Chloride of Ammonia 2 drams
Fluid Extract of Licorice 2 drams
Distilled water 20 ounces
Mix. Teaspoonful every two hours or longer.
3. Ammonium Carbonate 1/2 dram
Syrup Senega 4 drams
Wine of Ipecac 3 drams
Syrup Totu 1 ounce
Spirits of Chloroform 3 drams
Syrup of Wild Cherry enough to make 4 ounces
Mix. Take one to two teaspoonfuls every hour or two until better.
[RESPIRATORY DISEASES 37]
4. Ammonia Chloride 2 drams
Hive Syrup 5 drams
Paregoric 6 drams
Syrup of Wild Cherry 4 ounces
Mix. Teaspoonful every three hours until cough is better.
5. Many other combinations could be given. Hoarhound tea. Sugar enough to
sweeten makes a good cough remedy.
6. Onion syrup is good for children. The bowels should always be kept
open.
BRONCHIAL ASTHMA. (Spasmodic Asthma.) Causes.--It occurs in all ages, but
usually begins in the young, particularly males. It often follows
whooping-cough. It may come from diseases of the mouth such as adenoids,
polypi. Exciting causes are change of climate and residence, dust, smoke,
odors, errors in diet, emotion, and cold.
Symptoms.--The onset is often sudden, often during the night. Difficulty
of breathing is intense. The patient cannot lie down, but often sits at an
open window, resting the elbows on a table. The face is pale and the
expression is anxious. There is a feeling of great oppression in the chest
and often dread of suffocation. Respiration (breathing) though labored, is
not unusually frequent, as expiration (out breathing) is much prolonged.
In severe or prolonged attacks there are blueness, sweating, coldness of
the extremities, with small and frequent pulse and great drowsiness. The
attack lasts a few minutes to many hours, and may pass off suddenly,
perhaps to recur soon, or on several successive nights, with slight cough
and difficulty in breathing in the intervals. The cough is nearly dry at
first and the sputum is very tenacious.
MOTHERS' REMEDIES. 1. Asthma, Raspberry Tincture for Adults.--"Take a half
pound of honey, one cup water; let these boil, take off the scum; pour
boiling hot upon one-half ounce lobelia herb and one-half ounce cloves;
mix well, then strain and add one gill of raspberry vinegar. Take from one
teaspoonful to a dessertspoonful four times a day. Pleasant to take." The
above remedy is very effective, as the honey has a soothing effect upon
the inflamed parts, and the lobelia causes the bronchial tubes to dilate,
relieving the patient. The raspberry tincture makes it more pleasant to
take. In severe cases it will be necessary to give enough of the above
remedy to cause vomiting which relieves the phlegm.
2. Asthma, Simple but Effective Remedy for.--"Take pieces of ordinary
blotting paper and saturate it with a strong solution of saltpetre, then
dry the paper. When a paroxysm is felt ignite a piece of the paper and
inhale the smoke. This remedy is very good and acts quickly, doing away
almost entirely with the distressing symptoms and shortens the paroxysm."
[38 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]
3. Asthma, Lobelia Tea for.--"There is no medicine that is half so
effective as lobelia in removing the tough, hard ropy phlegm from the
asthmatic persons." This remedy is very good, but care should be taken not
to give it to consumptives, because it is too weakening. To obtain the
best results, enough of the remedy should be given to produce relaxation
of the bronchial tubes. Dose.--For adults should be from fifteen to sixty
drops according to the strength of the patient. This will cause a little
sickness of the stomach and vomiting, thus relaxing the muscles and
relieving the asthma.
PHYSICIANS' TREATMENT for Asthma.--1. Inhale chloroform, or break a pearl
of amyl nitrite in a handkerchief and inhale the fumes; or smoke saltpetre
paper; or cigarettes containing stramonium (thornapple). Sometimes hot
coffee fumes are good.
To Prevent Recurrence.--Take five to twenty grains of iodide of potash
three times a day. Do not eat much at night. Do not eat foods that cause
gas or that are hard to digest. A change of climate is often good. Hot
foot baths and hot drinks are helpful. Tincture of lobelia can be given in
severe cases, fifteen drops repeated every half hour until the patient
feels sick at the stomach.
2. Vapo-Cresolene burned in a room is very good. This can be bought in
twenty-five cent bottles in any drug store, with directions around the
bottle.
3. Tartar Emetic in one-hundredth grain, two given every half hour until
there is a little sickening is a very good remedy. These can be bought at
a drug store or from a homeopathic doctor or pharmacist.
BLEEDING FROM THE WIND-PIPE AND LUNGS. (Haemoptysis).--This is a spitting
of blood. It may come from the small bronchial tubes and less frequently
from the blood vessels in the lung cavities or their walls.
Symptoms.--In incipient consumption of the lungs, bleeding develops
suddenly as a rule, a warm salty taste, lasting but a few moments,
generally preceded by the spitting up of blood. The blood is coughed up
and the bleeding may last only a few minutes or it may continue for days,
the sputum being apt to remain blood-stained for a longer time. The
immediate effect of the bleeding is to alarm the patient and family, no
matter how slight it may be, inducing heart palpitation and other nervous
symptoms. A small bleeding is not attended with any bad result, but large
ones give rise to the symptoms of shock (sometimes immediate death)
combined with anemia following the loss of blood. When the bleeding is
large, blood by the mouthful may be ejected with each cough, and in these
instances of such profuse bleeding is shown by dizziness, faintness, cold
extremities, excessive pallor, sweating and rapid, small feeble pulse.
This is followed, if the attack does not prove speedily fatal, by
restlessness, and later by mild delirium and some fever. In few cases does
the patient have a single bleeding; more frequently there are several at
shorter or longer intervals. Large or small bleedings may precede by
weeks, months, or even years any rational symptoms of consumption.
[RESPIRATORY DISEASES 39]
Quantity.--This varies greatly. There may be less than an ounce or it
might amount to a pint or more before the bleeding stops. In advanced
cases, in which large cavities have formed, large blood vessels may be
eaten through and this followed by copious and alarming bleeding.
MOTHERS' REMEDIES.--1. Bleeding from the Lungs. Salt Water for.--"Give the
patient half a teaspoonful of common salt every hour or two until
hemorrhage abates."
2. Bleeding from the Lungs. Herb Tea for.--"Two ounces each of bistory
root, tormentil root, oak bark, and comfrey root, boil in three quarts of
water down to one pint, strain and add one tablespoonful of ground ginger.
Give a wine glass full every half hour until relieved. Place the feet in
hot mustard water, keep the bowels open with a little senna and ginger tea
and if necessary give a vapor bath,"