The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 148 of 653erly speaking, but the breathing is more labored, less full andhence somewhat more hurried. The pulse is accelerated, but it isonly in the severer grades of the disease that it exceeds one hunpulsations. In this form of bronchitis the digestive organs arealways involved, the appetite is entirely gone, the bowels areconstipated, there is seldom any vomiting. Percussion does notreveal any abnormal changes, but auscultation reveals a more orless prolonged expiration over the whole chest, less frequently amore prolonged inspiration, accompanied by wheezing. These auscultatory results are very much modified, if bronchitis becomesassociated with a pulmonary emphysema, etc. as a secondary afl^ection. Even in simple bronchitis, when not complicated with tubercles, the expectoration is easily tinged with blood, whereas ring a quantity of pure blood is a rare occurrence and always pointo a more dangerous and more deep-se.ited constitutional disease.All the phenomena, especially the cough, exacerbate in the eveninand about midnight The further course of the disease is governed168 Diseases of the Lungs.by a variety of circumstances. The importance of bronchitis ofany degree in the case of tuberculous patients will be more fullyinquired into when we come to treat of tuberculosis; and whenspeaking of pulmonary emphysema, we shall likewise discuss morefully the acute exacerbations of an existing bronchial catarrh whlikewise assume the form of bronchitis. In favorable cases uncomplicated forms of bronchitis terminate in four or five days, oexceptionally at an earlier period, in simple bronchial catarrh.general symptoms moderate in intensity, the fever abates almostentirely, the expectoration becomes more profuse, more fluid, ofwhitish-gray color and is more easily raised by the cough which inow much less painful. Instead of the dry wheezing, auscultationnow reveals coarse r41es. The patients do not often feel well agabefore the tenth day. If the course of the disease is less favorable, its different phases are either more protracted, or else otmorbid conditions become associated with it. In the former casethe dry, spasmodic, distressing cough may last beyond the seventhor even to the fourteenth day, after which the period of a moreprofuse secretion of mucus lasts equally long. Although this longduration of the disease shows as a rule that it is of a secondarynature, yet a purely primary form of bronchitis may run an equalllong course, an occurrence peculiar to old age. The course of thedisease is still more unfavorable and threatening, if the inflammtion of the bronchia spreads to the more delicate ramifications,if pneumonia and an acute oedema of the lungs supervene. Thelatter may set in with so much rapidity that the patient whom wehad left comparatively comfortable, is found dead on our return.Generally this change develops itself more slowly and is at firstrecognized by a striking and rapid increase of the dyspnoea.The patient's age exerts a greatly modifying influence over thecourse of the disease as well as over its danger to life. Of thebronchitis of children we shall speak hereafter. Among old peopleor only somewhat advanced in age, the danger is quite considerable, and seems to depend more particularly upon the increasedliability of the bronchial mucous lining to swell, upon the profuquantity of the secretion at the same time as the respiratory process becomes feebler, and upon the consequently increased dangerhttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt