570 REMEDIES IN BRONCHITIS AND PHTHISIS. 



One of the most powerful expectorants is simply a little 

 warm food in the stomach, and in cases of chronic bronchitis, 

 in which the patients complain of violent coughing imme- 

 diately after rising, one of the best expectorants is a glass of 

 warm milk, either with or without a little rum, and a biscuit or 

 a piece of bread about a quarter of an hour before they get up. 

 A little warm beef tea will have a similar effect. After taking 

 this for a short time they generally tell you that the sputum 

 €omes away much more easily than before, and they are not so 

 much exhausted by it. But perhaps the remedy, par excellence, 

 not only in cases of phthisis, but in chronic bronchitis, is cod- 

 liver oil. Persons suffering from long-standing chronic bron- 

 chitis will often come to a hospital to beg for cod-liver oil, 

 saying that it eases their cough far more than any cough 

 mixture. Other oils or fats have not this power to the same 

 extent as cod-liver oil. We cannot say positively what the 

 reason of this may be, but I think there is no doubt about the 

 fact. My own belief is that cod-liver oil is more easily assimi- 

 lated than other oils, and not only so, but more easily trans- 

 formed into tissues themselves. Whether it owes this property 

 to its admixture with biliary substances, or to its chemical 

 composition, we cannot say. In his book on " Fat and Blood, 

 and how to make them," Dr. Weir Mitchell quotes a remark 

 made by an old nurse, that " some fats are fast, and some fats 

 are fleeting, but cod-liver oil fat is soon wasted." By this she 

 meant that there were differences in the kinds of fat accumu- 

 lated under the subcutaneous tissues of men, just as there are 

 •differences in subcutaneous fats which accumulate in horses. 

 The horse fed on grass soon gets thin by hard work, while fat 

 laid on when the horse is feeding on hay and corn is much more 

 permanent. Persons fattened on cod-liver oil soon lose the 

 fatness again, and this, I think, points to the power of ready 

 transformation which the oil possesses. Supposing that it does 

 possess this power, we can readily see how very advantageous it 

 will be. In chronic bronchitis, and in catarrh and pneumonia, 

 we have a rapid cell-growth, but want of development. The 

 cells lining the respiratory cavities are produced in great 

 numbers, but they do not grow as they ought to do. They 



