104: DISEASES OF THE TRACHEA AND BRONCHI. 



we expect the next one ; hence, if we can succeed in rendering the 

 seizures milder and less numerous, we not only produce results which 

 are palliative but radical, by enabling the disease the sooner to cease 

 spontaneously. Reduction of the number, severity, and duration of the 

 paroxysms is as important for the cure of whooping-cough, as is prohi- 

 bition of loud talking in the treatment of obstinate hoarseness. 



For this purpose I cannot sufficiently urge that the parents, if intel- 

 ligent and persevering, be directed to make the child cease from cough- 

 ing as soon as possible, and, if necessary, even to enforce this harsh de- 

 mand with wholesome sternness and severity, as soon as the mucous 

 accumulation is discharged. A portion only of the coughing is invol- 

 untary. By an exercise of firmness, a child may withstand the remain- 

 ing inclination to cough. The mother, however, must never tire of 

 warning, admonishing, and, if need be, threatening, though no imme- 

 diate benefit become apparent, even after lapse of days ; for this mental 

 dietetic must be maintained for weeks and weeks. 



I have heard the assertion made by the wife of a Prussian general, a 

 most determined woman, but an equally tender mother, that whooping- 

 cough was only curable by the rod. Such a statement as this, and the 

 advice to tell a child to stop coughing, and even to compel it to resist 

 the cough as much as it can, have excited objection here and there, and 

 have even given rise to some virtuous indignation. Notwithstanding 

 this, however, further personal experience and the approval of other 

 judicious practitioners induce me emphatically to reiterate my counsel. 

 It is of course inapplicable where the parents are stupid or rude ; but 

 the physiological law is well known, that violent reflex symptoms are 

 controllable by the will. Perhaps the fact that adults are better able 

 to resist the inclination to cough, and do not abandon themselves so 

 completely to the irritation, explains why exposure to the same causes 

 will, it is true, bring on catarrh, but rarely a catarrh of the intensity and 

 persistence observable in the whooping-cough of children. 



This treatment is materially aided, if, as soon as the child perceives a 

 fit to be coming on, or when the fine rales in the larynx above described 

 give notice of its approach, a moderate dose of carbonate of soda or of 

 potash be promptly administered. As the alkaline carbonates reduce 

 the viscidity of mucus, and as the secretion collected about the epiglot- 

 tis, if deprived of its tenacity, is the more easily expelled, and finally, 

 since with the ejection of the mucus the paroxysm usually terminates, 

 theory and practice concur with tolerable harmony in approving this 

 measure. There is a mixture much employed in whooping-cough 

 ($ Coccionelli gr. xij ; potas. carb. 3j; aquae dest. iij ; syrup, 

 simpl | j. ni. S. a teaspoonful when the attack threatens), the effect 

 of which in shortening the fits of coughing is often surprising, but 





