A New Cure for Diphtheria.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6786, 25 September 1893, Page 2

A New Cure for Diphtheria.

In the Normandie Miklieale of Rouen there is an interesting account of a new, and so far wonderfully successful, treatment of diphtheria. Ib appears that in the village of Neuville-Champ-d'Oisel, about nine miles from Rouen, a malignant type of the disease broke out last year. The country docter, M. Frederick Flahant, treated the cases in the usual way, but the deaths were numerous. Remembering, he says, that the English use petroleum as an anti-spasmodic and an antiseptic, he determined to try it as an experiment. His first trial was in the case of a little girl seven years old. He had already given her up and proposed to the parents to make the experiment, which consisted iif swabbing the throat with common petroleum. He had little hope of the success of his new method, but to hia astonishment he noticed an improvement after the very first application. He continued the treatment, and the child recovered. Then he tried it successfully with the other patients. This year he had 40 cases of diphtheria to treat, and he was successful in every one. In order to be perfectly sure that the cases in question were genuine ones of malignant diphtheria, he had the expectorated matter submitted to the analysis of Professor Francois Hue, of the Rouen College of medicine, and the professor reported that he had clearly discovered the presence in it of numerous bacilli of diphtheria. Moreover, his diagnosis was confirmed by Drs Deshayes, Lerfait, and Ballay, of Rouen, the last named beiug the physi-cian-iu-chief of the hospital of that city. The treatment presents little difficulty or danger. The swabbing is done every hour or ever two hours, according to the thickness of the membranes, which become, as ib were, diluted under the action of the petroleum. The brush, after being dipped in the petroleum, should be shaken to prevents any drops falling into the respiratory channels. The patients experience relief from the very first application. The disagreeable taste of the petroleum remains for a few moments only.

At New Plymouth there ia apathy on women suffrage, only three women having placed themselves on the roll up to yeaterday. Captain Russell says that there were 25 Ministers of Public Works in 22 years in New Zealand, of all sorts of professions, from journalists to auctioneers, and not one of them was fib to run the railway department properly.