Breathing comfort

Herbals separate a dry, tickly cough from a chesty one and reach for each differently: mucilaginous species meant to coat an irritated throat — common mallow, plantain, great mullein — for the first, aromatics such as common thyme, hyssop or wild thyme for the second. The catalogue holds seventeen herbs under this topic and both groups are represented.

Behind the form of use lies the same logic: a warm infusion, steam, honey. The tradition does not speak of treating an infection here, but of getting through the night with some sleep.

A cough is a protective reflex, not a disorder, and with a common viral infection it clears by itself within two to three weeks. That is precisely why it is so hard to measure anything against it — most people recover regardless of what they drank.

The best-documented home measure for children over one year is honey at bedtime; infants are never given honey. For herbal infusions the evidence differs species by species and sits on the individual cards, not in a blanket claim about 'herbs for a cough'.

Breathlessness, chest pain, coughing up blood and rapid breathing are reasons for an examination the same day, not for an inhalation.

Also have assessed a cough lasting more than three weeks, a fever that returns after improvement, wheezing in a child and any cough in an infant. Steam over a pot is a common cause of scalds in small children — if you inhale, do it safely.