o the country. Men are subject to asthma more than women,
and the victims belong to families subject to nervous troubles of
various kinds. The attack frequently subsides suddenly, just when the
patient seems to be on the point of suffocation. There is often
coughing and spitting of little yellowish, semitransparent balls of
mucus floating in a thinner secretion.

Asthma is not likely to be mistaken for other diseases. The
temperature is normal during an attack, and this will enable us to
exclude other chest disorders, as bronchitis and pneumonia.
Occasionally asthma is a symptom of heart and kidney disease. In the
former it occurs after exercise; in the latter the attack continues
for a considerable time without relief. But, as in all other serious
diseases, a physician's services are essential, and it is our object
to supply only such information as would be desirable in emergencies
when it is impossible to obtain one.

=Treatment.=--An attack of asthma is most successfully cut short by
means of one-quarter of a grain of morphine sulphate[6] with 1/20 of a
grain of atropine sulphate, taken in a glass of hot water containing a
tablespoonful of whisky or brandy. Ten drops of laudanum,[7] or a
tablespoonful of paregoric, may be used instead of the morphine if the
latter is not at hand. Sometimes the inhalation of tobacco smoke from
a cigar or pipe will stop an attack in those unaccustomed to its use.
In the absence of morphine, or opium in the form of laudanum or
paregoric, fifteen drops of chloroform or half a teaspoonful of ether
may be swallowed on sugar.

A useful application for use on the outside of the chest consists of
mustard, one part, and flour, three parts, mixed into a paste with
warm water and placed between single thicknesses of cotton cloth.
Various cigarettes and pastilles, usually containing stramonium and
saltpeter, are sold by druggists for the use of asthmatic patients.
They are often efficient in arresting an attack of asthma, but it is
impossible to recommend any one kind, as one brand may agree with one
patient better than another. Amyl nitrite is sold in "pearls" or
small, glass bulbs, each containing three or four drops, one of which
is to be broken in and inhaled from a handkerchief during an attack of
asthma. This often affords temporary relief.

To avoid the continuance of the disease it is emphatically advisable
to consult a physician who may be able to discover and remove the
cause. The