610 
W. L. WILLIAMS AND P. A. FISH. 
logical processes in that manner commonly termed auto-infec¬ 
tion. 
The handling of these cases has, as a rule, proven ineffectual, 
and led practitioners to recoil from them with well founded 
dread. 
The plan of treatment usually adopted has consisted of the 
internal administration of expectorants and sedatives with some 
of the gum-resins possessing antiseptic properties and which are 
largely excreted by the lungs, and the inhalation of vapors, either 
simple or medicated. 
Intra-tracheal injections of vermicides have been success¬ 
fully employed in verminous bronchitis, and the ' bronchial 
mucosa has been used as a prompt and reliable absorbent sur¬ 
face for the administration of various drugs in solutions of smal' 
volume. The senior writer has attempted the administration of 
antiseptics in small volumes by intra-tracheal injection in cases 
of suppurative bronchitis, and has endeavored to aspirate suppu¬ 
rative areas of the lung and inject the cavities with antiseptics, 
but without noteworthy success. 
Beaumont Small (Handbook of Med. Sci. IX, 75 ^) 
ployed a I to 500 solution of pyoktanin in the form of intrapul- 
monary injection of 8 to 16 minims in pulmonary tuberculosis, 
which was reported well borne, except that when reaching the 
bronchii it caused violent coughing, but was said to have les¬ 
sened the hectic condition and diminished the number of bacilli 
in the sputa. 
We have been .unable to find record of any attempts to ad¬ 
minister per trachea for therapeutic purposes, large volumes of 
liquids either as mechanical detergents or as topical or general 
antiseptics, the filling of the lower air passages with liquids be¬ 
ing associated in the popular mind with drowning. 
Opposed to this fear existed the well-known fact that in par¬ 
tial drowning the water which had well filled the air passages 
was in many cases partly drained out, largely absorbed, and the 
patient left little worse for the experience beyond the physical 
shock. 
