Minor ailments : their medical and surgical treatment / by a medical practitioner.

Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Minor ailments : their medical and surgical treatment / by a medical practitioner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    139/208 (page 127)
    In the last stage the spasm subsides, and expectoration becomes easier. Favourable cases reach this point in about three weeks; but often the disease persists for two months or more with relapses, and convalescence is pro- portionately difficult. Treatment.—Under favourable conditions the treat- ment of whooping-cough may be regarded as expectant; that is, attention is directed less to arresting the course of the disease than to relieving the more trying symptoms and preventing the appearance of complications. Hygienic surroundings and a nutritious readily-digestible diet are also important factors in the treatment. It is unwise to confine patients to a single room, though they should be protected from changes of temperature and isolated. Robust children may go out in fine weather, provided rain, the east wind, or too low a temperature do not render such a course manifestly dangerous. When the paroxysmal stage is established, the food should be liquid, or at most uniformly pulpy ; and when vomiting is a constant ac- companiment of the cough, it is given as soon after the attack as possible. The little patients require constant attention, not only for the reasons usually recognised in children's ailments, but because they are frequently much distressed during the attacks, and some one should be present to soothe and comfort them. In the catarrhal stage, simple expectorants; in the spasmodic, anodynes; and in the latest stage, astringents and restoratives—this may be said to sum up the whole medicinal treatment of pertussis. A long list of remedies has been recommended in whooping cough, and some have been put forward as specifics; it is very doubtful, however, whether a substance possessing such influence on the course of the disease has yet been discovered. Among the expectorants, ipecacuanha, and sometimes antimonial Avine are most suitable. Poulticing the chest and back also sometimes gives relief to the pulmonary symptoms. At the end of the first stage solutions of carbolic acid (} per cent.) and peroxide of hydrogen may be given, and the use of sprays for the atmosphere of the sick room is frequently adopted ; probably plenty of warm