On asthma : its pathology and treatment / by Henry Hyde Salter.

  • Henry Hyde Salter
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On asthma : its pathology and treatment / by Henry Hyde Salter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    399/500 (page 383)
    been conscious of the presence of some asthma, and have been visiting some of the cottagers in their warm close rooms, I have been obliged to escape, from a feeling of actual suffocation, to the open air. Tor the same reason we see asthmatics with their mouths open, with the aspect of fish ejected from their natural element. I have now described my case as respects the common asthma, including exciting causes, symptoms, and remedies. It only re- mains to relate the peculiarities of my asthma as it presents itself during hay-fever, and in consequence of the proximity of a cat; which two subjects, for the sake of convenience, I shall detail separately, and as distinct from the common asthma, though in reality it is but one asthma, and every attack, from whatever cause, and with whatever accompaniments, is consequent on an asthmatic constitution. HAY-ASTHMA. My hay-asthma differs from the common asthma only in its origin and its accompaniments ; it is necessary, therefore, I should describe the malady as a whole, detailing all the symptoms and peculiarities of what is commonly called hay-fever. It seems reasonable to suppose that I must have been liable to hay-fever, at the ordinary season, during the M^hole course of my life, but till within the last few years I was never aware of its presence, or of the existence of such a malady. From the frequency of my asthma, and common colds in early life, it is probable that the recurrence of asthma at a particular season, and the other symptoms of hay-fever, were overlooked, and that when I became less generally subject to asthma, the tendency to hay- fever remaining, that complaint more distinctly declared itself; or it may be that of late years I have become constitutionally liable to hay-fever—either more susceptible of the influence, whatever it may be, or have acquired a constitution capable of evolving the symptoms. The period of the commencement of the hay-fever, and the length of its continuance, are very variable, being never exactly the same two years following; for one or two seasons, not long since, it did not make its appearance at all, or was so slight as to be scarcely perceptible. Speaking generally, I begin to per- ceive it about the middle of May, and it ceases about the middle of July; but I have observed that this depends some- what upon the forwardness of the season, and the progress of vegetation.