Lungs Bleeding From
Sources:
Papers On Health
This is usually taken as a most alarming, and
even hopeless, symptom. It is not necessarily so at all, and even when
a considerable amount of blood is lost, the patient may recover.
Therefore, let friends not be frightened when this occurs, but bend
their energies to proper treatment, and all danger may be averted. All
alcohol must be avoided; it is most hurtful in such cases. Pack the
feet and legs in a hot blanket FO
ENTATION (see) and press cold
cloths gently and equally over the chest or back where the blood is
felt to be coming from: thus you stimulate the enfeebled nerves and
brace the relaxed lungs at one and the same time. Relief will usually
be felt at the end of two or three minutes. Continue the application
till all pain and uneasiness are gone.
Before taking the legs out of the warm pack, dry the chest carefully,
rub it with warm olive oil, and wrap it up in good new flannel. Then
take out the feet and dry them well; rub them gently and well with warm
oil, put on a pair of soft cotton stockings, and allow the patient to
rest. Squeeze an orange and give him an orange drink (see Drinks).
When you have used this fomentation to the feet, and cold cloths once
or twice, it will be well to place a large bran poultice across the
lower part of the back, taking care again that this is only comfortably
hot. When you have had the benefit of this once or twice, you may place
a similar poultice between the shoulders; but this only after you have
so far succeeded in cooling down the inflamed lung or lungs, as the
case may be. During the whole of the treatment it will be well to watch
what is agreeable to the sufferer. It is not only that a certain
treatment, or degree of treatment, comforts, but that it comforts
because it heals. Move the patient as little as possible during
treatment, and do and say all possible to soothe the mind.
The whole treatment should be gone over a second time within twelve
hours. The second day give one application of the treatment only, and
repeat once again the third day. Except for the first time, the
treatment may be limited to half-an-hour. Avoid hot food or drink, but
it is not necessary to have it positively cold. This treatment we
have found perfectly successful in many cases.