Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/237



Croup is not a very frequent complaint, and, in its acute form, is rarely fatal, unless it has been neglected in its early stage. I find that children will bear the loss of a greater quantity of blood, and will recover more rapidly from its effects, when it has been taken from the jugular vein, than by any other method. I have seen more children recover who took, after bleeding, oxymel of squill with tartar emetic, every hour, in sufficient doses to keep up nausea, than by any other plan of treatment.

Chronic Croup I have found a much more fatal complaint. Patients frequently go about for several days with but little inconvenience, have very little cough or fever, nearly lose their voice, and die from suffocation. In two instances I opened the trachea; the whole of its internal surface was lined with a tube of lymph.

Cancer.─In eight or ten cases of scirrhous mamma in which I have removed the diseased part, though all recovered perfectly from the operation, I believe that every individual died in less than three years afterwards, from a return of the disease in different parts of the body.

Twenty years since, when there was a great demand for houses, they were frequently inhabited before they were dry. At that time phlegmasia dolens was a very frequent disease; I have not now seen a case for many years. During the same period puerperal fever was very common, but a severe case is now rare. In the advanced stage of the last disease, when the abdomen continued enlarged, with a doughy feel upon pressure, I have seen great benefit from drachm doses of the spir. terebinth, given every