Bronchitis. Inflammation of the mucous lining of the bronchial tubes is a diffused disease, extending more or less through both lungs, and differs from Cold or Catarrh, which only effects the lining membrane of the nose and throat. When the upper portion of the chest is chiefly affected, patients often describe it is a “Cold-in-the-chest.” It most frequently occurs in old persons, although it sometimes affects children.
SYMPTOMS:
Acute Bronchitis begins with febrile symptoms, headache, lassitude, and anxiety; these are soon attended with a feeling of tightness or constriction in the chest, especially the front portion; oppressed, hurried, anxious breathing, with wheezing or whistling sounds; severe cough, at first dry, then with viscid and frothy expectoration, and sometimes streaked with blood, subsequently becoming thick, yellowish, and purulent. The pulse is frequent, often weak; the urine scanty and high-coloured; the tongue foul; there are throbbing pains in the forehead, and aching pains in the eyes, aggravated by the cough; with other symptoms of fever.
The usual cause of death in Bronchitis is the complete obstruction of the bronchial tubes with adhesive mucus resembling that expectorated during life. The unfavourable symptoms are cold perspirations covering the skin; pale and livid cheeks and lips; dry, brown tongue; scanty urine; cold extremities; extreme prostration; rattling, and a sense of suffocation in the throat; and complete insensibility, ending in death. In favourable cases, however, the disease begins to decline between the fourth and eighth day, and under good treatment and management soon disappears; otherwise it is apt to assume the chronic form.
CAUSES:
Exposure to cold draughts of air, to keen and cutting winds, or sudden changes of temperature; insufficient clothing; inhalations of dust or other irritative substances. Bronchitis also arises during the course of other diseases.
TREATMENT:
Aconitum. A rapid and full pulse, hot skin, frontal headache, palpitation of the heart, dizziness, constipation, and other febrile symptoms. A dose every one or two hours till improvement takes place.
Kali bichromicum This remedy has great power in Bronchitis, especially when chronic, with accumulations of tenacious, stringy mucus, difficult to expectorate; cough and dyspnoea.
Antim tart. Most valuable in the second stage, when there is much wheezing; with sickness induced by the great accumulation of mucus; and paroxysms of cough, dyspnoea, palpitation, etc. Extremely valuable in the bronchitis of children, with rattling of mucus in the chest. Prostration, with perspiring skin, is a great indication.
Bryonia. Heat, soreness, and pain behind the sternum (breast- bone), and an irritative cough with scanty expectoration, constituting a “Cold-on-the-chest.” It is most useful when the large air-tubes are involved, but less so when the inflammation extends to the smaller, where Antim tart. is superior. Bryonia is very useful in acute attacks of children, with suffocative cough, rapid, difficult breathing, great agitation, and anxiety. Phosphorus may also be considered.
ADDITIONAL REMEDIES:
Ipecac., Arsen., Belladonna, Carbo Veg., Mercurius, Spongia, and Sulph.
For dose, etc., see pp. 70-71.
DIET:
During an attack, gum-water, 1 See page 77. barley-gruel, jelly, etc. Cold-water, or toast-water, is the most appropriate drink. In elderly or feeble patients, exhaustion is liable to come on, requiring nutritious and constant support, Cod-liver oil, etc.; the latter is often an important item in the treatment of Bronchitis (pp. 155-159).
ACCESSORY MEASURES:
In acute cases, the patient should be kept in a warm atmosphere (65 to 70 degrees), which should be moistened by steam emitted from a kettle on the fire, or from a can of boiling water at the bedside. Ventilation of the apartment, however, should not be neglected. Hot linseed-meal poultices applied to the chest are beneficial, as they relieve congestion.
Chronic Bronchitis. This form of Bronchitis is common in advanced life. The milder varieties are indicated only by habitual cough, shortness of breath, and copious expectoration. Many cases of winter cough in old persons are examples of bronchial inflammation of a low type and protracted character.
TREATMENT:
Kali bichromicum, Carbo Veg., Bryonia, Arsen., Phosphorus, Hip. Sulph., Ipecac., Lycopodium, Calcarea, and Sulph. Also Cod-liver oil. See under Acute Bronchitis.
PREVENTIVE MEANS:
Cold bathing in the morning is the first and most important, that form of bath being adopted which is found most useful or convenient. (See bathing, pp. 56-7). Another preventive is the Beard, which protects the respiratory passages against the effects of sudden changes of temperature. The beard and moustache are a kind of natural respirator, the shaving off of which is a frequent cause of acute and chronic Bronchitis. Can we doubt the wisdom and beneficience of the Creator in giving this ornament to the man, who is so frequently exposed to atmospheric vicissitudes, and with holding it from the women, who, as the keeper at home, requires no such appendage?
Hair is an imperfect conductor of both heat and cold, and, placed round the entrance to the lungs, acts as a blanket, which promotes warmth in cold weather, and prevents the dissolving of ice in hot weather. In many instances, the hirsute appendages would protect lawyers, clergymen or other public speakers, and singers, from the injurious effects of rapid variations of the atmosphere, from which professional men so often suffer. Acquiring the habit of keeping the mouth shut and breathing through the nose, especially when exposed to cold or damp air, is a great protection. This habit should be taught in early life, and mothers should see that their infant children sleep with the mouth closed.
39. Asthma (Asthma)
This is a spasmodic disease, recurring in paroxysms, characterised by great difficulty of breathing, a feeling of tightness across the chest, wheezing cough, and often, at the close of an attack, a discharge of phlegm. The air-tubes of the lungs are encircled by minute bands of muscular structure, which, like other muscular fibres, may be affected with spasms. These spasms contract the air-tubes, and the difficulty of breathing and the wheezing respiration are caused by the air being forced through the narrowed channels.
SYMPTOMS:
An attack often comes on suddenly at night or towards morning, attended with a distressing sense of suffocation, the patient springing up, or even flying to an open window, wheezing loudly, till after an uncertain time, perhaps an hour, it passes off with more or less expectoration of mucus.
CAUSES:
Atmospheric changes; smoke, dust, gases, metallic and other particles floating in the air; certain odours, as of hay, ipecacuanha or vapour of sulphur; irregularities of diet, especially heavy suppers; and hereditary influence. It is not peculiar to any age, children as well as adults being liable to it.
TREATMENT:
The treatment should be directed to strengthening the organs during the intervals of attack, and quietly relieving the acute symptoms during the attack.
Ipecacuanha. A feeling of tightness of the chest; panting and rattling as if the windpipe were full of phlegm; coldness, paleness, anxiety, and sickness. During an attack, a dose every ten or fifteen minutes; afterwards, every three or four hours.
Arsenicum. Short, anxious, and wheezing breathing, aggravated at night by lying down, and upon the least movement; with attacks of suffocation, spasmodic constriction of the chest, and pale, sunken, or bluish face. It is especially required in Asthma from suppressed eruptions, and in feeble and impoverished constitutions.
Veratrum. Violent paroxysms, with cold-perspirations, and extreme prostration.
Antim tart. Often loosens expectoration.
Nux Vomica. Suitable for robust persons, and for attacks occurring about three or four o’clock in the morning, or after a heavy meal, or for patients of too studious habits, or addicted to stimulants.
Aconitum. Often very useful during a paroxysm, with tumultuous action of the heart, oppressive anxiety, laboured breathing, etc.
Sulphur. Chronic Asthma, apparently connected with some constitutional taint, and after the unsuccessful use of other remedies.
In obstinate cases, additional remedies are necessary.
ACCESSORY MEANS:
Holding the breath will sometimes break a spasm. Inhalation of steam, especially if medicated with the appropriate remedy affords relief. The diet should be strictly moderate, simple, and digestible, as disorders of the stomach often occasion an attack. Suppers are especially to be avoided. In some cases the food should be weighed, the meal-hours fixed, and strictly adhered to. Drill and calisthenics should be resorted to for the purpose of expanding the chest. Cold sponging, with frictions, in the morning, moderate and agreeable exercise in the open-air, and a strict avoidance of the usual exciting causes, are to be observed. The atmosphere best suited to the patient depends entirely upon idiosyncrasy, as some can only breathe in a mountain air, and others only in the fogs of London.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."