RECURRENT BRONCHIAL DISEASES

A child was given bath at a hospital at the time of birth, got exposure and in turn suffered from Pneumonia. Thereafter the child suffered from 3 more attacks of Pneumonia up to the age of 3 years. Another child of 4 months of age was given bath in summer and was put to bed in a whirling fan. The child developed Pneumonia. Since then the child suffered several attacks of bronchitis and broncho pneumonia.

These are 2 cases treated homeopathically and recoded out of 20 such cases. But there are numerous victims who are suffering from cold and cough, bronchitis, broncho-pneumonia and bronchial asthma frequently.

The victims are mainly young children both male and female, generally between 4 and 6 years old. They seem to be in normal health but are mostly lean and thin, occasionally found with liver enlargement. They complain of rattling sound while coughing with a feeling of congestion of throat and chest but no actual congestion is noticed on auscultation. The voice may be hoarse or of normal pitch. Lack of appetite in a majority of the children has been observed. They do not feel hunger as healthy children generally do. “The child brings his only Chapati back home in tiffin” may be the complaint of mothers of these sick children. But they are fond of piquant things like ice-cream, toffee, golgappa, and other sweet of saltish preparations. And therefore show reluctance for their normal meal when they are offered food. Their appetite vanishes on seeing food or after taking a little food. They may have a desire for cold drinks even during winter season. Grinding of the teeth at night along with excessive salivation while asleep and complaints of mild pain in the belly indicating wormy symptoms. There may be a history of prolonged diarrhoea before the onset of bronchial trouble or the diarrhoea may be ushered during the latent phase of the diseases. Mentally such children are either sharp or of normal intelligence. In most of the victims tonsils are also found to be enlarged especially after taking sour or cold things.

Owing to frequent relapses in the nature of these diseases, parents get worried for the well-being of their children. Doctors, in order to give relief to such victims do their best and try drugs of common use to special ones with every successive attack but relapses do occur.

The attacks of these diseases are more frequent in winter but in true cases these come in summer too, when the conditions are rampant for such diseases. An average of one child out of 10 may be easily traced. Early age and exposure to cold act as predisposing factors and are responsible for making the young children susceptible to these diseases. Infection fist settles in the upper respiratory tract and later may pass in to the lower one. This is commonly seen in cases of bronchitis or cold, where the first one turns to bronchopneumonia and the latter to congestion of the chest.

Why should a child be sensitive to such diseases in early life, can be well understood by the following facts:
1) The respiratory system of a newborn and infants is not well developed. There are only 17 generative branches in the respiratory system of a newborn as compared to 23 in a grown-up person. Accordingly, the volume of the lung tissue is bigger in an adult, therefore better resistance system as compared to the young ones.
2) The child may get an initial attack of any of such diseases due to the carelessness of the parents or as a manifestation of the some other existing trouble. This is especially seen when the child is not treated in such a way where the resistance of the body particularly the respiratory system is maintained. Thus in these diseases a previous attack predisposes to repetition rather than giving immunity. In fact only those children get subsequent attacks whose body resistance is weakened either by diseases or because of drugs abuse especially the broad spectrum antibiotics viz Gentamycin.

Role of Vitamins: Vitamins, especially vitamins A and C play an important role in the proper maintenance of integrity and activity of normal epithelial tissue of the respiratory system. Vitamin A is also known as the anti-infective vitamin which along with pathological tissue change in the lining of the lungs i.e. transformation of the simple squamous (pavement) epithelium to stratified squamous epithelium which may undergo degeneration. As a result local resistance to infection is reduced, hence infection from these sites easily takes place. Vitamin C maintains the normal state of the intercellular substance, the acid mucpolysaccharide, along with vitamin A. Susceptibility to
Infection increases due to deficiency of the acid mucopolysaccharide. Vitamin B by the name of B complex has a wide range of actions but is mainly concerned with tissue metabolic activities. Thus it is recommended that vitamin A and C used along with B when the patient is to be treated with broad spectrum antibiotics in modern or allopathic system of medicine.ss

Homoeopathic View: According to Dr. W.A. Dewey; “Though giving vitamins rich food is the prevailing custom, it is a crude and uncertain method for the condition may not be altogether due to a lack of them in the food, but also and perhaps preponderately to the lack of power of the system to appropriate them”. Therefore, we must find a remedy to restore this vitamin function of the system that is lacking or deranged and this can be done in the homoeopathic way by attenuating remedies so that the system will absorb them.

As per the homoeopathic system,”Disease is nothing more than an alteration inn the state of health of the individual which express themselves by perceptible symptoms. For treatment; the totality of the symptoms mentioned above constitute the disease.” Hahnemann considered the totality of symptoms as the living or dynamic pathology of the patient. If all the symptoms are eradicated the disease is cured internally. Drugs are administered to diseased persons with the idea that if a morbid vital process is changed to the original normal state, the pathological changes in the organism would be restored to physiological, structural and functional state of the individual. In other words resistance is built by correcting the normal functioning of the tissue cells of the respiratory system in particular and the body in general. Thus the disease is annihilated permanently and no further relapses occur.

Therapeutic Hints: The basic aim of treating patients of recurrent bronchial diseases is to change their constitution. Since these patient are susceptible to cold in general owing to lack of vitality, therefore, medicines which generally bring about change in the body are deep acting constitutional remedies. No doubt in the acute phase of the disease, on the basis of prevailing symptoms, we should also prescribe short acting medicines. Thus the lowered vitality is to be corrected by increasing the resistance. The most commonly used medicines are as under:-

Phosphorus, Sangunaria can., Antim Tart, Ipecac, Bryonia, Kali-bich, Hepar Sulph, Sulphuur, Bacillinum/Tuberculinum.

Nature’s Role: In case the victims are not fortunate enough to receive treatment which would , otherwise make them free from frequent relapses of the ailments, then nature has its own role to play. This is bringing a change in the body through hormones especially the androgens at the commencement of puberty. After this the troubles are normally overcome automatically.

Dr.P.S.Rawat
B.Sc. BHMS
M.D.(Homoeo) Scholar

Formerly:- Professor & Principal-cum-officer incharge Research,
H.M.C & Hospital Chandigarh and
S.A.S Nagar (Mohali) Punjab. M.D (Homoeo)

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