Important: Safety Warning
This page gives first-aid or emergency advice that predates modern medicine and can make an emergency worse. Do not follow it. In any medical emergency, call emergency services and follow current first-aid guidance.
In addition, this page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Treatment (Give the patient at once)
Give the patient at once a tablespoonful of common salt, and direct him to swallow it slowly. If the pulse be full, and he be rohust, bleed him. The sugar of lead has much sible. A fit of anger, or any imprudence, may cost him his life. There is a milder kind of this disease, resulting from debility, nervousness, indigestion, etc., which must be remedied by restoring the strength of the general system. It is also symptomatic of other diseases, and must be treated accordingly.
Dropsy of the Chest.
Symptoms. Great difficulty of breathing, which is incrcased by lying down, oppression and weight at the breast, countenance pale or livid, and extremely anxious, great thirst, pulse irregular and intermitting, cough, violent palpitation of the heart, the patient can lie on one side only, or cannot lie down at all, so that he is obliged to sleep sitting, frightful drearns, a feeling of suffocation, etc.