Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1898 — Avoid Coughing. [ARTICLE]

Avoid Coughing.

A physician who is connected with an institution in which there are many children, says: “There is nothing more irritable to a cough than coughing. For some time I had been so fully assured of this that I determined for one minute at least to lessen the number of coughs heard in a certain ward in a hospital of the institution. By the promise of rewards and punishments I succeeded in inducing them simply to hold their breath when tempted to cough, and in a little while I was myself surprised to see how some of the children entirely recovered from the disease. Constant coughing is precisely likescratching a wound on the outside of the body; so long as it is done, the Wound will not heal. Let a person when tempted to Cough draw a long breath and hold it until it frarms and soothes every air cell, and some benefit will soon be received from this process. The nitrogen which is thus confined acts as an anodyne to the mucuous membrane, allaying the desire to cough and giving the throat and lungs a chance to heal.” —Scientific American.