BLEEDING FROM THE WIND-PIPE AND LUNGS. (Haemoptysis)

Categories: Respiratory Diseases

This is a spitting
of blood. It may come from the small bronchial tubes and less frequently

from the blood vessels in the lung cavities or their walls.



Symptoms. In incipient consumption of the lungs, bleeding develops

suddenly as a rule, a warm salty taste, lasting but a few moments,

generally preceded by the spitting up of blood. The blood is coughed up

and the bleeding may last only a few minutes or it may co tinue for days,

the sputum being apt to remain blood-stained for a longer time. The

immediate effect of the bleeding is to alarm the patient and family, no

matter how slight it may be, inducing heart palpitation and other nervous

symptoms. A small bleeding is not attended with any bad result, but large

ones give rise to the symptoms of shock (sometimes immediate death)

combined with anemia following the loss of blood. When the bleeding is

large, blood by the mouthful may be ejected with each cough, and in these

instances of such profuse bleeding is shown by dizziness, faintness, cold

extremities, excessive pallor, sweating and rapid, small feeble pulse.

This is followed, if the attack does not prove speedily fatal, by

restlessness, and later by mild delirium and some fever. In few cases does

the patient have a single bleeding; more frequently there are several at

shorter or longer intervals. Large or small bleedings may precede by

weeks, months, or even years any rational symptoms of consumption.







Quantity. This varies greatly. There may be less than an ounce or it

might amount to a pint or more before the bleeding stops. In advanced

cases, in which large cavities have formed, large blood vessels may be

eaten through and this followed by copious and alarming bleeding.



1. Bleeding from the Lungs. Salt Water for. "Give the

patient half a teaspoonful of common salt every hour or two until

hemorrhage abates."



2. Bleeding from the Lungs. Herb Tea for. "Two ounces each of bistory

root, tormentil root, oak bark, and comfrey root, boil in three quarts of

water down to one pint, strain and add one tablespoonful of ground ginger.

Give a wine glass full every half hour until relieved. Place the feet in

hot mustard water, keep the bowels open with a little senna and ginger tea

and if necessary give a vapor bath,"



3. Bleeding from the Lungs, Effective Remedy for.



"Powdered Sugar 3 ounces

Powdered Rosin 3 ounces



Mix. Dose one teaspoonful three times a day."



4. Bleeding from the Lungs, Tannin and Sugar for.-



"Tannin 30 grains

Powdered Sugar 1 dram



Mix. Make ten powders and give one every ten minutes until relieved."



Either one of the above remedies is excellent for this trouble, as the

tannin and rosin contract the arteries and acts as an astringent.