5592. Treatment of Hay Fever

5592.      Treatment of Hay Fever. The best treatment for hay fever is change of air, to the sea-side if possible. During the attacks, antispasmodics, such as sal-volatile, ether, or an emetic, if the patient is able to bear it, inhalations of hot steam medicated with creosote, carbolic acid, or turpentine, will be found useful. When the attack passes off the general health should be improved by tonics, diet, &e.

5593. Asthma

5593.     Asthma. This disease is well known. It manifests itself in temporary fits of difficult breathing, is accompanied with wheezing, cough, a sense of suffocation, and constriction of the chest. The causes are, hereditary predisposition; cold and moist atmosphere; sudden changes of temperature; intense study; suppression of long accustomed evacuations; certain fevers; irritation of the air cells of the lungs; irritation of the stomach, etc.. When this disease is attended with expectoration, it is called humoral asthma; and when there is no discharge it is named dry asthma. It is remarkable that what will excite the disease in one patient will often prove a means of relieving it in another.

5594. To Alleviate Asthma

5594.      To Alleviate Asthma. For moderating the asthmatic paroxysm, no agent is more valuable in many cases than tobacco. A pipe often acts as a charm, and enables the patient to sleep and forget his troubles. In others, the wearing of a gauze veil over the face quite prevents the effects of the evil. It is most important to see that the bowels bo freely opened at the commencement of an attack.

5595. Expectorants

5595.     Expectorants. Medicines that promote the secretion of the tracheal and bronchial mucus. According to Dr. Good, true expectorants are those medicines which rather promote the separation of the viscid phlegm with which the bronchiee are loaded, than simply soften and dilute it; though these are also treated as expectorants by many writers. Numerous articles of the materia medica have been denominated expectorants, of which the following are the principal : Tartarized antimony, ipecacuanha, squills, garlic, assafcetida, ammoniacum, the oily resins, the balsams of tolu and Peru, benzoin, styrax, benzoic acid, the fumes of vinegar, tar, and of many of the volatile oils, and the smoke of tohacco and stramonium. Chlorine and ammoniacal gases have also been called expectorants. Medicines of this class are commonly employed in pulmonary complaints and affections of the air-tubes, attended by a vitiated state of the mucus, or an imperfect performance of the natural functions of the secretory vessels. (Cooley.) Of all classes of the materia medica, none are more uncertain in their action than expectorants. (Pereira.) The act of ejecting matter from the chest is called expectoration.

5596. Bronchitis

5596.    Bronchitis. An inflammation of the mucous lining of the bronchia, or smaller ramifications of the windpipe. In its milder form it is commonly called a cold on the chest. The usual symptoms are hoarseness, dry cough, a slight degree of fever, followed by expectoration of mucus, at first thin, and afterwards thick and copious. In the severer forms there is more fever, cough, and oppression at the chest, etc.. The generality of cases of bronchitis yield to small and repeated doses of ipecacuanha and antimonial diaphoretics, at the same time adopting a light diet, and keeping the bowels open with mild purgatives.