DIPHTHERIA AND CROUP CURE.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1601, 16 September 1885, Page 2

DIPHTHERIA AND CROUP CURE.

■» In a report to the French Academy of Mediciue, Dr. Delthell stated that vapours of liquid tar and turpentine j would dissolve the fibrinous exhalations which choke up the throat in I croup and diptheria. He described | the process thus : •• Take equal parts (say two tablesspoonfuls) of turpentine and liquid tar, put them into a tin pan or cup and set fire to the mixture, taking oare (o have a large pan under it as safeguard against fire. A dense resinnos smoke arises, making the room dark. The patient immediately seems to experience relief ; the chokiug and the rattle stop ; the pati nt falls into a slumber, and seems to inhale the smoke with pleasure. Th<- fibrinous membrane soon bconies detached, and the patient coughs up luiorobiedes. These when oanjht in n 7»s Buy be seen to dissolve in the smoke. In tho course , of three or four days the patient ■■ntirely recovers." The above information has been i qnite largely copied into the papers.

and with it the relief and cure of Ruth Loch wood, a nine year old child, who was dangerously sick with < i 'litheria but the disease readily yielded to the above mode of treatment, and the child wag cared. A case occurring in Boston recently is worthy of note at this particular time, when the two forms of disuse are quite prevalent The facts in the case, iv brief, are as follows. Jennie Brown, a child of some five years of age, was dangerously sick with diptheria; her attending physician had no hope 3of her recovery ; ha declared to a person tbat out of the many cases under his treatment three were Iwyond cure, and little Jenuie was one of that number. The father of Uie child has i>ad ofthe above treat-iuent,-U)d,ouhiso\vn responsibility and that, too, without consultation with the attendiug physician— he obtained tlie mixture, taking two tshiespoonfuls of each, Hat he now considers that one of each would have been sufficient, and tune would have been less danger of burning the carpet, etc., The child was in bed, breathing so loud that it could be heard all over the houee * but as soon as the tar and turpentine I began to burn she was relieved, and breathed quite freely, and soon com menced to cough and raise : and to the father's surprise and delight she eomm-nced to gain from that moment. He followed np tbis treatment for thi'-e nights, the attending physician approving it, and the child today is well. The other two children alluded to above did not have this form of treatment, and they are numbered with the dead. This remedy may not be an infallible cure in all cases, and with all persons, but surely it could do no harm in cases that have been given np as incurable by medical men. The father said that he would advise that the removal from the apartment wbeie this treatment is to be applied of all articles that would he likely to lie iujured by tlie smoke of the ingredients, before setting tire to the mixture.— « St. Louis Globe-Demo-crat.