The medical guide, for the use of the clergy, heads of families, and seminaries, and junior practitioners in medicine. Comprising a complete modern dispensatory, and a practical treatise on the distinguishing symptoms, causes, prevention, cure, and palliation of the diseases incident to the human frame, with the latest discoveries in the different departments of the healing art / by Richard Reece.

  • Reece, Richard, 1775-1831.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The medical guide, for the use of the clergy, heads of families, and seminaries, and junior practitioners in medicine. Comprising a complete modern dispensatory, and a practical treatise on the distinguishing symptoms, causes, prevention, cure, and palliation of the diseases incident to the human frame, with the latest discoveries in the different departments of the healing art / by Richard Reece. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    excitement and relaxing the whole body, either ipecacuanha pow- der or emetic tartar generally succeeds in producing a secretion of mucus that may be expectorated with facility, and when this begins to take place, the inflammatory action or excitement generally sub- sides. In cases of chronic cough, attended with debility, this class of expectorants, it is clear, would increase the difficulty of expec- toratirig, and endanger life. If the inflammatory excitement of the membrane be attended with fever, loss of blood, blistering, and the other remedies recommended for pleurisy, will be necessary. When attended with considerable irritation or troublesome dry cough, the acetate of morphine is a very valuable auxiliary to demulcent and nauseating remedies. ‘The inhalation of warm vapour is very useful in all cases of difficult or deficient expec- toration. In cases of chronic cough or asthma, the vapour of a decoction of the hop is generally very beneficial. In the same complaints in elderly subjects, whose powers of expectoration require a stimulus, the inhalation of the vapour of tar or of ether (evaporated in a saucer over a candle) generally proves useful; and in cases of inflammatory excitement or morbid irri- tation of the membrane lining the windpipe, the vapour of a decoction of hemlock or of poppy-heads affords relief. In chronic affections, breathing of oxygen for fifteen or twenty minutes, two or three times a day, not only promotes expectoration, but im- proves the general health. It has been said, that stimulants cannot reach the lungs through the medium of the circulation, so as to act on the internal membrane of the bronchial vessels; and yet the same writer attributes diuretic effects of squill root to its stimulating action on the secreting vessels of the lungs. The peculiar odours the internal use of assafoetida and ether communicate to the breath, are strong if not decisive proofs of their reaching the lungs through the medium of the circulation ; and in chronic affections, where the parts are evidently in a state of debility, their effect in promoting expectoration cannot be attributed to any other property than stimulant. In cases of inflammatory excitement, we also find that they check expecto- ration and aggravate the complaint. (See effects of vomiting, &c., under the head of Emerics. See also Sguriu Pity, Ive- CACUANHA PowpeEr, TArRTARISED ANTIMONY, ASTHMA, and CouGu.) HY PNOTICS. — See Separives. IRRITANTS. — Articles capable of exciting irritation, such as bruised mustard seeds, subcarbonote of ammonia, cantharides, the class of aromatics, &c. (See Ruperacients and STiMu- LaNts.) ‘The topical application of stimulating articles proves beneficial in cases of local debility, either from deficiency of sen- sibility of nerves, or what is termed nervous energy, or by some