THE BLOOD CURE FOR CONSUMPTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1197, 7 November 1874, Page 22

THE BLOOD CURE FOR CONSUMPTION.

A new trade has sprung up in Paris. It is called the "blood cure." The theatre of its operations is the shambles of Villette, where each morning, in obedience to the prescriptions of certain eminent members of the faculty, consumptive patients assemble for the boisson dn sang chaitd They form queues at the duor opening on the dalles dcs egoir/eurs, where one sees infantine buevers de sang, to whom the Villette treatment is prescribed in lieu of cod liver oil. When the ox is felled a butcher opens the carotid avterv, catching in a vessel the foaming red fluid which flows therefrom. It is at once passed to the consumptive patients, who are told to quaff the dreadful potion before thedecumposins; aci-m of the air takes effect. Observations made during the sitge led to this novel treatment »f consumption, which, it appears, is very strengthening Nob only bwuf saUjncmt in its most literal sense, but savcj dn heuf have, since 1870, acquired hysjienio value in the eyes i-f French doctors. Formerly it was the ri«ht thing <o stew meat to a soft pulpy consistency. The underdone roasts and beef-vualca of the English were a subject for the witticisms of Parisian jnurn'ilata and dnunatL-ts. M. Tatue, who sets up to be a serious writer, lias peened an ingenious chapter, in which he shows that the substantial character of the Anglo Saxon intellect comes of the ail-but raw meat on which we are in the habit of living. The Villette buevm de sang might open to him another wide and quite new field for speculation.— Daily News. .

So much has Ve<?n said aa to the shortcoming of tho Sat. F.anoisco mail steamers (s xstho New Z aland Time*) that it may be well now tint tho service h.is c-.-rae to a close for a tim-, to look at what the ships have, actually d.«ne. Nine complete! round vova" a hnve b<- n made. Of the outward nis-aue* i fc ia sufneieut t.i M-y tint the vtsstls invaruvUy starte I to lima fr..m Sydn. y, ami with <»ne exo^itinu, from n-w Zealand ; and that the d-lays in the delivery of the mail in Knulind arose almost invariably tv-m faults <>n the Amen an railways or at New Ymk or Boston, <>r by btiuy plac d on board slow vessel fur the Atlantic passage. The time allowed under the contract f.-r the run from San Francisco to Auckland wns G-k> hours and was <>niy twice exceeded— on both ociMsionß by the Macgn-gor. By the City of Melbourne tho run was accomplished in SSI hours; the Tartar, 610; aud the Mikado, on her last run, in 614 hours. ]< no eh ns been done to show that the tunetiblri can be kept ev«n with boats not built for the service. H-w much more easy it w-lt be to observe it when the new steamers are at work.