As this disorder, like several others, does and will sometimes terminate
fatally, in spite of our every effort and means to control it, it is wise
to adopt precautionary measures to prevent its approach. The delicate,
and those who are susceptible of colds, should avoid exposures to
draughts as much as possible, and the change from heated apartments to
cold atmospheric air. On the first appearance of cough, they should have
immediate recourse to the Balsam before recommended, to deterge the lungs
from the obstructing matter—which matter impedes a free respiration,
irritates and occasions cough, and ultimately produces the disease. When
the disease has further advanced, the Balsam may be regularly taken in
the dose of a tea-spoonful, three or four times in the day, mixed with
honey (dissolved by heat, and separated from the wax to which it is often
combined). The patient must avoid all indigestible meat, and take
nutritious broths, jellies, &c., and refrain from spirituous liquors, as
he would from a poison. He ought to take gentle and moderate exercise in
the early part of the day, when the weather will permit. Whenever a
disposition to constipation arises, it should be obviated by the
occasional use of mild laxatives, and a salutary relaxation must on no
account be checked.
In addition to the Balsam, and what will be preferable to jellies, is a
beverage made of an infusion of marshmallow root, which may be freely
taken throughout the day for common drink, (made warm when drank;) but no
means, however excellent as auxiliaries, will supersede the necessity for
the regular use of the Balsam, which imparts to the lungs a healing
quality, after it has deterged them from the mucus which clogs their
cells and air-pipes.
It was the opinion of the learned HIPPOCRATES, the Father of Physic, that
in lingering diseases, a slender and insufficient diet was a dangerous
course to pursue; and that a more generous treatment was uniformly
necessary in such cases. The strength of the patient should never be
reduced, but on the contrary, whatever will yield nourishment to the
debilitated system (always avoiding overloading the stomach) may be
taken, with a course of the medicinal remedial means herein referred to.
Those patients, particularly, who inherit an hereditary predisposition to
this complaint, in whom there is a great tendency to debility, should
observe an invigorating mode of living; always giving a decided
preference to those articles of diet, which they have uniformly found
best to agree with their stomach; {10} and that the organs of digestion
may not be impaired by the performance of double duty, due attention
should always be paid to the proper mastication of the requisite supplies
of food, that its dissolvent principle—the saliva, may be incorporated
with it, during that important act.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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