Patients suffering from cholera should be thor oughly isolated. Suspicious cases, too, should lc isolated as soon as possible. and their dejeetions should be subjected to a careful bacteriological examination. The vessels receiving the dejeeta should contain a 5 per cent. solution of carbolic acid, and should be cleansed with boiling water after being used. The bedding and clothing of the patient. should be disinfected by steam. or soaked for one hour in a 5 per cent. solution of carbolic acid. The room used should be scrubbed with a similar solution. and all loose articles should be either burned or sterilized Icy steam or by formaldehyde vapor. Bodies of the dead should be promptly wrapped in a close sheet saturated with bichloride of mercury or carbolic acid solution, and buried at once. Norsics, physi cians, and undertakers should disinfect their hands, faces, and clothes with the greatest care. According to a rule adopted in the United States and in Germany. all patients arriving from in fected districts should he quarantined five days; if cases of cholera have broken out among them, the quarantine must be extended a week longer.
As further preventive measures in time of clan ger, all water used for drinking or for washing table-ware should Ice boiled, and all fruit, ice, and milk should be carefully inspected.
The treatment of cholera consists in support ing the patient by opium, astringents, stimulants, heat, etc. Some success has followed flushing the rectum with salt solution, and subcutaneous injections of the same. Anti-cholera inoculation has been used with considerable success, accord ing to IlatIkine's method. Artificial immuniza tion is secured by subcutaneous injection of cultures of diminished virulence followed by in jections of cultures of increased virulence. In a series of experiments with Ilatfkine's cholera serum, made in Calcutta in 1900, where cholera has been especially fatal among the coolies em ployed by tea-planters, the results were as fol lows: Of 654 uninoculated. 71 deaths; of 402 protected with anti-cholera inoculation, 12 deaths. Thus the proportion is 3.63 to 1, and the reduction of mortality shown is 72.47 per cent. See SERUM THERAPY. Consult Wendt. Treatise on, ('bolero (New York, 1898) .