Cough
a spasmodic effort, attended with noise, to expel from the air pas- sages of the lungs some foreign body or irritating matter, which else would injure the delicate respiratory apparatus. Properly speaking it is not a disease; it is the effort of nature to remove what, if it be allowed to remain, may generate one; or it may be the symptoms of a disease of the lungs, the liver, the stomach, or the intestines; or may be produced by the nervous temperament. At the same time, when itself violent, it may produce morbid effects.