Hooping Cough.
The immediate cause of Hooping Cough is a viscid and glutinous matter or phlegm lodged upon the bronchiæ, trachea, and fauces, which adheres so firmly as to be expectorated or discharged with the greatest possible difficulty.
This Cough is known by the peculiar hoop which is descriptive of the disease. Children are most commonly the subjects of this complaint, and especially those who are teething; but it sometimes attacks those advanced in life. It comes on with a slight difficulty of breathing, thirst, rapid pulse, hoarseness, Cough, and all the symptoms of common Cold. This disorder, if not nipped in the bud, gradually increases; and about the second or third week, assumes its peculiar characteristic symptoms. The expiratory motions, peculiar to coughing, are made with more rapidity and violence than usual; and after several of these convulsive efforts, a sudden and full inspiration succeeds, and from the air rushing with unusual violence through the glottis, the Hooping Cough is occasioned.
In this peculiar calamitous and highly dangerous Cough, the object to be attained is a free expectoration, to dissolve and remove the phlegm, and to abate the fever. Emetics, which are often unwisely ordered, agitate the system, and aggravate the symptoms; blisters only irritate, without accomplishing the desired intention; and, in fact, the patient is too frequently abandoned to the chances of change of air, and strength of constitution, to sustain the shock. It will be a source of consolation to every anxious mother, that this valuable compound which operates so beneficially in Coughs, is also equally excellent in Hooping Cough; indeed, its balsamic, pectoral, expectorant, and emollient properties, render it peculiarly adapted to eradicate the worst stages of the complaint, for the reasons before advanced. It may be given in the quantity of a tea-spoonful, three or four times a day, in honey, or on lump sugar, as the urgency of the case demands. The contents of a 2s. 9d. bottle, seldom or ever fail to develope its specific qualities in such cases.
This disorder sometimes terminates in apoplexy and suffocation. In some, it lays the foundation for asthma and pulmonary complaints. It will, therefore, be manifest, that a remedy, which will remove the offending cause, should never be omitted.