DIGITALIS IN THE TREATMENT OF CROUPOUS PNEUMONIA.Read in the Section on Practice of Medicine, at the Forty fifth-Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association held at San Francisco, June 5-8, 1894.

Abstract

It is not my intention to claim that digitalis is a specific in the treatment of croupous pneumonia, nor to insist upon its administration in every case of the disease that presents itself, but simply to state why it may be used and when, in my opinion, it ought to be used. During the last three years there has been considerable discussion, both in Europe and America, upon the use of digitalis in the treatment of pneumonia, and the various writers may be divided into three classes: 1, those who claim that digitalis is a specific in the treatment of pneumonia cutting short or, as they express it, jugulating the disease if given in the first stage; 2, those who have found that the disease is but little if at all influenced by the use of digitalis; 3, those who on theoretical grounds maintain that the administration of digitalis in