PEDIATRICS Vol. 62 No. 1 July 1978, pp. 122
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A CASE OF CHOLERA INFANTUM CURED BY LUNAR CAUSTIC IN 1829

T. E. C. Jr. M.D.

Cholera infantum was the name Benjamin Rush gave to the so-called summer diarrhea of infants and children. This disease was also known as "the vomiting and purging of children" or "the disease of the season" because of its regularity in appearing during the summer months.1 The mortality from this malady during the early 19th century was appalling and its treatment unscientific as this case history by Dr. Joseph Skinner of North Carolina of his daughter's illness will show.

My daughter Cornelia, aged seventeen months, was attacked about the middle of June, 1829, with the usual symptoms of cholera infantum, . . . occasional vomiting, particularly when any fluid was taken in the stomach; the matter ejected was sometimes tinctured with bile, but more commonly it was merely the fluid taken in the stomach; the bowels were exceedingly irritable, the evacuations copious, frequent, and very offensive; sometimes of a clay colour, at other times resembling coagulated milk; fever of a remittent form; skin hot and dry, &c. . . .On examination of the mouth, I found the gums tumefied and four molares [sic] making their way through, which was believed to be the exciting cause of the train of symptoms which I have described.

In the treatment of the case my first object was to remove all sources of irritation; accordingly the gums were freely scarified, and the bowels were purged with calomel and calcined magnesia and injections of common salt and warm water. This practice was steadily adhered to for several days, but failing to produce the desired effect, the symptoms of prostration fast approaching, the pulse indicating a great degree of debility, and the fever assuming a more decided remittent type, indicating the influence of miasmata,.