The fact that the Calabar Bean is a dangerous poison indicated a preference for Chloral. Chloral was injected hypodermically, with the effect of greatly reducing the force and frequency of the convulsions. Some aperient medicines were ordered, and at night half a grain of Hydrochlorate of Morphia in powder.
An attempt was made to take the temperature of the body, but without success, owing to the patient's extreme restlessness. July 14.-Slept dreamless most of the night, and was perfectly quiet and rational when awake. According to him, the condition of the stomach changed the effect in the elimination of the Chloroform.
The difficulty in obtaining more of the drug prevented him from following up on the good results. Three of the most important of these are keeping the patient in a room of tolerably uniform temperature, attention to the diet and the condition of the bowels. The comparative uniformity of the temperature undoubtedly exerts a beneficial influence in the treatment of this disease, and it is certain that it greatly assists other remedies.
However, she did not feel ill enough to keep her bed until the evening of the third day. In the second, third, and fourth periods of the exudation in the throat, this girl became so delirious that the attendants had to carry her under a blanket. This result was most evident, by the quantity of the false membrane which was detached and removed from.
I believe that these agents are now mostly used in diphtheria, both for the mild and the bad form of the disease. The youngest was the first to show symptoms of the disease, and three days later a significant attack occurred in the eldest's throat. I saw the first case about twenty-four hours after the first appearance of the exudate in the throat.
The iodine inhalation was used every four hours, and iodine paint applied to the tender glands in the neck instead of poultices. It removed the deposit as rapidly as it secreted, and no ulceration of the mucous membrane occurred. The mucous membrane of the pharynx was exceedingly congested, and more than half covered with large patches of deposits.
More of the mucous membrane in the throat had become exposed, clearly showing that the disease had been fought.
VICTORIAN MEDICAL BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION
249 patients under his care, and making such additions to the records of medical science as his greatest opportunities present him with the means to do. The contributors to the Alfred Hospital have an opportunity of starting their charity in excellent standing as regards medical sufficiency: but a bad beginning can ensure nothing but continued disaster. It is to be hoped that they will be able to distinguish between the qualified and the unqualified, so as to make the Alfred Hospital enter upon its existence with a reputation which may never afterwards know any diminution of lustre.
The committee would, however, urge the whole profession to the policy, if not the duty, of contributing to the fund, so far as the existence of such an association gives the best possible reason to the individual members of the profession when it is used. to obtain assistance, to disclaim responsibility for either giving or refusing, on the grounds that the association itself undertakes the functions of investigating statements made by persons requiring assistance. To the system of opening strict inquiries in each case your Committees attribute the comparatively few applications brought before them. Your Committee are crushed in the belief that the very fact that the Society is now such an admitted success will, during the ensuing year, induce a great many gentlemen to contribute who have not hitherto done so, and that the larger and more extended purposes. of the association will be more likely to be implemented.
In last year's report, your Committee referred to the possible expansion of the Association's functions, with the granting of annuities and the establishment of schools or scholarships. These excellent objects your Committee most desire to see accomplished, and, therefore, they trust that as all the subscriptions are not expended in giving relief, the contributors will not feel that their offerings are no longer necessary. As the permanent fund of the Society is now becoming considerable, it may be necessary, at no distant period, to vest it in trustees, in order to avoid the uncertainty of management resulting from changes in the Committee.
The Committee suggests that when the fund amounts to £500 a revision of the rules should be made with a view to establishing a permanent trust. After a lengthy investigation and much correspondence, and as the applicant was highly recommended by several leading members of the society, the sum of £20 was granted on the understanding that it was to be regarded as a loan, to be repaid as soon as the applicant found himself able to repay the amount. The committee, moreover, taking into account that the association's funds were fully subscribed in Victoria and were therefore intended for the relief of doctors who had practiced in that colony, refused the application.
The Board refused the application for reasons similar to those which influenced them in Case 3. As his name was not on the Victorian Register, the Board ordered inquiries to be made into the genuineness of the alleged qualifications and conditionally approved the sum when it was found that they satisfactory. And., 1865, having commenced practice in a country district about thirty-five miles from Melbourne, applied for a small loan in order to meet some immediate urgent requirements.
CORRESPONDENCE
LOCAL TOPICS
Waldie currently lives in Liverpool, but when he communicated his discovery to Sir James Simpson, he lived in Linlithgow, as I have said. Such a visit, we understand, would bring great satisfaction to the patient's friends, though their financial circumstances are not such as to afford the high fees such a trip would normally entail. In other countries, medics have traveled hundreds of miles to investigate such a case, and we trust that Dunedin's medical profession will take some interest in this case."
Meanwhile, the old mortuary is becoming increasingly filthy, and during this persistently wet weather it is so surrounded by water, that it will very soon have to be approached by boats. However, it seems that waking is not to the taste of the guards, for when Dr. Bone visited the patient at 12 last night, he found him tied to his bed with a lanyard of inches of twine, violently wound, and almost black in the face, a course of treatment that, unless checked, would probably have led to his death.
Bone immediately called a special meeting of the House Committee for this afternoon, and since the matter is therefore sub judice, we refrain from further comment. But when the decision of the committee is known, we will report the subject, together with some other facts lately communicated, which show the extent to which public charity is enforced. O'Connor, M.R.C.S., to whose case we referred in our last number, was convicted at the Supreme Court of wounding and attempting to do bodily harm, and was sentenced on the 20th inst. to nine months' imprisonment •, one week in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth months in solitary confinement.
