Treatment. When brought on by severe exertion absolute quiescence will usually check hæmoptysis. Keeping the head in an elevated position favors its arrest. The application of cold water to the head, neck and thorax, and the giving of iced water, strongly acidulated by vinegar or one of the mineral acids may sometimes be required. In threatening or obstinate cases one drachm of acetate of lead may be given thrice daily to check by its astringent effect on the vessels, and the addition of a drachm of opium is of great value in suppressing the cough. Ergot, tannin, matico, and oil of turpentine have each been employed with advantage, and when costiveness exists a saline laxative (one pound sulphate of soda) may be usefully resorted to. The patient should be kept in a cool, airy dwelling, and should rest for fifteen or twenty days after an attack.
PULMONARY APOPLEXY. HÆMORRHAGIC INFARCTION.
Different forms. Embolism with infarction. Embolism from arteritis. Rupture of bloodvessel. Changes in color. Symptoms. Repair.
Hæmorrhage into the lungs may be: 1st. Petechial in infectious diseases. 2d. interlobular as from ruptured vessels. 3d. Infarction or apoplexy. Infarction results from embolism of a branch of the pulmonary artery, which may in its turn be due to clots formed in a diseased heart or in the systemic veins and carried to the lungs in the blood stream. It may also result from inflammation of the inner coat of the pulmonary artery. A virtual stasis occurs beyond the embolism, and the blood filtering in through the anastomosing capillaries fills and blackens the affected lobule. With rupture of a considerable vessel the blood escapes en masse and appears like black currant jelly. As it ages it becomes granular and changes to a yellow color, or it may form a necrotic mass enclosed in a cyst as in lung plague. The symptoms, apart from the absence of respiratory murmur and resonance, are not diagnostic. It may take months to undergo liquefaction and absorption. Iodide of potassium, bitters and stimulating diuretics may be given.
PNEUMONITIS; PNEUMONIA; INFLAMMATION OF THE LUNGS.
Definition. Inflammation of the spongy tissue of the lungs uncomplicated by that of the bronchia or pleura.
Divisions. This affection has been variously divided according to seat, nature, and complications: thus:
Single Pneumonia: Affecting one lung: right or left.
Double Pneumonia: Affecting both lungs.
Lobar Pneumonia: Affecting one lobe or by lobes.