Whenever the paroxysm of cough
is increased in violence, the characteristic hoop disappearing, and the
face becomes very livid; the hands clenched, and the thumbs drawn into
the palms; the head hot, and marked fits of drowsiness and languor; and
the child, during sleep, screaming out, or grinding its teeth,--
something wrong about the head ought to be anticipated. Of the
treatment we have here nothing to say, except that the gums must be
carefully examined, and scarified if they require it, and the
temperature of the head reduced by cold sponging, or the application of
a bag of ice when necessary. The chief duty, however, of the parent is
to be alive to these symptoms, and early to detect the incipient
mischief, that by a prompt application of efficient means the accession
of so formidable a malady may be prevented.
To specific remedies for this disease it is scarcely necessary to
allude, after what has been advanced, except by way of warning. In the
simple form of the complaint such medicines are superfluous, or rather
some of them, from their violent properties, most dangerous; in the
complicated forms of the disease they are inadmissible.
The indiscriminate use of purgatives, also, a parent should avoid.
Bowel affections are not an infrequent attendant upon hooping-cough,
and always aggravate the primary disorder.
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