ASPHAXIA
The term simply means ‘SUFFOCATION’ which is a life -threatening condition when oxygen is prevented from reaching the tissues due to obstruction or damage to any part/organ of respiratory system.
Causes
1. Choking
2. Drowning
3. Inhaling poisonous gas (as often happens when underground choked drains are opened)
4. Strangulation etc. General Treatment
The patient should be at once removed to a hospital or initially removed to open place which should not be crowded by standers-by. The condition should be remedied by removing the obstruction (If present and within reach) or by simply resorting to artificial respiration (if needed). Any delay could lead to cyanosis, leading often to death.
It may be borne in mind that brain cells can live alive for 4 minutes without oxygen, hence any damage to brain cells would almost tentamount to permanent damage of the cells. Brain cells may also die due to lack of glucose supply to the brain cells but, in the later disorder, there is no asphaxia, hence there ought to be no confusion with regard to symptoms which vary completely.
WHOOPING COUGH (Pertussis)
Whooping cough occurs mostly in children but adults, though suffer rarely, are by no means an exception. It is not a shortlived manifestation, hence may last for a week or so or even over a month, if not controlled in good time, Usual incubation period is 1-2 weeks.
Cause (s) & Symptoms
It is a contagious disease, caused due to infection of lining of the mucus membranes of air passages by the becterium called ‘Hemophilus Pertussis’ which infects and affects mostly children. Initially, after in incubation period of 1 -2 weeks, cough becomes paroxymal. Repeated attacks of short-living coughs are followed by involuntary inhalation of breath that produces the whooping sound. When the paroxysms occur, those are followed by vomiting, bleeding from mouth and nose. The child vomits phlegm, ingesta or whatever is given to him to eat, through vomiting which shakes the whole body and causes laboured breathing. This stage lasts for 1 -2 weeks and the child remains infected throughout the invasion period. Over the next 2-3 weeks symptoms show a declining trend, though slowly.
It is not a serious disease but, since an innocent child is usually the patient, he becomes susceptible to tuberculosis and pneumonia, especially when the initial warning signals and symptoms are ignored.
In allolopathy DPT-Vaccine (which is prepared from combined antigens and toxoids of whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus) is administered to the infant, at the infancy stage, so that the infant is rendered immune from affects of such disease. These vaccines are given to most of the children and are a regular part of immunisation drive.