The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The doctor at home and nurse's guidebook / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    108/684 (page 82)
    attack may be checked in a few hours ; the air should be warm, and for this purpose a fire may be lighted, and the temperature kept up between 6o° and 63° F. There should also be a certain amount of moisture in the air, and to effect this a kettle of boiling water may be placed on the fire and the steam allowed to pass into the apartment; this may be done two or three times a day, and for about ten or fifteen minutes at a time. A warm bath before going to bed is also a most useful remedy; but the patient should be well dried, and put to bed directly afterwards, so as to encourage free perspiration. Some are in the habit of taking a Turkish bath when they have an attack coming on ; the only inconvenience in this procedure is the return home through the cold air afterwards. Unless symptoms of debility should be present, there is no call for the use of stimulants. The patient will not care to eat any solid food at first; bread-and-milk, rice pudding, or one made of arrowroot, tapioca or ground rice, broth, or beef-tea, or chicken-broth, and jellies may be given. As a rule, hot bland fluids are most enjoyed. A hot linseed- meal poultice may be placed on the chest, but removed when it becomes cold. To prevent the moisture from wetting the clothes, a piece of oiled calico or guttapercha tissue may be placed over the poultice. The patient should wear a flannel shirt next the skin. Cotton-wool laid on the chest is often as good as a poultice. Turpentine fomenta- tions and mustard poultices may be useful should milder measures fail'to give relief. Hot local applica- tions, assisted by warm and moist air (for which a bronchitis kettle, the long spout of which throws the vapour well into the room, is indispensable), and a few domestic remedies, will often suffice to cure an attack of acute bronchitis ; if, however, the disease be neglected in its early stage, and the patient be exposed to draughts and cold air, serious symptoms may arise. BRONCHITIS, ACUTE, IN CHILDREN Acute bronchitis in children is of much graver importance than in the adult, and a great deal of the mortality in childhood arises from this disease. In children the mis- chief is very apt to spread down the bronchial tubes, even to the smallest branches ; while in the adult the main branches are, as a rule, the seat of the disorder; and it is in proportion to their downward ex- tension that the relative danger lies. In children this disease begins with the symptoms of an ordinary cold, but by degrees there is more fever and restlessness ; the heat of the skin, as shown by the thermo- meter, is much above the average, the pulse rapid, the breathing quick and wheezing ; the cough is now frequent and painful, and then the veins of the forehead and neck stand out, and the face is flushed. The child feels as if the chest were stuffed ; and wheezing sounds may be felt on both sides when the hand is placed over the back or front of the chest. At bedtime, the fever and cough are generally worse, and the child is more restless. The tongue is moist throughout, the appetite bad, while there is more or less thirst. If the little patient be- comes worse, the face may be pale while the lips are rather livid ; the nostrils dilate with each inspiration, and the breathing is more hurried and difficult. Convulsions often precede a fatal termination ; gener- ally death takes place without much suffering, as the child passes