A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of local therapeutics / edited by Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    109/554 (page 97)
    elsewhere in the body. Some degree of force is required to dis- engage morbid secretions of the pharynx and larynx; when these are excessive, water should be thrown by the use of compressed air from a hand-bulb, from a small steam boiler through atomizing tubes, or from a syringe. The compressed air also drives minute drops of water among partially detached epithelial cells, and aids in separating the products of diseased action from the parts to which they are adherent. Copious flushings, with slightly medicated or diluted solutions driven from a ; domestic syringe, is recommended by J. C. Mulhall. (Tr. Amer. Laryng. Asso., 1889, 118.) This writer uses water as a topical agent, especially in Diphtheria. It should be used every hour, in the waking state, as above indicated. The patient must not be permitted to rest 1 more than three hours without it. Irrigating the surfaces of the pharynx in Tonsillitis with the ordinary carbonated water (sold under the name of soda water), permitting it to flood the throat through the ordinary syphon bottle, has been proposed by S. Johnson. {Ibid., 144.) A. H. Buckmaster {N. V. Med. Jour., Jan. 22, 1887) has successfully i treated cases of Acute Submucous Laryngitis by douching the larynx I with water at 120° F. After scarification of the inflamed tissues, the serous products are more easily expelled by the use of warm water under compression than in any other way. The remedy is valuable in QEdema of the glottis. Water, when used very hot, need not be exhibited under compression. Gargles of hot water have long enjoyed a reputation in domestic medicine for Tonsillitis. Applications to the skin of the region of the larynx are of antiquity in the treatment of Croup. B. Robinson urges its employ- ment in Epistaxis, especially when this exists as a complication of I atrophic rhinitis. The heat of steam is of advantage in local therapy in addition to the mechanical features already alluded to. It acts favorably on the mucous surfaces in Diphtheria. In suppurative Tonsillitis it favors the forma- tion of pus ; its employment is indicated in the same conditions in which moist heat would be used in favoring the formation of an abscess on the periphery of the body. Ice held in the mouth is useful in Acute Laryngitis and Pharyngeal Diphtheria. (See p. 100.) Cold compress also may be applied to the neck. C. Seiler recommends pure spring water, notably, the water of Cres- son Springs, Pa., as a local remedy in Nasaj. Catarrh; otherwise, native medicinal waters or waters which are medicated are not treated of in this section. Diseases of the Eye.—Fizir {Transactions of Ophthalmological Society, 1886) claims that hot water gives better results than iced cloths 7