4. Calomel should likewise be given in large doses. Dr. Physick gave half a drachm of this medicine, in one day, to the infant whose case has been mentioned. I have never known it excite a salivation when given to children whose ages rendered them subjects of it, probably because it has been given in such large quantities as to pass rapidly through the bowels. Its good effects seem to depend upon its exciting a counter-action in the whole intestinal canal, and thereby lessening the disposition of the tracheal blood-vessels to discharge the mucus, or form the membrane, which have been described.
5. Blisters should be applied to the throat, breast, neck, and even to the limbs.
6. Dr. Archer of Maryland commends, in high terms, the use of polygola, or Seneka snake-root, in this disease. I can say nothing in favour of its exclusive use, from my own experience, having never given it, but as an auxiliary to other remedies.
7. I have seen great relief given by the use of the warm bath, especially when it has been followed by a gentle perspiration.
8. Towards the close of the disease, after the symptoms of great morbid action begin to decline, a few drops of liquid laudanum, by quieting the cough which generally succeeds it, often produce the most salutary effects. They should be given in flaxseed, or bran, or onion tea, of which drinks the patient should drink freely in every stage of the disease.
The cynanche trachealis is attended with most danger, when the patient labours under a constant and audible stertorous breathing. The danger is less, when a dry stertorous cough attends, with easy respiration in its intervals. The danger is nearly over, when the cough, though stertorous, is loose, and accompanied with a discharge of mucus from the trachea.
An eruption of little red blotches, which frequently appears and disappears two or three times in the course of this disease, is always a favourable symptom.
I once attended a man from Virginia, of the name of Bampfield, who, after an attack of this disease, was much distressed with the stertorous breathing and cough which belong to it. I suspected both to arise from a membrane formed by inflammation in his trachea. This membrane I supposed to be in part detached from the trachea, from the rattling noise which attended his breathing. He had used many remedies for it to no purpose. I advised a salivation, which in less than three weeks perfectly cured him.
Since the general adoption of the remedies which have been enumerated, for the cynanche trachealis, instances of its mortality have become very uncommon in the city of Philadelphia.