Veratrum album

PERTUSSIS (Whooping Cough).

Veratrum album is one of the chief remedies in the convulsive stage. The child coughs itself into a regular collapse, falls over exhausted with cold sweat, especially on the forehead. It follows well after Cuprum met. in these most violent cases.

PLEURITIS.

Tartar. emetic., regarded by Kafka as specific at the commencement of pleuro-pneumonia, has great dyspnœa, must sit up to breathe, sometimes nausea and vomiting, but is more especially called for when there is much coarse rattling of mucus in the tubes, they are so loaded as to threaten suffocation and it cannot be expectorated, cyanosis appears and death will quickly come if not relieved. Here this remedy is wonderfully efficacious if relief is possible. If it fails the choice is next generally Carbo veg., according to indications above given under that remedy. The Veratrum is useful in collapse with prostration, general coldness and cold sweat, especially on the forehead. It may not cure the case, but will often bring on a reaction, as will also Arsenicum and Carbo veg., much better than the hypodermics of Strychnia of the old school. I have seen desperate cases recover under these remedies, skillfully applied. More than once nurses who had been used to the Strychnia expressed their astonishment at the result, which so seldom had been accomplished under that treatment.