Los Angeles daily herald., 1886-07-10
CONSUMPTION

DtscaScs VI W outVh, az Ntit az NJ Nh'oh-
ie Complaints
CONSUMPTl
Does not begin, as people generally think,
with cough or soreness of the lungs. but
usually with debility, weakness, languor,
dyspepsia, or catarrh The most common
and most fatal form Is that In which tuber
Giles arc deposited IN the substance OF the
lungs. These are small eheesy kernels, that
usually lie dormant for many months even
for years, showing their presence only by
shortening the breath and weakening the
frame, aud inducing languor and Inability
to walk fast, or far, or work hard.
The young wife, settling into decline,
leans more heavily on the husband arm
Once She walked lightly with him step for
step; now she leans. ann complains that he
walks SO fast, aud puts her all out of breath.
She gets better fora wnile in brighter wealth
er. aud then withou evident cause SINKS
lower than before; aud thus rises and sinks,
perhaps, many times before the tubercles
ripen and rot the tissues around them, when
she coughs, at first and perhaps for long
time. dry, hacking cough; then 1t becomes
moist and softer, and she raises matter either
yellow or saltish. and perhaps offensive 10
the taste, or 1t may be frothy or glairy, like
the white Of an egg. 1t is usually looked
upon as OF no great account, but treated as a
common cold, the patient not deigning to
call In even the family physician. But even
II he is called he is apt to make light of It,
waits and hopes, but Is annoyed to ind she
does not get rid OF it thinks 1t a bad cold,
that hangs on worse than any she ever had
before; coughs worse evenings and morn.
ings, and fears she has caught more cold,
but cannot account for 1t.
The following are the more com
mon signs of this form OF consumption:
First. lassitude, or languor. or shortness Of
breath. with disposition to gasp or sigh or
catch for breath. At this stage 1t is easily
cured. II the patient tries the sperometer
he finds that he cannot breathe an average
amount. perhaps by forty or bity inches
not that the tubercles fill so much space, but
that they weaken the power of imitation and
expulsion of air. Young girls, at this stage,
are prone 10 lean on the parasol In walking,
as II for a cane to support. and are disposed
them out OF BREATH They like to recline
on the sofa, or lounge in a rocking chair.
They relinquish many OF their previous and
more active pleasures, and voluntarily with
draw from the dance, or skating, or smuse
ments requiring lively or vigorous move
ment, aud prefer TO look on, raj ely dreaming
that the time Is last approaching when they
shall even look on no more, and the dance
and the skates will go ON just as meirlly
perhaps without them. ii the lungs be
carefully examined with the proper instru.
ments at this stage they sound duh under
the hammer, and give no sound at all
through the stethoscope over some one spot,
more commonly over the middle lobe of the
right lung or instead OF absence OF the
healthy sound. il Is changed into creeking
called crepitation-but very faint.
This sound cannot be detected through the
garments, nor through any of them, nor can
the dizziness be detected through them with
the hammer. There isno resort In the prao-
tiee OF medicine mOreabsurd and pernicions
than that oil pretending to examine the lungs
with the fingers OF one hand drumming ON
| those of the other over the chest; and what
makes 1t still more worthless is the
doing of II over garments that
| would utterly obscure a much louder sound
| than the one for which the practitioner Is
supposed to BIO listening. Such examina-
lions beguile the patients, until the disease
is so deep as TO pass all hopes of recovery.
Still, up 10 this time tde ordinary
duties of life are carried on as usual only
with an increasing disposition to rest and
sit dow II while at work, till the patient is
often considered more lazy than sick"
Ii application be made To physician In
common located practice, he declares liter
one OF those shiftless, faulty examinations
with his fingers, that the lungs are all right;
only little irritation of the tubes. Oh
this fatal blindness The patient returns
eomfofted. and tries, perhaps, some cough
drops or expectorant to loosen the cough,
and begins to raise the ''phlegm' much
more easily but after while complains OF
some nausea after eating, and hollowness
when hungry--the early symptoms of dys-
pepsia, brought on by the depressing cough
drops, or troches, or expectorants, which
are all Inade-of some drug, which taken in
larger doses produce sickness at the stomach
as sQuills, ipecac, lobelis, etc. These ex.
pectorants hasten on the disease at much
accelerated rate; and complicate Il with
others that make II much more dthlcult to
cure. But even at this stage, by a iudicious
system of Inhalation, proper diet, habits
TONES and change OF air, 1t is easily brought
under control. We cannot too deeply con
denim and deplore the free use of troehes,
cough drops, and expectorants of all kinds
They hurry many to the u ave, and in 9th
ers induce dyspepsia, rose estarrh or fever,
hay asthma and other troubles indicative Of
perverted tone OF the mucous membrane.
In the succeeding stages of the disease the
symptoms OF the preet ones are greatly
aggravated, and to these are commonly add
I'D some or all Of the following; In the
woman the monthly discharges cease or be-
come scanty; the mind becomes, so to say,
capricious, the hopes being at one moment
unduly elated, and perhaps the next more
depressed and moody, and there is mark
ed disposition to shed tears over touching
scenes and stories. and to laugh heal tily at
the slightest absardities or witticlsms; the
emotions become very sensitive and tender,
and this Is most Observable at night, when
q cold, clammy sweat awakens the patient
from unqnlet sleep, and gives reins TO the
wilde It fancies. The lips are often observed
to be purple or black and dry; flush fire..
quently appears on the cheek; the white OF
the eye becomes OF a mother-ofpearl APP
pearance; the cough deepens and extends
from morning till night. and from night till
morning, even sometimes continuing
through sleep that brings little refreshmeut:
the spit or sputa is salt and yellow and of
bad taste, and increases in quantity from
time to time, when the patient is said 10
catch cold the voice becomes husky or hol-
low. or unduly sonorous; the periods OF ex-
ercise grow shorter with the shortening
breath, and less and less frequently, the
walk of a few rods being su f1cient to induce
fatigue; the chest becomes tender, even to
slight percussion, and 1t is now generally
conceded that the patient is in a decline,
or wasting fever, or perhaps the bold word
Consumption is used, and by or before this
time the careless examiner-the physician
who says consumption caunot be cured
has SO long been dealing, and advises
codliver oil, or the super-phosphates, OF
whisky and cream, or the last fashionable
| folly in the treatment OF this dread disease,
and perhaps change OF air to the south,
and probably sanctions a plaster to the
chest or between the shoulders, or covers
| these parts with croton oil or tartarized an
timony. Oh 1t is pitifnl t. see such help
lessness at such time, the last precious
days in which there may be ground for
hope This soon passes; the patient lies
later and later from day to day, till finally
the whole day is spent in bed; and now the
cough is so harrassing and the discharge SO
copious that the nurse holds up the patients
head that the sputa may be thrown into a
cup or bowl; the appetite becomes very
capricious, the stomach feeble; probably
the tubercles ripen and slough in the bow
els. giving rise TO persistent and exhausting
though mild diarrhea. There is constant
sense OF want OF breath that is sometimes
called being tired and weary and Is attribu-
ted to the cough. Even at this late stage the
patient will sometimes sit up in bed and
write words of love and hope to some dis
tant friend, and make promises OF visits and
talk OF worldly affairs; ii a woman, will
speak of what she is 70 wear when she gets
well, and hos she will dress her hair, etc.,
and the next minute may be found in tears,
as she suspects she may never recover. But
why follow this declining life into the deep
uatsnss ~ WIEN =. 81 a ~, su LTD.
gnLv. II took years, perhaps. to do the
work, but Il is done. The reason consump-
tion is so seldom cured is that II Is not rec
| ognized till its work is so far advanced.
| Physicians close their eyes to II till too late
to master II, or having accidentally cured it
get credit for what they have done