The American eclectic practice of medicine (Volume 2).

  • Jones, I. G. (Ichabod Gibson), 1807-1857.
Date:
1853-54
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The American eclectic practice of medicine (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    mentioned by some of the authorities as following mercurial disease. You will generally find it connected with or depen- dent on derangement of the stomach. The treatment should be prompt and efficient in the severe form of laryngitis ; but in the mild form first referred to very little treatment is required. Slight irritation over the throat will be useful in mild cases; or the patient, on going to bed, should apply to the throat a towel wrung out in cold water, and cover that with a flannel so as to increase the warmth and thereby favor evaporation. This will generally relieve the patient before morning. Or you may apply a mustard poultice over the part, and if the case is of some severity this may be followed by hot fomentations of hops covered with dry flannel. In connection with these local means you may administer the boneset syrup, and perhaps a mild ape- rient to act slightly on the bowels. The antidyspeptic pills or a seidlitz powder will usually be sufficient. Frequently the boneset syrup, together with friction on the throat with tinct. camphor, will answer. Of course the efficiency of the treatment should depend on the violence of the disease. Perhaps there is no disease upon which there is greater unanimity in the books than in regard to the treatment of the early stage of this affection. Almost every author recommends bleeding, though as to the time at which this means should always be resorted to there is great diversity of opinion. Yet in view of the unqualified confidence with which this remedy is recommended by the authorities, we would naturally sup- pose that the results of practice would justify the theory. But what is the result ? You may be surprised at the state- ment that not one half the cases of laryngitis treated bv ac- tive depletion recover. Yet Tweedie, Vol. Ill, page 76, says: Laryngitis has been considered by Dr. Cheyne and others to be the most fatal of all the inflammations. Of seventeen cases observed by Bayle during six years, only one recovered. Of twenty-eight cases collected from various au- thors by Mr. Ryland, ten recovered, which he justly considers to be above the average. In most of the fatal cases, death took place between the first and fifth days. The prognosis must