By her watchfulness and care the duration of the
disease may not only be abridged, but, what is of much greater
importance, a more serious and aggravated form of disease prevented;
for although hooping-cough in itself is not a dangerous disorder, still
the most simple and slight case, if neglected or mismanaged, may
quickly be converted into one both complicated and dangerous.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DISEASE.--Hooping-cough commences with the symptoms
of a common cold, which is more or less frequent. These symptoms
continue from five days to fifteen; at the end of which time the cough
changes its character, and assumes the convulsive form, which
distinguishes the disorder. It occurs in paroxysms, varying with the
severity of the disease from five to six in the twenty-four hours to
one every ten or fifteen minutes; being generally more severe and
frequent during the night than in the day.
During a paroxysm the expirations are made with such violence, and
repeated in such quick succession, that the child cannot breathe, and
seems in danger of suffocation. The face and neck become swollen and
purple from suffusion; and the eyes prominent, injected, arid full of
tears. The little one, with a forewarning of the attack, which it
dreads, falls on his knees, or clings closely to any thing near him.
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