ontinue for several days, or only a few hours
before other symptoms set in, such as vomiting, then cramping in the
stomach and muscles of the legs, arms, hands and feet, followed by cold
sweats, great prostration, restlessness, excessive and burning thirst,
drinks being immediately rejected. These symptoms continue, the patient
sinking rapidly into _collapse_, when the skin looks blue and shriveled,
the eyes sunken, the surface covered with a cold, clammy sweat, the
extremities, nose, ears, tongue and breath cold, the voice hollow and
unnatural. This condition continues from two to eight or ten hours, the
patient regularly failing, sometimes becoming delirious before he dies.
In some cases the vomiting and diarrhoea set in simultaneously, and
the other symptoms follow, as above described, in rapid succession. In
others the cramping may be the first symptom, the others following it.
In a large proportion of cases, the disease takes the course first
described above, the diarrhoea, called the _premonitory symptoms_, or
sometimes _cholerine_, coming on several hours, if not a day or more,
before any other symptoms.
The diarrhoea is not usually painful, hence the patient may not be
alarmed so as to attend to it until the more dangerous symptoms appear.
It begins in some cases with pain and some griping, the discharges
rather consistent, having a bilious appearance, so that the patient
supposes it to be an ordinary bilious diarrhoea, which is not
dangerous, his fears being thus quieted. But however the diarrhoea
begins, it becomes sooner or later, copious, watery, and light colored,
(rice water) painless but rapidly prostrating.
TREATMENT.
In the early stages of the diarrhoea, _Veratrum_, taken about twice as
often as the evacuations occur, will frequently arrest it in a few
hours, especially if the patient lies down and keeps quiet. But if not,
and it increases in frequency, or becomes more copious, or any sickness
is felt at the stomach, the patient should, at once, be laid upon a bed
and _strong tincture of Camphor_ should be given in drop doses, once in
five minutes, for one hour or more, and as the symptoms abate, once in
ten, fifteen or twenty minutes, for six or eight hours.
A teaspoonful of the _Camphor tincture_ may be put into a tumbler of
cold water, ice water if at hand, and the water agitated until it
becomes clear, giving a teaspoonful of this camphorated _cold_ water as
a dose, stirring the water
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