t of the
poison, and to stimulate the heart and general circulation, and draw
on the reserve nerve force. It is best to procure medical aid to wash
out the stomach, but when this is impossible, the patient should be
encouraged to swallow plenty of tepid water and then vomit it. If
there is no natural inclination to do so, vomiting may be brought
about by putting the finger in the back of the throat. The same
process should be repeated a number of times, and the result will be
almost as good as though a physician had used a stomach tube. A
teaspoonful of salt or tablespoonful of mustard in the water will
hasten its rejection. Then the bowels should likewise be emptied. If
vomiting continues this will not be possible by means of drugs given
by the mouth, although calomel may be retained given in half-grain
tablets hourly to an adult, until the bowels begin to move, or till
eight to ten tablets are taken. When vomiting is excessive, emptying
of the bowels may be brought about quickly by giving warm injections
of soapsuds into the bowel with a fountain syringe. Brandy or whisky
in teaspoonful doses given in a tablespoonful of hot water at
half-hour intervals should follow the emptying of the stomach and
bowels, and the patient must be kept quiet. He must also be kept warm
by means of hot-water bags and blankets.

=INFECTED FOOD.=--A frequent source of illness is infection by disease
germs transmitted in food. The meat of animals slaughtered when sick
with abscess, pneumonia, kidney disease, diarrhea, or anthrax
(malignant pustule) carries disease germs and causes serious illness;
so does the meat of animals killed after recent birth of their young,
and probably having fever. Oysters may be contaminated with excrement
from typhoid patients, and may then transmit the disease to those who
eat them.

Milk from diseased animals, or contaminated with germs of typhoid
fever, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, etc., is apt to cause
the same disease in the human being who drinks it.

If such infected food is eaten raw, the diseases with which it is
contaminated may be transmitted. If subjected to cooking at a
temperature of at least the boiling point, comparative safety is
secured; but the toxins accompanying the disease germs in the infected
food are not as a rule rendered harmless. Treatment must be directed
to each disease thus transmitted.

Poisoning resulting from eating canned meats has sometimes been
attributed