Occasional lectures on the practice of medicine : addressed chiefly to the students of St. Mary's Medical School; : to which are appended the Harveian Lectures on the Rheumatism of Childhood; / revised and corrected up to date by W.B. Cheadle.

  • Cheadle, Walter B. (Walter Butler), 1835-1910.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Occasional lectures on the practice of medicine : addressed chiefly to the students of St. Mary's Medical School; : to which are appended the Harveian Lectures on the Rheumatism of Childhood; / revised and corrected up to date by W.B. Cheadle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    59/364 (page 37)
    respiratory centre, and caution must consequently be observed if any degree of cyanosis be present. In phthisis, as in bronchitis, opium is the only remedy which will effectually relieve the distressing cough. Other sedatives, with the exception, perhaps, of inhalations of conium, have small power in this respect, and conium inhalations are apt to nauseate the patient. The objection to the free use of morphia in phthisis lies in the fact that it increases the sweating, already too profuse, and interferes, to some extent, with appetite and digestion. The first may be neutral- ised by the addition of belladonna or atropine ; the second to a great degree by avoiding the coarser preparations of opium, and using morphia or nepenthe with hydrochloric acid and gentian; the treatment in both cases being continuous, by moderate doses at short and regular intervals. This regular administration is essential. The common plan of giving a dose of sedative only occasionally, when the cough is troublesome, is to apply the remedy too fitfully and too late. The only conditions of the stomach in which opium comes effectively into play are those in which vomiting and pain are conspicuous symptoms. In irritatice dyspepsia, for example, where there is pain or dis- comfort, opium is extremely useful combined with hydrocyanic acid and full doses of sodium bicarbonate. In gastric ulcer opium is sometimes of signal service ; it relieves pain, and by its power of arresting peristal- sis, it lessens the churning movements, and gives the mjared organ rest. Again, opium reheves pain, and by