IN SPITE of the large amount of clinical research on whooping cough, no curative treatment of the disease has yet been discovered. Special serum therapy, although definitely beneficial in the early stages, is less so as the disease progresses.1 Sulfonamide compounds, as well as penicillin, have no influence on the progress of the disease, their value being mainly against secondary infections.2 The use of streptomycin seems to be promising as far as can be judged from the results of observations in vitro and of experiments on rats, but its use in human subjects is still under trial.3 The recently suggested high altitude treatment is also as yet in the stage of investigation.4 The present day treatment of the disease, once it has reached the paroxysmal stage, is, therefore, mainly symptomatic.
The commonest and, until now, probably the most beneficial treatment consists, in addition to ordinary nursing