A Case of Asiatic Cholera, with Remarks

The following table has been most carefully prepared for me from cases under my care in the Native Hospital, by my Assistant, Mokoda Churn Sein, and illustrates, among other matters, the fact I have already referred to regarding the condition of the left side of the heart immediately after death from cholera ; confirming the observations of the late Dr. F awe us as to this cavity of the heart being as full of blood as the right side when the post-mortem examination is speedily made after the death of the patient. This table also illustrates, clinically, the relation between the loss of weight of a patient suffering from cholera and the amount of vomiting and purging, and seems to indicate that it is not those patients who continue to vomit and purge frequently in cholera that recover, but, on the other hand, that those who rapidly loose weight, or, in other words, who are constantly being purged, most often succumb to the disease. I do not conceal from myself the fact that in estimating the weight of a person under these circumstances, as evidence of the rapidity of loss of fluid from the body, we are bound to consider the weight of water or food consumed, and the loss of fluid by perspiration and into the bed clothes My object is not to bring forward these cases as scientific data, but simply, in a clinical point of view, to assist us in determining if there is any connection between the rapidity in the loss of weight andthe death-rate of those suffering from cholera ; for in this way only shall we settle the disputed point