584 



ACUTE INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



hand, it is cruel and injurious to withhold from the patient the only 

 thing that will quench his thirst, as long as he is feverish and thirsty, 

 and in place of it to make him drink warm tea or water. Sweet 

 drinks, which generally soon become distasteful to the patient, and do 

 not alleviate the cough, as they are expected to, are superfluous. The 

 time that the patients are to pass in bed, and in their chamber, should 

 aot be measured in the customary way by days and weeks, but we 

 should insist on his remaining in bed as long as there is any indication 

 of fever, while the desquamation is going on, and the cough is severe, 

 and he should keep his chamber as long as there is any trace left of 

 the measles-catarrh, whether the customary fourteen or forty-two days 

 have elapsed or not. Even after the patient has fully recovered, the 

 physician should keep a watchful eye on him for months, and should 

 particularly attend to any cough, no matter how slight and insignifi- 

 cant it may appear. Among the accidents that demand active treat- 

 ment, during measles, most authors place the " striking in of the erup- 

 tion " in the first rank, and consider its " restoration " as the most 

 important point in treatment. We do not hesitate to say that it is 

 just as unscientific as it is dangerous to carry out this indication; it is 

 dangerous because it readily induces rules which may have an injurious 

 effect on the course of the disease. As above shown, the so-called dis- 

 appearance of the eruption is not to be regarded as the cause, but 

 as the result of a bad turn of the disease, and is due to the general 

 collapse of the patient, in which the skin participates ; but, as we have 

 also shown above, this bad turn of the disease usually depends on the 

 appearance of some complication, especially pneumonia ; if this fact be 

 not borne in mind, if the patient be rubbed with irritating tinctures 

 and liniments, placed in a hot bath containing mustard or caustic pot- 

 ish, or wrapped up in blankets wet with decoction of mustard, " to 

 bring the eruption out again," we shall often do much harm, even if 

 we succeed in our object, because these procedures do not generally 

 ict advantageously on the pneumonia and other complications, while 

 they increase the fever. Among the symptoms of the prodromal stage, 

 the attacks of hoarseness, aphonia, and severe dyspnoea, which occur, 

 particularly during sleep, require the same treatment as when they 

 occur in the course of genuine laryngeal catarrh, such as emetics, hot 

 applications to the throat, and plenty of warm drinks. If the cough be 

 uncommonly severe and persistent, we may give adults five or ten 

 grams of Dover's powder at night, and for children, where opium is 

 dangerous, especially during fever, we may prescribe small doses of 

 lactucarium, or a weak infusion of ipecac, (gr. vj to f iv water, with 

 syrup | ss). If, during the stage of eruption and efflorescence, the fever 

 show a synochal character, there is no reason why we should not give 



