A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 3 : $b Diseases of the respiratory, circulatory, and hæmatopoietic systems
Science
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 3 : $b Diseases of the respiratory, circulatory, and hæmatopoietic systems
Medicine -- Practice
The large mortality in croup and the inefficiency of remedial treatment
have been the reasons why the recommendations of remedies have been
very numerous. Alkalies were held in great favor during different
periods of our literature, mainly the carbonate and bicarbonate of
potassium (and sodium), in daily doses, to a child, of ½ drachm or 1
drachm or more; also the chlorate of potassium or sodium. As an
adjuvant it may be useful; as an antidiphtheritic or antimembranous
remedy it must not be regarded. What it can do is to heal or prevent a
catarrhal stomatitis and pharyngitis. The best and most reliable is
probably the iodide, in larger doses than are usually given. One or two
drachms daily (grammes 4.0-8.0) are well tolerated when sufficiently
diluted. Benzoate of sodium was recently recommended for its supposed
antifermentative and antibacteric effect; its practical utility is but
very limited; not even its antifebrile effect is anything but reliable.
Lime-water has not fulfilled in my hands the promises made by
others--neither its internal use nor spray nor inhalation. The most
certain mode of introducing lime particles into the larynx is, after
all, the inhalation of slaked lime, which allows a quantity sufficient
to be somewhat effective to enter the respiratory organs. Its
comparative inefficiency has been acknowledged by those who add 1 per
cent. of the liquor of caustic potassium or sodium to the lime-water.
Quinia, in doses of 15 or 30 grains (grammes 1.0-2.0) daily, has been
recommended by Monti for the same indications, mainly in the
commencement of febrile cases. It has been claimed that cold
applications, to be changed every hour or two according to the
Priessnitz or hydropathic plan, had a great power in macerating and
disintegrating mucous membrane. Many of the successful cases of these,
as of all other specialists, are undoubtedly the result of the
convenient substitution of a grave diagnosis for a milder one. The
effect of such applications in laryngeal catarrh, like that of warm
applications, is undoubted. Vesicatories applied to the neck over the
larynx are never {106} useful--frequently injurious by the sore surface
becoming the seat of a pseudo-membrane.
Inhalations of warm vapor are decidedly beneficial, but atomized water
is not of equal value. Thus, Richardson's atomizer is not so useful as
Siegle's inhaler or other apparatuses working on the same plan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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