Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-11-25
A Cure for Whooping Cough.

II
| A FRIEND sends me a slip cut from a
recent newspaper, inquiring for : relia-
BILE remedy for whooping cough. j am
enabled to give the desired information
after actual experience in my own farni-
4 y, and through the equally favorable
experience of more than a score of
friends and neighbors who have tried it..
It is well known to most intelligent
| people that exposure of patients to the
1 vapors arising from the purifying boxes
IN the gas works almost invariably re-
lieves the terrible paroxysms, and, after
repeated visits, cures have been fire.
quently effected. This discovery was
made by q physician in Paris about fif-
teen years ago. s8 ~
| The fact was published, and soon af-
ter visits began to be made to the Man
haitian, New York, Brooklyn, and other
| gas works, on the recommendation of
our medical men. An epidemic of
whooping cough ragged in Newport in
the winter of 1878. Over 300 patients,
between the ages of two months and
seventy-fve years, visited the gas works.
The Treasurer of the company, William
A. Stedman, Esq, states that nearly all
I were benefited, and some were undOubt-
edly cured.
About that time the child of distin-
guished chemist in Providence, r. L.,
was seriously ill with this terrible dis
ease, and too weak to be taken to the
gas works. The father procured a
quantity of the liquid hydro carbon de-
posted by condensation in the bottom
of the purifying box, and vaporized it in
a metal dish in the closed room of the
! little sufferer. Almost immediately 1t
| revived, the spasms were checked, and
after a few days the child recovered and
was as well as ever.
| Microscopes have recently discov-
cred that the cause of whooping cough
(pertussis) is the rapid aggregation of
bacteria under the root of the tongue.
These must be destroyed before relief
can be obtained. To this end such pow
erful medicine as quinine bromide is
| given; but even that fails to reach the
binary expectorants are absolutely use
| less; change of air is rarely curative ;
hence the rapidly increasing percentage
| of deaths from this disease.
The New York Board of Health re-
| port for 1875 has list of 489 deaths
| from whooping cough in that city. The
deaths weekly in London, England, are
| from minimum of 60 to q maximum of
| 22O, over 5000 annually.
Physicians generally inform the anx-
| ious parents that whooping cough must
| take its course, as remedy is unknown,
and they can only slightly relieve it;
that the incubation and increase in
virulence will occupy six weeks, and
from six weeks to six months will be re-
CURED before it is entirely removed.
The whoopings usually increase regu
larly in number from day to day to the
| fifth week, often equaling forty times
in twenty-four hours. Very rarely is
this disease preceded by any other, but
so great is the strain upon the system
that frequently it is followed by pneu-
monia, in which event death often en-
Sues A fatal termination is more gen.
orally the result of absolute physical ex-
haustion due to the terrible strain conse-
| quent upon the oft-recurring paroxysms.
A few years since my youngest child,
never before i'll, was stricken by this
dread disease. The best medical talent
was obtained, every known remedy
tried, most watchful care constantly ey-
ercised, but without the slightest avail.
The child actually coughed itself to
death. With all the grief of this sad
experience still fresh, in April, 1879, we
were alarmed by new incursion of the
destroyer. Our children, and years,
were attacked, seemingly with the sever
ity of the preceding case.
It was then I learned of this Provi-
dence chemists discovery, and that
simple but ingenious apparatus had
been invented by which the hydro
carbon (by analysis found 10 be creso-
Iene C6II5CH3O) could be evaporated
in closed room. l Immediately pro-
cured both. The apparatus is a metal
stand six inches high, supporting a cup,
holding half an ounce of cresolene. The
heat is supplied either by petroleum
night lamp or gas; vaporizers being
made to attach to an ordinary gas burn
err.
Cresolene is a rose-pink liquid with a
boiling point of 1877 degrees. 1t is not
unpleasant in odor, but, on the other
hand, is extremely grateful to any one
with the least bronchial or catarrhal af-
lection.
In three minutes after the lamp was
| lighted the vapor of the cresolene was
diffused in every part of a room Is by
20 feet. In ten minutes the children
manifested evident relief, recovered
from their dull exhaustion and were
playing on the bed, even laughing aloud
in their evident freedom from the par
oxysm.
/ was not advised it could be contin-
ued in safety all night, and at the ex-
piration of fifteen minutes extinguished
the lamp. The children had been
whooping twenty times day. One Of
them did not even cough for twelve
hours, the other for thirty-six.
Learning that the vaporization could
be continued day and night with more
rapid benefit, l applied it for five nights
in their sleeping room. The spasms
ceased and they speedily recovered.
At that time an epidemic of whooping
cough was raging in my vicinity. adj
vised my neighbors of this apparatus.
| Many of them were used and with the
best results.
I believe the vaporizers and cresolene
are now to be obtained from druggists
I am confident it will be found equally
| oil throat ay,d 1unr disco COG