The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 176 of 653must have been a good many feeble and sickly ones to whom ourstatement applies nevertheless with equal force. The greatest merhowever. Homoeopathy can boast of is, the freedom from secondarydiseases which do not occur under homoeopathic treatment andgenerally result from whooping-cough when it lasts too long. Themalignant complications likewise, though not entirely excludedunder homoeopathic treatment, yet are comparatively rare occurrences.Before passing to the medicinal treatment of whooping-coaghwe have to oft'er some remarks about the preventive measuresjfecommended for adoption during the prevalence of this epidemicAnd which impose such a heavy burthen upon families. The com202 Diseases of the Lungs,munication of the cough by contagion is at most questionable; weknow from experience that in families where an infected child waskept strictly isolated from the rest of the family^ neverthelesschild after another was gradually attacked by the disease. We areemphatically opposed to all such methods of solitary confinementwhich we would not recommend under any circumstances. The onlysure preventive is the early removal of children from the districwhere the epidemic prevails. Few, however, will consent to such astep previous to the general spread of the disease ; and then a cof locality is of doubtful value, or is of use only in so far aschildren exchange city-air and artificial city-customs for the puair and the more natural mode of living in the country. Anotherpreventive is to guard children against every possible exposure tcatarrhal influences. It is certainly true that a child scarcelyhas whooping-cough without first taking cold; but, on the otherhand, this perfect freedom from exposure cannot possibly be securunless we choose to deprive children of their most necessary nutrment, open air.We have already stated in a previous paragraph that we do notconsider the catarrhal stage an essential ingredient of whoopingcough, although the treatment of this stage is of importance to twhole course of the disease. It may be considered a rule that thesooner and more completely the premonitory catarrh is cured, theshorter and less intense will be the course of the convulsive staHence we have every reason, during the prevalence of epidemicwhooping-cough, to treat the most trifling catarrh with becomingcare and attention. The remedies to be employed for this purposeare the same as those that have been recommended in former sections for catarrh of the nose, larynx, trachea and bronchia, allwhich may come into play, though Belladonna will probably befound the most efficient at the commencement. The much vauntedDrosera is of very doubtful value in th?» as well as in the subsequent stages. At this stage it is of course indispensable to guarchildren against further exposure and consocjuent increase of thecatarrh, for which purpose they had better be kept in the room, ian uniform temperature. In the case of lively and quick childrenthis proceeding is undoubtedly of difficult execution- For a goodportion of our success in the treatment of whooping-cough we areundoubtedly indebted to the comparative certainty wi^^^h which wesucceed in controlling this first stage without impairing the genstrength of the little patient. Even a violent bronchitis at thehttp://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt