$6 INFLAMMATION OF THE BRONCHIAL TUBES. 



bowels is so irritable as to be violently acted on if 

 physic is administered. On applying the ear to the 

 chest, instead of the healthy murmur, we generally 

 hear a wheezing or sucking sound, sometimes one 

 resembling brickbats being rolled down from a con- 

 siderable height is audible, owing to the air struggling 

 with the mucus; but this, of course, will depend very 

 much on the quantity of this secretion which is effused. 

 The breath is warm, and the mouth usually hot and 

 perfectly dry. 



There may be a seeming necessity for bleeding ; 

 yet, violent as the symptoms may appear to be, the 

 patient will not often bear the loss of blood. There 

 is no rule which admits of so few exceptions as this, 

 that a disease of the mucous surfaces (and this is 

 one) requires prompt and decisive treatment; but 

 at the same time very cautious remedies, from the 

 rapid debility which is connected with all these affec- 

 tions. 



It is better bleeding should be abstained from. 

 Such a bloodletting as we dare hazard in bronchitis 

 is not likely materially to affect the disease; while 

 the smallest abstraction of the vital fluid is sure to tell 

 with dangerous (perhaps fatal) certainty during the 

 subsequent debility. 



Although it will be desirable to relax the bowels, 

 aloes will be dangerous, except in the quantity of one 

 or two drachms, and not repeated ; but it will be better 

 to substitute a pint, or nearly so, of linseed oil guarded 

 by a drachm of chloroform, and to assist its action by 

 glysters if there is costiveness present. 



Sedative medicine, such as the fever-ball, should 



