affair, and apart from the discomfort of the first day or two, there
is not sufficient disturbance of the general health to interfere with
the ordinary pursuits. The temperature is the best guide in such
cases; if it is above normal (98-3/5 deg. F.) the patient should stay
indoors. In infants, young children, enfeebled or elderly people,
bronchitis may be a serious matter, and may be followed by pneumonia
by extension of the inflammation from the small bronchial tubes into
the air sacs of the lungs, and infection with the pneumonia germ. The
principal signs of severe attacks of bronchitis are rapid breathing,
fever, and rapid pulse.

The normal rate of breathing in adults is seventeen a minute, that is,
seventeen inbreaths and seventeen outbreaths. In children of one to
five years the normal rate is about twenty-six breathing movements a
minute. In serious cases of bronchitis the rate may be twenty-five to
forty in adults, or forty to sixty in children, per minute.

Of course the only exact way of learning the nature of a chest trouble
is thorough, careful examination by a physician, for cough, fever,
rapid breathing and rapid pulse occur in many other diseases besides
bronchitis, particularly pneumonia.

Pneumonia begins suddenly, often with a severe chill, headache, and
general pains like _grippe_. In a few hours cough begins, short and
dry, with violent, stabbing pain in one side of the chest, generally
near the nipple. The breathing is rapid, with expanding nostrils, the
face is anxious and often flushed. The matter coughed up at first is
often streaked with blood, and is thick and like jelly. The
temperature is often 104 deg.-105 deg. F.

If the disease proceeds favorably, at the end of five, seven, or ten
days the temperature, breathing, and pulse become normal suddenly, and
the patient rapidly emerges from a state of danger and distress to one
of comfort and safety. The sudden onset of pneumonia with chill,
agonizing pain in side, rapid breathing, and often delirium with later
bloody or rusty-colored, gelatinous expectoration, will then usually
serve to distinguish it from bronchitis, but not always.

Whenever, with cough, rapid and difficult breathing occur with rise of
temperature (as shown by the thermometer) and rapid pulse, the case
is serious, and medical advice is urgently demanded.

=Treatment of Acute Cough and Bronchitis.=--In the case of healthy
adults with a cough accompanying an ordinary cold