A medical handbook : for the use of practitioners and students / by R.S. Aitchison.

Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A medical handbook : for the use of practitioners and students / by R.S. Aitchison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    tendency to catnrrh is very great, and it often becomes more or less chronic, with subacute attacks. The symptoms begin with a feeling of chilliness, perhaps a rigor, and the temperature rises to ]oi° or 102° Fahr. The pulse is quick, the skin dry, the tongue furred, and the urine is thick with urates, which are deposited on cooling. Sometimes there is much depression, and often there is a tired or aching feeling in tiie limbs. These symptoms are accompanied by frontal headache and dryness of the nasal mucous membranes, followed soon by increased mucous secretion. The congestion may extend to the pharynx, larynx, and trachea—pain upon swallowing, hoarseness, and a tickling cough being the results. The Eustachian tubes may be affected, and partial deafness may be noticed in some cases. Taste and smell may be impaired. The nostrils become sore from the irritating discharge, and herpes may aflect the lips. The fever, under treatment, may disappear in a few hours, but the cough accompanied by at first mucus and then muco-purulent expectora- tion, may remain for several days, and if chronic, for a considerable time longer. In the chronic form, the mucous membranes become hypergemic and hypertrophied, sudden changes in the atmospheric conditions being apt to produce subacute attacks. The diagnosis of an acute catarrh is obvious, but measles, influ- enza, hay asthma, and the coryza produced by iodide of potassium, must be remembered. The chronic form may suggest an examina- tion for such surgical diseases as polypi of the nose, ozana, strumous and syphilitic ulcerations, hypertrophy of the mucous membrane, and sometimes chronic abscess of the antrum with a muco-purulent dis- charge from the nostril.* A cold may extend to the bronchial tubes, especially in the young and in the aged ; but in some cases it attacks the stomach and bowels, a chill producing gastric symptoms and often a sharp attack of diarrhcea. Recovery from an acute cold generally takes place within a lew days. The treatment of catarrh depends upon the stage. If taken very early, a 1 urkish or hot vapour bath may cut it short. The latter may easily be taken at home by means of Allen's spirit kettle, a simple and safe apparatus which may be used in any bath-room, and its u^e has the advantage of allowing the patient at once to proceed to bed without risk of a second chill. Ten grains of quinine or phenacetin, ilteen grains of antipyrin, or ten grains of Dover's powder, may be taken at bedtime-hot milk or gruel being allowed for supper. This treatment may be sufficient, and it may enable the patient to eo about nex morning with care ; but if the cold be a severe one, he should certamly keep his bed for a few days. Tincture of aconite- drop doses in water every ten minutes for two hours-is a useful ■ cmedy when the fever is high and the pulse strong and boundmg. • Apart from nasal catarrh altogether, it shoulrl hp nr.u.,\ fl,,.