The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 114 of 653afford help, and it would be just as criminal to leave the operatundone at this stage, as it would have been criminal to perform iat an earlier period. For a description of this operation we refethe reader to works on Surgery. "We are decidedly optx)8cd to theoperation being performed before the stage of asphyxia has set inthis may be excusable in cases that are not treated horaoeopathioally, for other Schools have no really specific remedies for crouLaryngotracheitis Crouposa. 127•If but few patients are saved by this operation, it is not the faof the operation, but of the period when it is performed. Withoutthe operation all patients die in the stage of asphyxia ; where toperation is performed, only some die, though it be the larger nuber. These results show that the operation is not only justifiablbut eminently necessary and important. However, in order thatall possible advantages may be derived from the operation, it shonot be delayed too long; otherwise the sopor might progress toofar, or recovery might be prevented by an acute emphysema andcedema of the lungs; conditions that may lead to a fatal termination even after the cure of croup is successfully accomplished.[The reader may peruse with profit an article on tracheotomy incroup, by Doctor Talbot, of Boston, in one of the late numbers ofthe New England Medical Ghtzette. H.]If an improvement sets in, we first notice an abatement of thedyspnoea ; it is by changes of this kind that we can measure theprobable chances of our final success. Nevertheless, the medicinewhich induces the favorable turn, had better be continued for somtime longer, but at more extended intervals. To continue the usethe medicine is of importance, for the reason that, after a markeremission of the symptoms, the disease sometimes breaks out againwith renewed violence. The cough sometimes retains for a longtime its hoarse, barking sound; the aphonia likewise often continues for a long time. For the cough we administer Hepar, moreespecially if it is attended with mucous r&le ; if the cough is dPhosphorus is preferable. This agent is likewise most suitable fothe subsequent hoarseness.The so-called torpid croup does not destroy life as rapidly as thpreceding varieties, but is withal a very insidious disease. It itreated with the same remedies as those above mentioned, exceptthat Hepar sulphuris very frequently deserves the preference.If croup results from a gradual working down of the diphtbpritic process from the pharynx to the larynx, it is always moredangerous than the primary form of croup, and, according to thereasons we have advanced when speaking of diphtheritis, requiresto be treated with entirely dift'erent remedies. In diphtheriticBromine may possibly deserve particular attention. We refer thereader to the chapter on diphtheritis. It is this form of croup thas ^ven rise to the belief in the contagiousness of croup ; it dindeed, seem to be a contagious disease. [Some cures have beenhttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt