Thirst is intense, but cold drinks distress and vomit the patient. The pulse is small, feeble and frequent, and the bowels costive. This is a very dangerous disease. It is sometimes connected with inflammation of the stomach, then called gastro-enteritis. The tongue is then red and pointed, the nausea and vomiting are more violent and constant, the thirst burning and insatiable.
TREATMENT.
The same medicines are applicable to both Gastritis and Enteritis.
Aconite, Arsenicum and Baptisia should be used one following the other every half hour until the symptoms begin to subside, then let the intervals be lengthened.
In addition to these remedies, I allow the patient to drink often and freely of hot water, as hot as can be swallowed, and though it is at first almost instantly rejected by the stomach, by repeating it in a few minutes in moderate quantities, it gives relief and will soon so allay the irritation as to remain. In some cases the vomiting is severe, the bowels are loose, and pain burning. For such, Tart. Emet. is the proper remedy. Cold drinks should not be taken.
Cloths wet in cold water, ice water if it is at hand, and wrung out so as not to drip, should be laid over the whole abdomen and instantly covered with two or three thicknesses of warm dry flannel, and the patient's feet kept warm. This may be considered harsh treatment, but there is no danger in it; on the contrary I have, in the worst and most alarming cases of gastritis and peritonitis, made such applications, and in less than an hour have seen my patient easy and beginning to perspire freely, all danger having passed. It always affords more or less relief and is never attended with danger. Covering the wet cloths immediately with plenty of dry ones is very essential.
After the acute inflammation has subsided, it is well to have the bowels moved, but don't give drastic cathartics. Nux Vomica given at night and repeated morning and noon, will generally serve to cause an evacuation. Injections may be used.
Croup.
This is a disease of children. Comes on in consequence of a sudden cold. Children suffering from Hooping Cough are more subject to it. The cough is of a peculiar whistling kind, like the crowing of a young chicken, with rattling in the throat and difficult breathing, fever is present, and often very violent. It is properly an inflammation of the Larynx, but the inflammation may also exist in the Pharynx, the tonsils may be involved, and it may extend to the trachia, (wind pipe). A false membrane forms in the larynx if the disease is not arrested, and so obstructs the breathing as to cause death from suffocation.