Volume 1

The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others].

Date:: 1908-1909

Credit: The standard physician : a new and practical encyclopaedia of medicine and hygiene especially prepared for the household / edited by Sir James Crichton-Browne [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Cough Cremation THE STANDARD PHYSICIAN 3^12 sometimes useful in suppressing a threatening coryza; but at a later stage of the disease it is ineffectual. The dry air of rooms, especially of steam-heated rooms, acts injuriously ; whereas plenty of outdoor exercise in fresh, clear air is beneficial, even in the middle of a severe winter. If the disease is accomjianied by severe headache, by profuse, persistent, and ill-smelling discharge, or by involvement of the ears, careful special treatment is required. The prevention of corvza, so far as it is an affection due to cold, may be accomplished by a general hardening of the body. See H.vrdening. Stockings should be changed frequently, and wet foot-wear promptly removed, especially in the case of children. Nervous coryza consists in an intense irritation accompanied by sneezing, and by a profuse watery (never viscid or purulent) secretion ; it begins abruptly and ceases as suddenly. During the intervals between the attacks, the state of health is usually normal. The affection generally begins early in the morning, as soon as a part of the body is uncovered, and lasts for from several minutes to two hours. The eyes are often watery. In some indi- \’iduals the inclination to sneeze appears when they pass from one room into another with different temperature, or when they smell certain substances, as roses, or hay. See Hay-Fever. Some persons are affected when travelling on railways (“ railway coryza ”) ; and others when in a crowd, or when looking into brilliant light. All persons suffering from nervous coryza, which is related to asthma, are themselves nervous ; and in order to be cured permanently of coryza they must undergo a general treatment calculated to improve their nervous tone. This will cause a diminution of the excessive sensibility of their mucous membranes. Morbid changes in the nose are present in some cases ; and the removal of these will cure the affection. COUGH.—A sudden, violent, spasmodic, and noisy expulsion of air through the closed glottis after a preceding deep inspiration. It is a reflex, having for its object the removal of some disturbing substance (mucus, etc.) from the respiratory passages. Hawking is a voluntary cough. Moist coughs are those in which fluid masses are expectorated. Dry, or irritative, coughs are accompanied by little or no expectoration. The irritation in a dry cough may originate either in the larynx or in other portions of the respiratory passages. It may be due to some abnormal process in the pharynx, or in the uvula, or even in organs which have no direct association with the respiratory passages, as the liver, stomach, intestine, womb, teeth, or ear. In such cases it is a question of referred sensation. The irritation, in some instances originating in an affected organ (for instance in the mucous membrane of the stomach), acts upon the pneumogastric nerve, which, being in close relationship with the larynx and the bronchi, transmits the impulse to cough (see Plate XL). If the larynx and the upper ])ortions of the trachea are affected, the cough is usually accompanied with a$