In acute cases, with much congestion of mucous membrane and scanty expectoration, small doses of perchloride are often useful. In certain cases narrated by Thorowgood, blue pill with squill was given with apparent advantage, when there was "severe cough at night, pyrexia with loaded urine, dyspnoea, some lividity of lips, difficult scanty expectoration, with rales, and perhaps impaired resonance" (Practitioner, i., 1878): this treatment is more suitable for robust adults than for the aged. In catarrhal bronchitis passing into pneumonia, frictions of the chest with oleate of mercury are said to be useful.