but see if these few remedies in some form do not constitute his chief dependance — -his first thought — bis only confidence. Now, to see and feel the bane of error, we must have a glimpse at truth; some people must have a calomel doctor, however ignorant, while others must have a root, yarb, or steam doctor. Man, however, is a microcosm, a little world of machinery within himself, some one or more of his organs from birth may have been imperfectly developed, or in after liie may become weaker than another, inasmuch as these organs are numerous and complicated, each having its own specific office to perform, which cannot be done properly by another, — for the Great Architect of the universe never created a useless orgar, hence the nervo-electric and sanguiferous fluids must be maintained in equilibrio to regulate and support motive power and temperature to give life and health. All machinery, therefore, is governed by fixed laws, without which it could not exist. Suppose then, for example, we have a watch to repair — say the balance wheel is out of order — would it not be gross quackery to work at the main spring to rectify the defect? or if the hair-spring was in fault, would it not be folly, and positively injurious, to file and work at the verge? So with man; he has a great variety of organs that perform distinct functions, one or more of which may be out of order — 1 shall name the liver. The only organ as yet discovered and developed to the world by the Old Faculty, and so imperfectly made as to always require mending. This troublesome liver -whether guilty or not saves the physician and patient the trouble of learning or thinking about any other organ; hence the universal round with calomel and blue pill in all diseases however widely they may differ. You should remember that the liver may become torpid, or too active, or obstructed, or modified in action, — or the bowels may become obstructed, too active, or too slow, or changed in action. The same is true of every other organ in the human fabric. 

How learned, profound, sublime, and useful the immortal discovery that calomel or blue pill will fulfill all these indications in one organ much less all of them. Who has thought of this palpable absurdity? a thing it never has, cannot, nor never will do. What! correct morbid action in all our organs, remove obstruction, increase action when too slow, and diminish when too fast. Is not this just what authors profess to do with their patent medicines, which the faculty ridicule and the wise reject, saying that which is good for everything is unsafe and good for nothing. Hence the sick who never reason, but catch at every bubble, are drawn into the common whirlpool of regular or irregular quackery, and if perchance they escape with their lives, call it a cure, or if they die, their friends say all was done for them that possibly could be — they were salivated or kept constantly sick with tartar and morphia or bled ten or fifteen times. 

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If mankind could see and keenei" far to feel, They succored the hand that unsheathed the steel; Thus nursing and defending the fatal dart, That drew the last life drop from the throbbing heart. 

I do not deny the power of calomel, tartar, etc., or the lancet. Ample experience has demonstrated these facts, but their untoward effects, as well as utter impossibility for us to decide whether they will do good or harm, and their almost universal use render them not only unsafe but absolutely disease-creating remedies. True, many compound them, thinking by firing a great profusion of shot it will be very extraordinary if some do not hit the mark. What better is this than the sick Mandarin who consults ten or twelve doctors, then swallows at one dose all that each prescribes separately. Are there not professors of colleges, physicians of hospitals, as well as many popular doctors who prescribe patent pills, nostrums, extracts of sarsaparilla, that have actually given their cirtificates recommending the same; some of which are compounded with not less than twenty different articles. Is this science? Only think of it. Learned doctors prescribing for an intelligent community, patent nostrums, pills, syrups, — incompatible, heterogeneous, unscientific, spurious, and absurd compounds; or chained to medical obedience, like the ancient Egyptians, following with unvarying exactness the visionary mandates of their books or medical codes however inapplicable, being mere automatons worked by the wires of some favorite authors or professors, without one single idea of their own. You laugh at the deluded Chinese or Homeosugar patient; you ridicule the steam and pepper patient; you pity the German, root, or botanic patient; and well you may. At the same time see if the beam in your own eye is not more dangerous than any. 

Will you be informed that at least one-half of the deaths upon the old mineral plan, and at least two-thirds of the lingering diseases in America, may be justly ascribed to the use of calomel or poisonous minerals, and the lancet. I refer to corrosive metals and not metalloids-. The world do not know that the old school have acknowledged and recorded in their medical books, that calomel and blue mass can produce, at a distant period after its exhibition, a slow poison or incurable disease in any organ of the human system. See Dr. Hamilton on mercurial diseases, Dr. Alley's observations on hydrargyria, Dr. Falconer's animadvertions, Dr. Pearson, Porfessor M. Hall, Professor Jackson, of Philadelphia, who exclaimed, "Oh! horrid, murderous quackery; cannot the verriest fool give calomel and salivate, and with a moderate practice, soon lay the foundation for a good business during life." Fathers, mothers, readers, will you think of and remember this? But we have heard enough about calomel, blue pill, etc. — and so says the sinner about sin. 

Abandon their common use, and we shall cease to warn you of their danger. Dr. Blackhall, of Exeter, an honest observer, says that parents have something to regret in giving calomel to their children as a common remedy. The depressing effect of calomel on the whole nervous system proves its poisonous qualities — producing hereditary, scrofulous, and many other diseases attended with the most lamentable consequence — this no one with truth can deny — for calomel is not only a poison in large doses, but in doses of two or three grains. There is no article in common use which so immediately and permanently, and to so great a degree, debilitates the stomach and bowels as calomel. Will you remember this? Dr. Hamilton, jr., found inflammation and alterations of the inner coats of infants and young children that were physiced or poisoned with calomel. It has often been found sticking to inflamed 



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patches of the stomach and bowels; see Orton's essay on cholera in India. Mothers, remember this, and suffer no one, however infatuated or well-meaning, to poison your friends or children. Remember I have referred you to page and date for the proof. Who would believe that calomel, blue pill, or mercury often produces asthma, neuralgia, tremors, paralysis, blindness, apoplexy, hypochondriasis, rheumatism, destruction of the soft bones of the nose, palate of the mouth, covering of the bones, malignant eruptions of the skin, also of the head, rottenness of the bones, ulcers of the lungs, resembling consumption, incurable headache, incurable liver-complaint, incurable dyspepsia, destruction of the teeth, eating like a cancer the glands of the throat and lips of the mouth, in a word, taking an iron grasp upon the constitution, and tormenting the poor sufferer like a seven-headed and ten-horned serpent, to drag out a short life of extreme anguish and pain, and die a wretched death. In fact a full description of calomel or mercurial diseases would fill a large volume, to say nothing of those produced by other poisonous minerals, the effects of which cannot always, or even in the majority of cases, be seen, until sometime after they have been taken; requiring time and circumstance to develop slowly and imperceptably, like the growth of grass or decay of matter. 

The Lancet. — Diseases induced by the lancet, say the practitioners of the Old School, such as Darwin, Hunter, Travis, Hall, Blundell, Broussais, Reid, etc., are paroxysms resembling gout, lock-jaw, dropsy, amuretic blindness, palsy, mania, dysentery, fever, frequent and febrile pulse, for which they bleed, repeating at each periodic return; producing convulsions, slow and protracted convalescence, irreparable shock to the constitution, and death. All that bleeding can possibly do is but temporary aid in regulating temperature, which can certainly be done better, more permanently and entirely safe, with other means. The Old School bleed to cool the patient, and to warm the patient, and to counteract the bounding flow of blood, and when it does not flow at all, and when the patient is bleeding to death. Could any quack do more? Why continue any longer to creep and cringe along a tedious, dark, and dangerous road, when we can travel a short, light, easy, and safe one? Who doubts that Washington, Byron, Harrison, and thousands of others, great and small, have received their death-warrant written with their own blood and the lancet? Hemorrhagic development does not depend upon plethora or fullness of blood, but upon arterial exacerbation and debility of the sanguiferous tubes in particular regions or organs, hence their increased vascularity. One of Professor Dewees' strongest cases in faver of bleeding may be found on page 340. This learned author was called to Mrs. 8., January ]sth, in the morning, and again at 5 o'clock in the evening She had slight chills, which were followed by an active pulse; she was bled; ice and snow applied externally, and took forty-five drops of laudanum. The next day the morning paroxysms were not so conspicuous, but at 5 o'clock in the evening the whole scene was renewed, viz: chills and fever, also bleeding, ice, snow, and 45 drops of laudanum; this medical warfare soon interrupted the regular type, consequently a young man was placed at the bedside to watch and bleed the moment he perceived an increase in the pulse, and repeat the ice, snow, and laudanum; in th» manner she was treated for seven days, during which time she was bled seventeen times, and lost one hundred and ten ounces of blood. "O temporal O mores!. To cure a chill of the double tertian type with its incidental concomitants, which could have been, and others of the same kind still can be safely and pleasantly cured, in two or three days. How 



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long will mankind remain in darkness upon the important subject of physic? Think of this in health and reform at once, and do not wait until reason is dethronod by sickness, and friends become alarmed and know not what to do. 

Intellect with all her poetry, rhetoric, and strength of logic, may paint in dazzling colors the sublime and awful grandeur, and present, at one view, upoo the broad canvass of fancy the stupendous creations of omnipotence; geometry may settle their altitude; numerical figures record their measure; and the eye ef chronology collate their empires, number, and strength of battlements, since the mass was first piled together, and then give the ages they have bowed and roared to the storm, or warbled to all the melodies of a summer's evening. Yea, the philosophic mind may contemplate the maternal productions, growth, decline, death, and eremacausis; nay, he may even gaze over the battlements of time and behold the magnificent procession of worlds and systems of worlds in its grand march, foreshadowed upon the dial of eternity; but he never can calculate or measure the awful ravages in past times, on the bodies of millions who repose beneath the cold clod of the valley, or travel down the vista of time and lift the curtain, and paint on our moral and intellectual horizon the dark deluging horrors and desolation which await mankind, if calomel, blue pill, the lancet, etc., are not speedily arrested in their furious march of devastation and ruin. 

Cholera stormed the fortress of the old school, defied the heroism of their veteran?, and their best and bravest were compelled to succumb before the dreaded pestilence, which traversed the inhabited portions of the world, devastating hamlets and cities, and kingdoms, almost unimpended in its march. Should not their blood curdle in their veins, and their pulse stand still with grief and humiliation, from the paralyzing conviction of the appalling delinquencies and degrading rivalry in their art? Are there not tests for all things? Take from the mathematician his five fundamental rules, and he will say you have my oracles. Take from the chemist his apparatus and test, and he will gay you have blown out my lamp. Take from the philosopher or logician his datum, and he will say you have my base line. But take from the world at large their mere opinions, on any subject arising from the arts and sciences, morals, politics, or religion, even from the ignorant and degraded Ethiopian, conceited Chinese, Hindoo, involved in darkness, or superstitious son of the forest, and each would exclaim, you have undressed and demolished my gods, what have I more? Some men choose to reason from facts or well-established principles, and others from fiction or hasty and blind opinions. Still a third class are merely gilded images reflecting the opinions of their superiors. I shall state Ist, that diarrhea is the type of cholera; 2dly, how to prevent it; and 3dly, how to cure it. Cause and effect govern all nature; hence given causes produce specific effects, and like causes like effects. All the corporeal blessing and mental joy we ever have, are caused by obeying certain organic and mental laws; and all the physical and mental anguish we suffer is caused by disobeying those laws essential to health and happiness, which are selfactin — rewarding obedience and punishing disobedience. Obedience and happiness are linked together, so are disobedience and suffering, throughout God's vast dominion. If life and health depended upon chance and chaos, we could not exist one hour. But God has given certain ascertainable lawt with definite and unerring sequence, to preserve what He has made to pass through their successive stages of development, maturity, decline and exit. No disease, then, without adequate cause. Diarrhea is caused, so is cholera. The matter discharged from the bowels has given rise to different names, such as feculent diarrhea, bilious, mucous, chylus, lienterjc, dysentery, cholera mfantum, which is analogous to cholera morbus of adults, or cholera, only differing in region and tissue of the bowels effected, or grade of development. This is known by its general character, symptoms, causes, preventives, and general mode of treatment when successful, only differing to meet incidental 



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and local peculiarities or concomitants. In fact, diarrhea, when of short duration, or it terminates abruptly, always ends by a sudden or protracted waste of the serum in the alvine discharges, diminished renal and cuticular excretions, coldness of the extremities, collapse and death. This I have observed in the last stage of consumption, malignant scarlatina, and several other forms of disease. I will defy, therefore, the best anatomist on earth to tell, from post-mortem appearances or pathological changes, whether the patient died of diarrhea, cholera infantum, cholera morbus, or cholera; for each, when fatal, exhibits the same increased and diminished, or arrested functions; the same organic lesion, the same general phenomena. The vessels of the head, lungs, and internal organs, are filled with dark blood, and the gallbladder is usually engorged with bile. You ask, then, why does not cholera rage and prove equally fatal every year? Are not inflammatory, intermittent, congestive, gastric, malignant, and its anomalous varieties the same disease in type? but is every grade equally common or alike fatal every year? Again, is not scarlatina simplex, scarlatina anginosa, and scarlatina maligna, the same disease in type? Some seasons the latter sweep of the young, and the former the adults, like chaff before the wind. All diseases are caused, and they can be prevented by avoiding the causes. For example, President Casuality inquired of the Organic Law how many he would naturally destroy by cholera in India, during three specified years. He responded as follows: all of a bankrupt and low grade of organic power and irrigular habits; all unable to resist the weakest foe to health; which we will suppose were about 1,000,000. At the expiration of this time the number amounted to 40,000,000. The President then questioned the verity of the Organic Law, who explained as follows: that no law could transcend its limits; but while doin? my work, the doctors and their physic killed the balance. What! cholera panic kill any one? Need I tell you that the minutest capillary through which the vital current flows, is under the influence of mental perturbation. Do you wish to make an audience tremble with anxiety, thrill with horror, startle with amsze, shrink with awe, or vibrate with sympathy? Learn the magic influence of controlling mind. Nay, intense grief, terror, etc., may increase, diminish, change, divert, or arrest the excretory and secretory functions, paralyze the action of the brain, heart, and lungs; induce redness and paleness of the face, coldness of the extremities, congestion, cramps, and often death. The primary cause of diarrhea, with all its grades of development, is hot rainy weather, alternating with cold. The sudden expansion and contraction of the skin, strongly sympathize with the brain, lungs, liver, and intestines, enfeebling and deraging their normal functions. Moreover, during the wet seasons, the water is stro igly impregnated with earthy, saline, and other foreign matter; h^nce on muddy water courses, also in cities watered from muddy streams, loeseness of the bowels will be most prevalent and fatal; also, fruits and vegetables in rainy weather are more acid and watery than in dry; crude and indigestible food of all kinds, acids in the stomrch, from the liver, skin, etc., inducing thirst which urges repeated draughts of cold water; gross sensuality, gluttony, drastic, poisonous, or enormous doses of medicine, or whatever may inordinately increase the action of the alimentary canal, kino and ideo-miasm. I will remark, that all d.seases either increase, diminish, become malignant, mild, or disappear in harmony with the laws of their existence; hence, when putrefaction takes place in a living subject, as in small-pox, or some grade of measles, typhus, ship, hospital, and gaol fevers, it becomes transmissible. Mark me, putrefaction must take place before death, while the motive power of life wars with disease, thereby arranging the particles of matter in a particular order, which produce a specific virus, To understand this, yon should recollect that the ultimate atoms of bodies do not penetrate each other, but are arranged, side by side, in a certain order. The physical and chemical properties of all compounds, therefore, depend entirely upon their order of aggregation. Change this order, and cause their atoms to combine in a different mariner, even with the same element, and you will have a different compound. Take, for example, oil of turpentine, oil of rosemary, oil of juniper, and essence of lemons. These organized bodies are composed of the same elements in the same relative proportion, but how widely do they differ in their 



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specific gravity, odor, medicinal effects, etc. A lady admires the fragrancy oi the crystallized part of the oil of roses, but spurns the carburetted gas employed for lights. How noxious the one; how delisious the other; both, however, contain exactly the same elements in the same proportion. You may startle at this, but remember that the entire number of individual and simple substances, which constitute every thing known in the earth and on the earth only amounts to about fifty, yet observe the countless variety of forms, colors, and modes of existence, compounded from this small number — and still more remarkable: strike out one-third of this number, and its influence would scarcely be felt or known by the world. Disease, therefore, is not a unit as supposed by some, or countless, as supposed by others. When diarrhea, cholera, and many other forms of diseases attack filthy and reckless persons, in crowded, filthy, and ill-ventilated rooms, literally crawling in their own slime, with not only shattered constitutions, but their food and drinks containing the seeds of disease, as well as every breath they draw, vitiated and poisonous, all in a direct line with the laws of putrefaction or motive power, arranging the particles of foreign or innate matter during life, as already explained. This demonstrates that diseases induced by remote or exciting causes, may, under particular circumstances, become contagious. Avaunt, then, with the puling quarrel about contagion and non-contagion — one charging everything to malaria, another to some other particular hobby. 

Doe« not this explain how cholera traveled with the emigrants in vessels to America in 1832, and to New York and New Orleans in 1848; as there was not one single case in either city until vessels arrived with cholera patients bound to those ports. True, great little men, and little great men, gilded images, parrots, &c., will say A nursed B, under all the circumstances; I have proved that this and other diseases may become transmissible. Short-tighted and contentious beings. Do they know that C. was never vaccinated, but nursed D., who had the small-pox, without receiving it? Does this prove smallpox not contagious? Do they know that man, in a particular condition, cannot be salivated, or take small-pox, perhaps the most highly contagious disease known, much less those feebly so? Do they know that when the organic or motive power predominates over the causes of diseases "they fall harmless at his feet? Lose sight of cause and effect, law and principles, and you will as suddenly guess and grope in the dark. 

All diseases are induced by their influence of cause upon the motive power: in this way some diseases occasionally cure others. All medicines kill or cure by their influence upon this power, either by atomic arrangement or by irritating and poisonous aggregation united or in contact with our organism; in this way we change the constitution for better or worse. This principle is the key to the phenomena of salivation and all kinds of poisoning, or classes of disease, whether natural or artificial. It shows the absolute necessity for congenial food and medicine, the direct and positive penalty of their infraction, and no possible chance for escape, however well-meaning the parties. TI j.i i.-. a • a. .• i _._j _..j- _ _r 

I have thus briefly given you the particular seasons and ordinary causes of cholera; also, how it as well as typhus, ship, hospital, and jail fevers may become contagious. To this add its presence, the panic, daily chat, physic, &c, and you will have a bird's eye view of all the folly, confusion and mortality. If captains of vessels would keep them dry, clean, and well-ventilated, use good wholesome diet, and fresh water, freed from excess of earthy, saline or foreign matter; or the world at large avoid the causes already named, by cleanliness, and temperance in all things, cheerful minds, and especially avoid cholera gossip and cholera medicines, the disease would be scarcely known. 

Character of DiarrJiea. — Sometimes vomiting, frequent stools, thinner than natural, generally copious, griping, common and not unfrequently cramps in the extremities; always coldness; renal and cuticular excretions diminished. The cholera stage exhibits the same general character, in a much higher degree in this stage. We have sudden reduction of the serum and albumen of the blood, from the profuse whitish watery discharges from the bowels; the brain is de. prived of its stimuli; the pneumogastric nerves become paralyzed; the heart loses its power; the extremities cold; the blood becomes too thick to circulate, being mostly fibrin, it clots in the veins; the arteries are emptied; the system 



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collapses; the machine runs down; its functions cease. Now strike out vomiting and purging and you will neither have diarrhea nor cholera: add them, and increase their intensity, and you can have any grade you wish. The indications of cure, therefore, are simple and plain. We must stop the discharges, stimulate the brain, give power to the engine or heart to increase the volume and momentum of the circulation — warm the extremities, and induce free perspiration; restore the serous and albuminous waste; correct the renal, cuticular, and obtund the acrimony of positive and negative secretions, and support the strength of the patient — in a word, restore the equilibrium of the nervous and sanguiferous fluids. This can be done in various ways, but we should select that practice which is safe, certain, prompt, pleasant, and taxes the constitution the least. M To avoid a long and uselesiretory about stages, I shall remark that you may measure out the m&ch'cim? and means sufficiently free to meet the force of disease or impressibility^) f the patient — and never forget that stopping the discharges from the bowels and inducing free perspiration is an infallible guide to push the medicine and means until both are accomplished. Then the patient will be out of danger. 

Treatment for Diarrhea. — Add two teaspoonfuls of paregoric, half a teaapoonful of salseratus, two tablespoonfuls of best French brandy to half a cup of strong spice tea, or what is better, the Thomsonian spice bitters; sweeten with loaf sugar: — Dose one-third, half, or all, to be repeated two or three times a day, or sufficiently to meet the exigency of the case. Bathe the feet and encourage moisture — this will seldom disappoint you — and for bowel complaints generally, and especially children, in teaspoonfuls, or suitable doses, repeated through the day until entirely well. 1 believe it has no parallel. If theie should be a bilious or constipated tendency, regulate the bowels with castor oil and turpentine, and if necessary, add paregoric. Common dose for an adult, two tablespoonfuls of castor oil and thirty drops of oil of turpentine. Recollect when spoons, tumblers, &.c-, are named, I allude to those of an ordinary size. Should the case prove obstinate or be more urgent, in addition to the course already described, you may give one pill every 2 or 3 hours during the day until relieved. 

The diet should be light, such as sago, fine gruel, ground rice, toast, tea, and the like. No acid or cold drinks, or cold air, but as much warm, mucilaginous, mint or spice teas as you wish. Sometimes vomiting is the first symptom; if the ejections are acid phlegm, bilious, or indigestible food, give an emetic of ipecac, and ground mustard, each one teaspoonful; salseratus half a teaspoonful; add all to one tumbler of warm water. Dose, one-half, and the balance in 5 or 10 minutes, to be followed by one or two tumblers of lukewarm salt and water. Repeat , if necessary, until the stomach is thoroughly cleansed, then give a little fine gruel, and treat as a common case. 

I believe the discharges from the bowels may be checked at any time with injections of laudanum, of one or more teaspoonfuls, lard and warm water each one pint. 

Perhaps in the majority of cases emetics will not be required. The retching and vomiting may be checked with paregoric, two teaspoonfuls; salseratus, half a teaspoonful; cold water, half a tumblerful; sweeten with loaf sugar. Dose, one tablespoonful every 15 or 30*ninutes until relieved: then *reat as an ordinary case. But in very bad cases, the vomiting and purging may be excessive, and require prompt and bold means. To check the vomiting in such cases, you may rub on* 1 or two ounces of drops A* over the region of the stomach' abdomen and spine, then apply a large mustard plaster over the region of the stomach and liver. Cover the patient with blankets and desire him to remain quiet upon his back. At the same time use brisk friction over his extremities with spirits and hot water, equal parts, strongly impregnated wifh salt, cayenne and sal soda, salseratus or soap. Rub dry, and apply around him bottles 

* Formula for Drops A. — Oil of turpentine two ounces; tine, of cayenne two ounces; laudanum one ounce; mix. I usually make tinctures double the strength of the shops. 



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or jugs of hot water, and give three pills or powders every ten or 15 minutes, (without rising up), also, two teaspoonfuls of drops B,* in two tablespoonfuls of French brandy; if not handy, use spice tea, until he perspires freely. If the stomach rejects the pills, repeat at longer intervals. Keep up the perspiration with mint, fine gruel, or mucilaginous drinks, giving from time to time the pills or drops, if necessary, from three to ten hours. Wipe dry, occasionally, (under the cover) and always rub dry when you change his linen. 

The patient should remain in bed from one to four days, depending upon the severity of the case. Give cayenne half a grain, quinine and ext. of dandelion each one grain, every 2 or 4 hours daily, until he is entirely well. About the second or third day, gently move the bowels with oil and turpentine, to be repeated until the bowels Aome regular and healthy. If, at any time, there should be colic, weight or heaviness about stomach, or scanty and high colored urine, take one teaspoonful of drops B, three or four times a day in horse-mint tea. 

Formula for Fills. — Bird-eye, cayenne, quinine, opium, extract of logwood, each 2.0 grains; syrup of gum arabic, sufficient to mix — make into 24 pills; or omit the syrup, and make into 24 powders. 

I might speak of collapse, when the patient is generally abandoned as dead. If you wish to know what can be done in such cases, you may rub freely and briskly over his chest, stomach, abdomen, and spine, three or four tablespoon • fuls of drops A. Then apply a long mustard plaster between his shoulders, and another over his entire chest and abdomen; then use brisk and well-directed friction, over the extremities, with spirits, hot water, salt, cayenne, and salsoda as previously directed. After which, introduce with considerable force, up the bowels, with a large syringe, the following compound: — To one quart of warm water add three ounces of drop A., two tablespoonfuls of salt and mustard, and surround him with bottles or jugs of hot water. Then pour, for some thirty or sixty minutes, from the height of three or four feet, a small atream of water (as warm as you can bear your hand in) upon his forehead, temples, and top of his head; and as soon as he can swallow, give ten pills, also drops 8., and brandy as directed, until he perspires, then continue as al. ready pointed out. Without note or comment, try it. 

Jan. 3, 1849. 

* Formula for Drops B. — Oil of turpentine, olive oil, spirits nitre, and pare- goric, each one ounce; mix.