The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 169 of 653We understand by this name a peculiar form of catarrh of therespiratory mucous membrane from the nose to the pulmonaryvesicles, where the cough sots in in distinctly detached paroxysmMtioloijym Whooping-cough is an epidemic disease which sometimes occurs in the form of very extensive, and sometimes circumscribed epidemics, in which latter case the few cases of whoopingcough might even be designated as sporadic. So far the real causeof the epidemic has not yet been determined. It cannot be thepeculiar nature of the wind, for the reason that the disease breaout without the least regularity in disconnected portions of counall we know is that the outbreak of an epidemic occurs more frequently in the spring than in the fall, very rarely in the summerA connection with other epidemic affections, especially measles,and likewise with variola and scarlatina cannot well be denied.Whooping-cough frequently precedes or succeeds epidemics of thelast-named diseases, and in rare cases accompanies them.As regards the spread of the disease by contagion, opinions diffea great deal ; a number of observers favor the doctrine of a contgium; on the other hand we should not overlook the fact that during an epidemic all the individuals of one place and the inhabitaof one house are exposed to the same influences. As for ourselveswe have not yet been able to satisfy our minds that whoopingis contagious; yet we are willing to admit that in its highest stof development, this cough may give rise to a product which, whengrafted upon susceptible organisms, may in its turn reproduce thedisease. This is no idle question, as niignt appear at first sighsince it may lead to the adoption ol measures that may prove exceedingly oppressive to a family having a number of children andThe allopathist praises his atrocious lancet and heroic purgativepatbist his Merouriua, Belladonna or Nux, and the patient in eithwonder has been, done for him ; but the disease, if it be a realremoved ; it has only advanced a step beyond the process of incubthe stadium of bronchitis, with its ooiicomitant cough, dyspnoea,pfro»tr»tioii.194 Diseases of the Lungs.living in straightened circumstances. In spite of every isolationhave seen all the children of a family attacked by the epidemic.The immediate causes which determine the outbreak of the disease during an epidemic are the same as those that occasion anordinary catarrh of the respiratory mucous membrane. A specialpredisposition to the disease has not yet been traced ; if it seeestablished fact that girls are more liable to whoopingboys,the same relation holds true in all other spasmodic aflectiwhich attack girls more frequently than boys. Every trifling catamay, under the influence of the epidemic assume the form of whooping-cough. As regards age, children between the second and eighthyear are more commonly liable. Children under one year are seldomattacked by whooping-cough, although we have seen a severe caseof whooping-cough in a child of four weeks. Children upwards ofeight years old are likewise seldom attacked; whereas, during anhttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt