If in a day or two he be no better, but worse, by all means continue the mixture, whether it produce sickness or otherwise; and put on the chest a tela vesicatoria, prepared and applied as I recommended when treating of inflammation of the lungs.[[224]]
The ipecacuanha wine and the tela vesicatoria are my sheet-anchors in the bronchitis, both of infants and of children. They rarely, even in very severe cases, fail to effect a cure, provided the tela vesicatoria be properly applied, and the ipecacuanha wine be genuine and of good quality.
If there be any difficulty in procuring good ipecacuanha wine, the ipecacuanha may be given in powder instead of the wine. The following is a pleasant form:
Take of—Powder of Ipecacuanha, twelve grains;
White Sugar, thirty-six grains:
Mix well together, and divide into twelve powders. One of the powders to be put dry on the tongue every four hours.
The ipecacuanha powder will keep better than the wine, an important consideration to those living in country places; nevertheless, if the wine can be procured fresh and good, I far prefer the wine to the powder.
When the bronchitis has disappeared, the diet ought gradually to be improved—rice, sago, tapioca, and light batter pudding, etc.; and in a few days, either a little chicken or a mutton-chop, mixed with a well-mashed potato and crumb of bread, should be given. But let the improvement in his diet be gradual, or the inflammation might return.
What NOT to do.—Do not apply leeches. Do not give either emetic tartar, or antimonial wine, which is emetic tartar dissolved in wine. Do not administer either paregoric or syrup of poppies, either of which would stop the cough, and would thus prevent the expulsion of the phlegm. Any fool can stop a cough, but it requires a wise man to rectify the mischief. A cough is an effort of nature to bring up the phlegm, which would otherwise accumulate, and in the end cause death. Again, therefore, let me urge upon you the immense importance of not stopping the cough of a child. The ipecacuanha wine will, by loosening the phlegm, loosen the cough, which is the only right way to get rid of a cough. Let what I have now said be impressed deeply upon your memory, as thousands of children in England are annually destroyed by having their coughs stopped. Avoid, until the bronchitis be relieved, giving him broths, and meat, and stimulants of all kinds. For further observations on what NOT to do in bronchitis, I beg to refer you to a previous Conversation we had on what NOT to do in inflammation of the lungs. That which is injurious in the one case is equally so in the other.
206. What are the symptoms of Diphtheria, or, as it is sometimes called, Boulogne sore-throat?