barley-water, or weak black tea, with plenty of new milk in it, etc.; but, until the inflammation has subsided, neither broth nor beef-tea.
Now, with regard to medicine, the best medicine is ipecacuanha wine, given in large doses, so as to produce constant nausea. The ipecacuanha abates fever, acts on the skin, loosens the cough, and, in point of fact, in the majority of cases will rapidly effect a cure. I have in a preceding Conversation given you a prescription for the ipecacuanha wine mixture. Let a teaspoonful of the mixture be taken every four hours.
If in a day or two he be no better, but worse, by all means continue the mixture, whether it produce sickness or otherwise; and put on the chest a tela vesicatoria, prepared and applied as I recommended when treating of inflammation of the lungs.
The ipecacuanha wine and the tela vesicatoria are my sheet-anchors in the bronchitis, both of infants and of children. They rarely, even in very severe cases, fail to effect a cure, provided the tela vesicatoria be properly applied, and the ipecacuanha wine be genuine and of good quality.
If there be any difficulty in procuring good ipecacuanha wine, the ipecacuanha may be given in powder instead of the wine. The following is a pleasant form:
Take of—Powder of Ipecacuanha, twelve grains;
White Sugar, thirty-six grains:
Mix well together, and divide into twelve powders. One of the powders to be put dry on the tongue every four hours.
The ipecacuanha powder will keep better than the wine,
an important consideration to those living in country
places; nevertheless, if the wine can be procured fresh and
good, I far prefer the wine to the powder.
When the bronchitis has disappeared, the diet ought
