COUGH

This term is applied to a spasmodic action of the respiratory organs, occasioning a sonorous expulsion of air from the lungs: it is very commonly symptomatic of other affections; and some nosologists have considered that it is always so, and never idiopathic. Many cases of cough depend upon the extension of catarrh to the trachea and bronchiae, which become loaded with mucus or phlegm, the efforts to expel which constitute coughing. Others are perhaps referable to a vitiated secretion; and others to imperfect action of the absorbents, by which the natural mucous secretion remains and accumulates in the air ve els, and by evaporation becomes inspi ated and irritating; 'this appears to be one of the causes of the dry cough to which old people are subject. The treatment of catarrhal cough consists in allaying irritation by demulcents, such as mucilaginous drinks and lozenges, which, acting upon the glottis, sympathetically affect the trachea and its ramifications: amongst these extract of liquorice, and lozenges made of it and equal parts of gum tragacanth, are very effectual. Stimulants and full diet are to be avoided, and inflammatory sjTnptoms carefully guarded against; for these are not unfrequently brought on by the violence of a cough. It is not unfrequently nece ary to call in the aid of sedatives, expectorants, and aperients. Amongst the former small doses of Dover's powder, or of equal parts of it and extract of henbane, are very serviceable; and it is not uncommon to observe a troublesome cough disappear after a brisk dose of physic. An emetic will also sometimes effect its cure; so that coughs have been by some considered as symptomatic of a vitiated state of stomach and bowels. Where a cough periodically returns at night, and is not inflammatory, a dose of laudanum sufiicient to induce sound sleep will often, as it were, break the habit and relieve it. Sedatives, conjoined with stimulating expectorants, such as squills, ammoniacum, benzoic acid, ., are often effectual in relieving the coughs of old age; and in these, and what are called nervous coughs, much relief is experienced by administering mild opiates in the form of lozenges, so that they may pa gradually over the neighbourhood of the affected part, in consequence of the slowne with which they are di olved in the mouth and swallowed: lozenges of sugar, liquorice, or tragacanth, with about two grains of extract of poppies in each, are useful in such cases. Where coughs are symptomatic of inflammatory action, of asthma, ., they often require modes of treatment which have more particular reference to their exciting causes. [s. 305]