Mother's Remedies Part 9

Mix. Teaspoonful every three hours until cough is better.

5. Many other combinations could be given. h.o.a.rhound tea. Sugar enough to sweeten makes a good cough remedy.

6. Onion syrup is good for children. The bowels should always be kept open.

BRONCHIAL ASTHMA. (Spasmodic Asthma.) Causes.--It occurs in all ages, but usually begins in the young, particularly males. It often follows whooping-cough. It may come from diseases of the mouth such as adenoids, polypi. Exciting causes are change of climate and residence, dust, smoke, odors, errors in diet, emotion, and cold.

Symptoms.--The onset is often sudden, often during the night. Difficulty of breathing is intense. The patient cannot lie down, but often sits at an open window, resting the elbows on a table. The face is pale and the expression is anxious. There is a feeling of great oppression in the chest and often dread of suffocation. Respiration (breathing) though labored, is not unusually frequent, as expiration (out breathing) is much prolonged.

In severe or prolonged attacks there are blueness, sweating, coldness of the extremities, with small and frequent pulse and great drowsiness. The attack lasts a few minutes to many hours, and may pa.s.s off suddenly, perhaps to recur soon, or on several successive nights, with slight cough and difficulty in breathing in the intervals. The cough is nearly dry at first and the sputum is very tenacious.

MOTHERS' REMEDIES. 1. Asthma, Raspberry Tincture for Adults.--"Take a half pound of honey, one cup water; let these boil, take off the sc.u.m; pour boiling hot upon one-half ounce lobelia herb and one-half ounce cloves; mix well, then strain and add one gill of raspberry vinegar. Take from one teaspoonful to a dessertspoonful four times a day. Pleasant to take." The above remedy is very effective, as the honey has a soothing effect upon the inflamed parts, and the lobelia causes the bronchial tubes to dilate, relieving the patient. The raspberry tincture makes it more pleasant to take. In severe cases it will be necessary to give enough of the above remedy to cause vomiting which relieves the phlegm.

2. Asthma, Simple but Effective Remedy for.--"Take pieces of ordinary blotting paper and saturate it with a strong solution of saltpetre, then dry the paper. When a paroxysm is felt ignite a piece of the paper and inhale the smoke. This remedy is very good and acts quickly, doing away almost entirely with the distressing symptoms and shortens the paroxysm."

[38 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]

3. Asthma, Lobelia Tea for.--"There is no medicine that is half so effective as lobelia in removing the tough, hard ropy phlegm from the asthmatic persons." This remedy is very good, but care should be taken not to give it to consumptives, because it is too weakening. To obtain the best results, enough of the remedy should be given to produce relaxation of the bronchial tubes. Dose.--For adults should be from fifteen to sixty drops according to the strength of the patient. This will cause a little sickness of the stomach and vomiting, thus relaxing the muscles and relieving the asthma.

PHYSICIANS' TREATMENT for Asthma.--1. Inhale chloroform, or break a pearl of amyl nitrite in a handkerchief and inhale the fumes; or smoke saltpetre paper; or cigarettes containing stramonium (thornapple). Sometimes hot coffee fumes are good.

To Prevent Recurrence.--Take five to twenty grains of iodide of potash three times a day. Do not eat much at night. Do not eat foods that cause gas or that are hard to digest. A change of climate is often good. Hot foot baths and hot drinks are helpful. Tincture of lobelia can be given in severe cases, fifteen drops repeated every half hour until the patient feels sick at the stomach.

2. Vapo-Cresolene burned in a room is very good. This can be bought in twenty-five cent bottles in any drug store, with directions around the bottle.

3. Tartar Emetic in one-hundredth grain, two given every half hour until there is a little sickening is a very good remedy. These can be bought at a drug store or from a homeopathic doctor or pharmacist.

BLEEDING FROM THE WIND-PIPE AND LUNGS. (Haemoptysis).--This is a spitting of blood. It may come from the small bronchial tubes and less frequently from the blood vessels in the lung cavities or their walls.

Symptoms.--In incipient consumption of the lungs, bleeding develops suddenly as a rule, a warm salty taste, lasting but a few moments, generally preceded by the spitting up of blood. The blood is coughed up and the bleeding may last only a few minutes or it may continue for days, the sputum being apt to remain blood-stained for a longer time. The immediate effect of the bleeding is to alarm the patient and family, no matter how slight it may be, inducing heart palpitation and other nervous symptoms. A small bleeding is not attended with any bad result, but large ones give rise to the symptoms of shock (sometimes immediate death) combined with anemia following the loss of blood. When the bleeding is large, blood by the mouthful may be ejected with each cough, and in these instances of such profuse bleeding is shown by dizziness, faintness, cold extremities, excessive pallor, sweating and rapid, small feeble pulse.

This is followed, if the attack does not prove speedily fatal, by restlessness, and later by mild delirium and some fever. In few cases does the patient have a single bleeding; more frequently there are several at shorter or longer intervals. Large or small bleedings may precede by weeks, months, or even years any rational symptoms of consumption.

[RESPIRATORY DISEASES 39]

Quant.i.ty.--This varies greatly. There may be less than an ounce or it might amount to a pint or more before the bleeding stops. In advanced cases, in which large cavities have formed, large blood vessels may be eaten through and this followed by copious and alarming bleeding.

MOTHERS' REMEDIES.--1. Bleeding from the Lungs. Salt Water for.--"Give the patient half a teaspoonful of common salt every hour or two until hemorrhage abates."

2. Bleeding from the Lungs. Herb Tea for.--"Two ounces each of bistory root, tormentil root, oak bark, and comfrey root, boil in three quarts of water down to one pint, strain and add one tablespoonful of ground ginger.

Give a wine gla.s.s full every half hour until relieved. Place the feet in hot mustard water, keep the bowels open with a little senna and ginger tea and if necessary give a vapor bath,"

3. Bleeding from the Lungs, Effective Remedy for.--

"Powdered Sugar 3 ounces Powdered Rosin 3 ounces

Mix. Dose one teaspoonful three times a day."

4. Bleeding from the Lungs, Tannin and Sugar for.-

"Tannin 30 grains Powdered Sugar 1 dram

Mix. Make ten powders and give one every ten minutes until relieved."

Either one of the above remedies is excellent for this trouble, as the tannin and rosin contract the arteries and acts as an astringent.

PHYSICIANS' TREATMENT for Bleeding of the Wind-pipe and Lungs.--In many cases the bleeding is slight and no more need be done than to keep the patient quiet and absolute rest. If the bleeding is free, the patient should be placed in bed, not allowed to speak above a whisper nor to change his position.

1. First Thing to Do.--Eating ice, and using ice drinks are useful measures. The drinking of a little salt water at a time with one tablespoonful of salt in a gla.s.sful of water is good. In most cases more can be done by a.s.suring the patient he will not die and keeping him quiet and at rest. Medicines should be given to satisfy the patient and family.

The most cases stop of themselves.

2. If Caused by Coughing.--If cough causes the bleeding one-half grain of opium should be given to control it, hypodermically, or even morphine one-eighth grain.

3. Alum for.--Alum solution six grains to three ounces of water in fine spray is good. This goes right to the wind-pipe and contracts the vessels; use a vaporizer.

4. White Oak Bark Tea can be used as a spray in a vaporizer. If these produce coughing, they should be discontinued.

[40 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]

5. Hot Water and Salt for.--A teaspoonful of salt in a pint of hot water is good also, used as a spray, or to inhale. But the patient must lie down.

6. Other Easily Obtained Remedies.--Ergot in dose of one-half to one teaspoonful is very good; this contracts the vessels. Bromide of potash in a dose of five to fifteen grains; or chloral hydrate in dose of five to seven grains, if there is not heart trouble. If there is, chloral hydrate cannot be used. These quiet the nervous system and do much good. Strong hop tea will do the same thing if taken freely. Witch-hazel water thirty drops at a dose is good.

Cautions.--Quiet the patient; keep quiet yourself. If the bleeding is bad the extremities should be bandaged, beginning at the toes and fingers.

Thirst.--Give small quant.i.ties at a time of ice-water.

Diet.--Peptonized or plain milk, liquid beef peptonoids, fresh beef juice, bouillon, should be given in small quant.i.ties, two or three ounces every two or three hours. If there is a tendency to constipation give rectal enemata. Return to the regular diet as soon as possible. Alcohol in any form is best avoided. If given as a stimulant it should be given in small quant.i.ties.

BRONCHO-PNEUMONIA. (Acute Inflammation of the Smaller Tubes and Lungs).--

Causes.--Most common under two years and in old people. Taking cold, whooping cough and measles.

Symptoms.--A primary case begins suddenly with a convulsion or chill, vomiting and rapid rise of temperature. Breathing is frequent and brain symptoms are marked.

Secondary Cases.--After an ordinary case of whooping-cough, measles, bronchitis, etc., there is more fever. The pulse is more frequent, and also the respiration, difficulty in breathing and severe and often painful cough. Temperature rises to 102 to 104; respirations are very fast, up to 60 to 80; the breathing (inspiration) is hard, labored, while the wings of the nose dilate; expiration may be grunting. Face looks anxious and bluish. This color may increase, other symptoms decreasing as suffocation deepens, rattling in chest and death from heart weakness.

Prevention.--Avoid exposure to sudden changes of temperature. For the attack, jacket of oil silk or flannel to prevent sudden exposure, keep the temperature warmed up to 68 to 70 degrees night and day; the air must be fresh and pure and changed regularly.

[RESPIRATORY DISEASES 41]

Children should be given ample room and not hampered by extra clothing, as they like change of position, to get relief. The hot bath must be used often to redden the skin and relieve the pressure on the lungs, till they can be given relief. If you wish to use a poultice the following is a nice way to make it. Take a piece of muslin or linen, or cheese-cloth, wide enough when doubled to reach from the lower margin of the ribs to well up under the arm pits, and long enough to go a little more than around the chest, open the double fold and spread the hot ma.s.s of poultice on one-half of the cloth and fold the other over it. It should be applied as hot as it can be comfortably borne and covered with oil silk or paraffin paper, so as to the longer retain the heat and moisture. The poultice should be renewed as often as it gets cold, and a fresh poultice should be all ready to put on when the old one is taken off. Place the end of the poultice uppermost, so that the contents will not fall out.

MOTHERS' REMEDIES. 1. Pneumonia, Herb Tea and Poultice for.--"Congestion of the lungs. One ounce of each of the following, slippery elm bark, crushed thyme, coltsfoot flowers, hyssop or marshmallow. Simmer in two quarts of water down to three pints; strain and add one teaspoonful of cayenne. Dose:--Winegla.s.sful every half hour. Apply hot bran poultices or chamomile scalded in vinegar, changing often until the violence of the symptoms abate. If the bowels are confined, give an injection of half pint of hot water in which one-half teaspoonful each of gum myrrh, turkey rhubarb and ginger powder have been well mixed. If possible give vapor bath. Apply hot stones or bottles to the feet."

2. Pneumonia, Home Remedy for.--"This can easily be relieved by the use of cayenne and vapor bath. This promotes the circulation in every part of the body, diminis.h.i.+ng the pressure upon the lungs. These baths produce a regular circulation throughout the whole body, thus relieving the pressure upon the lungs by decreasing the amount of blood in the lungs. These baths should be taken but once a day, as they are weakening."