The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 149 of 653of oedema of the lungs. At the same time we should not overlookthe fact that old people are scarcely ever without some degree ofemphysema and that, where no emphysema is present, it is yeryapt to break out in an acute form.Bronchitis Acuta. 16dHence the bronchitis of old people differs greatly from that whicwe have described in the preceding paragraphs. The disease originates in the same manner, only the febrile symptoms seem to be leviolent. With the appearance of the rales in the chest, which aregenerally very prominent, the strength of the patient diminishesinstead of increasing, and dyspnoea rises, to a high degree of insity. The pulse soon becomes smaller and weaker, the skin becomesmoist and cool, the tongae dry and brown, and the sensorium ispowerfully affected by the disease: sopor, delirium and graspingflocks setting in. In this manner the patient may succumb to thedisease in a few days, the increase of the mucous rales and the dcrease and final and total cessation of the expectoration constitthe most ominous signs of approaching dissolution.One of the most common terminations of bronchitis is chronicbronchial catarrh which succeeds the acute form the more rarely,the younger and healthier the individual.c Bronchitis capillaris. We apply this name to an inflammationof the finest bronchial ramifications in the lungs. An inflammatiof this kind frequently sets in as a continuation and still morequently as a sequel of the inflammation of the larger bronchialtubes, and occurs much less frequently as an idiopathic primarydisease. We here give only the symptoms peculiar to capillarybronchitis ; the other forms of bronchitis suggest themselves toreader, if he will simply associate the following description witsimple bronchial catarrh. This affection scarcely ever attacks miaged persons ; it is most apt to occur among children, and very sdom befalls old people.Capillary bronchitis commences like the acute form with thesymptoms of a so-called catarrhal fever; but it is an insidious dease w^hich, when occurring idiopathically, scarcely ever betrayslocal focus by pain. At an early stage the patient is oppressed fbreath, this oppression being determined by the extent of the portion of the lungs that is invaded; with a distressing cough withoany expectoration at first, which, even if it should become verycopious at a subsequent period, can only be raised with a great dof difliculty. The breathing is accelerated, the inspirations beivery much embarrassed and prolonged. Percussion yields noresults; auscultation in this afiection alone at first reveals awi*eezing which is afterwards mingled with fine crepitations andrales. K complicated with inflammation of the larger bronchia,the coarse r41es of the latter are apt to disguise the more delic170 Diseases of the Lungs.rfiles in the finer bronchial ramifications, at any rate, the latheard much more indistinctly,http://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt