The condition of the skin demands careful attention also, and dry friction, inunction, and suitable stimulating sponge-baths followed by friction, according to the constitutional condition of each patient, may be cautiously directed with great advantage.
The remedies suitable for the more acute stages may now be replaced by cod-liver oil, arsenic, or iodide of iron. Occasionally alterative expectorants, such as copaiba or yerba santa, with or without an alkali, as muriate of ammonia, will still be found desirable.
Most signal benefit will also be obtained from suitable change of climate, associated with a continuance of careful regimen and treatment; and, indeed, we may be gratified by witnessing a complete restoration to health, with the exception of unimportant residual lung lesions, of cases in which the general symptoms and the physical signs strongly indicated hopelessly incurable organic disease. Not only in the acute, but in the most tedious chronic, cases of catarrhal pneumonia must our efforts be continued to the very close.
PULMONARY EMBOLISM.
BY BEVERLEY ROBINSON, M.D.
DEFINITION.—Pulmonary embolism signifies the transport during life of clots, or of other solid substances appearing within the right heart or systemic veins, from these parts to the trunk or divisions of the pulmonary artery.
SYNONYMS.—Fr. Embolie pulmonaire; Ger. Embolie der Lungenarterie; It. Embolia pulmonare.