118 THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



frequent, you have, especially if young, one of the most hopeful auguries of ultimate 

 recovery. If, on the other hand, the disease is gaining on you, it must be regarded 

 as a bad sign. If you can detect the exciting cause of your attacks, it will materially 

 affect the prognosis. If the exciting cause is clear, single, and such as may be pre- 

 vented, nothing can be happier. You hold in your hands the key, as it were, of 

 the disease, and by shutting off the exciting cause, you may indefinitely postpone a 

 repetition of the attacks. If the attacks never occur but as the consequence of this 

 exciting cause, and its recurrence is permanently prevented, this preventive treat- 

 ment amounts to an absolute and final cure. If, for instance, as is not uncommon, 

 there is some particular locality where the asthma is sure to come on, and no other, 

 all you have to do is to stay away from that place ; or if, as is still more common, 

 there is only one place where asthma does not come on, all you have to do is to go 

 and live there, and never leave it. If an attack comes on only after some indis- 

 cretion in eating or drinking, diet yourself strictly, and you are safe. 



We now pass on to the consideration of the treatment of asthma, and about this 

 we shall have a good deal to say. Asthma is a very uncertain complaint, and not 

 uncommonly displays most astonishing vagaries. A remedy which succeeds 

 admirably in one person may utterly fail in another, even when, so far as one can 

 judge, the cases are identical. And more than that, a remedy may on one occasion cut- 

 short a paroxysm instantly, whilst in the same individual a few weeks later it may 

 prove inoperative. Hence the large number of drugs that are employed in the 

 treatment of asthma. We cannot lay down any positive rule for the treatment 

 of your symptoms. We cannot say, " Take this, it will just suit your case." 

 All we can say is, " Here are the different remedies for asthma ; this one generally 

 succeeds, tiy it first ; if it fail go on to the next, and then the next, till you have 

 tried them all, and found out which suits your case." A patient who has long 

 suffered from asthma generally knows what will do him good better than any doctor 

 can tell him. It is only after all his usual remedies and appliances have failed him, 

 or in very severe attacks, that the asthmatic finds it necessary to send for medical 

 aid. We will now proceed to the consideration of the remedies in detail. 



Tobacco. Most asthmatics are smokers, and by the use of the pipe or cigar often 

 succeed in warding off their attacks. For a man who has never learnt to smoke, 

 tobacco will prove very useful in arresting a paroxysm. The case is recorded of an 

 asthmatic, who fortunately had never established a tolerance of tobacco, and who 

 could at any time cut short the most violent paroxysm by twenty whiffs of a pipe, 

 or half a cigar. Sometimes he would begin to smoke when his breathing was so- 

 difficult that he could hardly smoke a pipe ; he would draw a feeble whiff or two, 

 and then stop to recover his breath, then another whiff, and so on. By-and-by 

 he would lay down his pipe, with a look of intelligence at his attendant, as much as 

 to say, " It's all right now ; " his face would become pallid, and damp with perspira- 

 tion, his limbs relaxed, his breathing long and sighing ; but his asthma was gone. 

 His object was to smoke just so much as to produce this condition, and no more, 

 so that the moment he felt the sensation coming on he stopped. In the case of 

 non-smokers, tobacco is a valuable remedy. Its advantages are that it is always 

 at hand, and is very speedy in its action ; but it has the great disadvantage that so 



