Treatment of croupous pneumonia in children / by Joseph E. Winters.

  • Winters, Joseph Edcil, 1848-1922.
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatment of croupous pneumonia in children / by Joseph E. Winters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    cerebral pneumonia. Every child with susceptible ner- vous system has cerebral symptoms, but the appellation cerebral pneumonia is preposterous misnomer—the term should be expugned. Opisthotonos. Involvement of pleura at upper and posterior portion of lung in pneumonia will cause contraction of neck muscles and opisthotonos, branches of same nerve trunks supplying muscles and pleura. Abdominal distention necessitates use of auxiliary respiratory muscles. With great distention there may be marked opisthotonos. Involvement of pleura covering diaphragm causes pronounced opisthotonos, auxiliary respiratory muscles being called into play to prevent diaphragmatic respiration. Opisthotonos' due to posterior apical pleurisy must be treated by moist heat—hot fomenta- tions or poultices. Dry heat is powerless; moist heat specific. Hot flax-seed meal poultice, bound on with flannel and oiled silk; a fresh one gently slipped in place every half-hour proves magical. For abdominal distention rhubarb and soda; pepton- ized milk or strained cereals without milk, and hot turpentine stupes every half-hour. Diaphragmatic pleurisy is the most dangerous event in pneumonia. Pneumonia with inflammation of dia- phragmatic pleura is almost invariably fatal. Open-Air Treatment of Pneumonia. With advent of rigorous weather pneumonia unfail- ingly returns. Cold on cutaneous vessels intensifies lesion. Intensi- fication of lesion increases cardiac embarrassment. Every form of cardiac inability is endangered by cold. A patient with cardiac disability who suffers no embarrassment on a mild day finds life endangered when [13]