Inflammation of the Throat and its Effects.

Otago Witness, Volume 14, Issue 2648, 14 December 1904, Page 68

Inflammation of the Throat and its Effects.

Inflammation of the throat is generally present when we say we have a cold. The nose 13 usually involved along with it, and it arises from infection from some other person who has it, and with whom we have come into more or less intimate contact. We have spoken to them, been 111 the same room with them, or the same car, and the chances of their infecting us are the greater the nearer we have come into touch with them, and the more we have inhaled the air which has been infected by their breath. Coughing causes the ejection of small droplets of secretion from the air passages, and 1 , even short of this, it involves the more violent projection of air in a direction away from the person who coughs. It is well, then, that a person with a cough should obey the rule of manners, and turn away the head, and, failing this being possible, should at< least cover the mouth with a handkerchief.

When an inflammation of the throat takes place it may be very acule or mild in its nature. We will suppose that it is mild, and allows of the patient walking about and doing his ordinary work. At first he is "eeedy," and his nose and throat are stuffed up-; then he begins to have a discharge of a watery characte-r, which may soak handkerchief after handkerchief. Then the discharge decreases and becomes thicker ; latterly it is yellow, and fairly thick in its consistence, and the cold is recovered from.

But this is not 1 the case. The more severe symptoms go, but the condition does not completely disappear, although there are no symptoms, or such that they are only noticed 1 when attention is called to them. In such a case the throat will still 'be found to be red, and there maybe snnll elevations, giving the throat a granular appearance. When this can bo seen by merely looking into the back of the throat a similar condition is most commonly to be found above the soft palate, but usually this part is more red and more swollen than the part opposite the mouth. This part can be seen — imperfectly, it is true — 'before a mirror if, while the mouth is open, the throat is tickled. This causes the soft palate to rise, and reveals the condition of the upper throat for a moment. It is fairly common to find red strips on either side of the throat when the middle part is clear.

One of the serious evils of the inflammation being situated here is that it is apt to affect the hearing, since from this part of the throat the Eustachian tubes pass to the ears, and any involvement of the throat end of the tubes causes swelling of the mucous membrane, leading to blocking of the passages and dulling of the hearing. Then, too, there is a risk even in an acute case of the inflammation spreading to the middle ears along these channels, and this is very definitely increased with every subsequent attack, especially when it comes on the top of a subacute inflammation which has already interfered with the potency of the tubes. For these reasons, then, acute catarrh of tho throat should be treated to a finish, since failure to do this leads to future trouble and possibly future defects of hearing and of nose-breathing. — Liverpool Mercury.