Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/226

 harder with him than if he were older—the younger the child the greater the risk. But still, in such a case, do not despair, as I have known numerous instances of new-born infants, with judicious care, recover perfectly from the attack, and thrive after it as though nothing of the kind had ever happened.

A new-born babe laboring under hooping-cough is liable to convulsions, which is, in this disease, one, indeed the great, source of danger. A child, too, who is teething, and laboring under the disease, is also liable to convulsions. When the patient is convalescing, care ought to be taken that he does not catch cold, or the "hoop" might return. Hooping-cough may either precede, attend, or follow an attack of measles.

230. What is the treatment of Hooping-cough?

We will divide the hooping-cough into three stages, and treat each stage separately.

What to do.—In the first stage, the commencement of hooping-cough: For the first ten days give the ipecacuanha wine mixture, a teaspoonful three times a day. (For the prescription of the ipecacuanha wine mixture, see question 202.) If the child be not weaned, keep him entirely to the breast; if he be weaned, to a milk and farinaceous diet. Confine him for the first ten days to the house, more especially if the hooping-cough be attended, as it usually is, with more or less of bronchitis. But take care that the rooms be well ventilated, for good air is essential to the cure. If the bronchitis attending the hooping-cough be severe, confine him to his bed, and treat him as though it were simply a case of bronchitis. (For the treatment of bronchitis, see question 205.)

In the second stage, discontinue the ipecacuanha mixture, and give Dr. Gibb's remedy—namely, nitric acid—which I have found to be an efficacious and valuable one in hooping-cough: