So much for the simple form of the disease, and that in which it most
frequently and commonly presents itself to our notice: a mild disease;
and, if carefully managed and watched over, certainly not a dangerous
one.
Of what, then, is a parent to be afraid, or against what is she to
guard? Lest other disease insidiously come on, and advance to an
irremediable degree, masked by the cough, without attracting her
attention. This is the great source of danger in hooping-cough. The
physician, in a case of simple hooping-cough, is not in daily
attendance upon his patient, and therefore not present to notice the
commencement or first symptoms of those diseases which so frequently
occur at this time, and the successful treatment of which will mainly
depend upon their early detection, and the decision with which they are
treated. When you hear of a child or several children in a family dying
of hooping-cough, it is not this disease which proves fatal; but death
is caused by some disease of lungs or brain, which has been super-added
to the hooping-cough. The progress of hooping-cough, then, must be
closely attended to by the parent, even in the most favourable cases.
The most frequent complication with hooping-cough is inflammation of
the air-tubes of the lungs.
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