Catalogue description Folios 423-427. To: The General Board of Health. From: K H Fryer, Clerk to the Local...

Folios 423-427.

To: The General Board of Health.

From: K H Fryer, Clerk to the Local Board of Health, Gloucester [Gloucestershire].

Letter reporting the occurrence of a case of cholera, resulting in death, in the City of Gloucester. Fryer explains that the case is an isolated one 'and appears to have been imported from Southwark, where the lady had been upon a visit'. The victim is believed to have returned home 'by an Excursion Train', reaching Gloucester between twelve and one o'clock on Monday night. During that journey she is believed to have spoken of two or three cases of cholera having occurred in the immediate vicinity of the house at which she had been staying, 'and she so frequently referred to the subject as to make it evident that her fears had been excited'. Medical aid is said to have not been called in 'until a late period', and the patient, 'after sinking into a collapsed state and remaining in that condition for some hours, died at 6 o'clock this morning'. The particulars of the case are detailed in the accompanying report of John W Welton, Medical Attendant. He reports that 'starch and opium by the rectum, calomel and opium by the stomach and mustard poultice to the epigastrium were employed' and that the worst of the symptoms had appeared to subside by 5 o'clock. He adds that at this time 'much nourishment was taken and retained, with brandy'. He states, however, that 'Mrs Price did not rise' and was 'restrained without apparent suffering ... until 6 o'clock in the morning when she died'. Fryer states that the victim was the wife of a Druggist 'in comfortable circumstances, living in this city in a good newly built house, and there being nothing on the premises likely to induce the disease'.