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Title: The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases
Author: West, Charles, 1816-1898
Language: English
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THE
MOTHER'S MANUAL
OF
CHILDREN'S DISEASES.
BY
CHARLES WEST, M.D.
FELLOW, AND LATE SENIOR CENSOR, OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS:
FOUNDER OF, AND FORMERLY PHYSICIAN TO, THE HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN:
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE OF PARIS: ETC.
AUTHOR OF 'LECTURES ON THE DISEASES OF INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.'
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
1885.
ADVERTISEMENT.
I have often asked myself whether it would not be possible to give in a
small compass, and avoiding all technical detail, such an account of the
diseases of infancy and childhood, as might be of use and comfort to the
intelligent mother.
Returning now, with health perfectly restored, to practise my profession
for the rest of my life exclusively in my own country, I have brought
with me this little book, in which the comparative leisure of my
enforced sojourn at Nice has enabled me to realise my purpose.
The book is not intended as a handbook for the nursery; many such exist,
and many of them are of great merit. Neither has it the worse than idle
pretence of telling people how to treat their children's illnesses,
without the help of a doctor. Its object is to give a description of the
diseases of early life, such as may help a mother to understand
something of their nature and symptoms, to save her from needless
anxiety as to their issue, and to enable her wisely to second the doctor
in his endeavours for their cure.
CHARLES WEST.
55 HARLEY STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE.
_August 1, 1885._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
ADVERTISEMENT v
_PART I._
INTRODUCTORY 1
CHAPTER I. 1
Mortality of children and its causes -- Causes fourfold:
Intermarriage -- Hereditary taint -- Unhealthy dwellings --
Unwholesome food
CHAPTER II. 5
General signs of disease -- Shown by the cry, the temperature, the
pulse and breathing -- Rules for examination as to these points --
Signs of absence of disease of the brain
CHAPTER III. 12
General management of disease -- Mothers who cannot nurse their
children when ill -- Importance of truth and keeping child happy --
Rules for management of bed-room and bed -- The bath -- Poultices --
Leeches -- Cold applications -- Medicines -- Note-taking and
relation to the doctor
_PART II._
PLAN PROPOSED TO BE FOLLOWED 31
CHAPTER IV. 32
On the disorders and diseases of children during the first month
after birth -- Still-birth -- Premature birth -- Imperfect expansion
of lungs -- Jaundice -- Ophthalmia -- Scalp-swellings -- Ruptured
navel
CHAPTER V. 45
Disorders and diseases of children after the first month, and until
teething is finished -- Infantile atrophy -- Rules for artificial
feeding -- Management of indigestion -- Thrush -- Teething --
Affections of the skin -- Eczema
_PART III._
DISORDERS AND DISEASES INCIDENT TO ALL PERIODS OF CHILDHOOD 85
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SECOND PERIOD OF CHILDHOOD 85
CHAPTER VI. 88
Disorders and diseases of the brain and nervous system -- Their
mortality and its causes -- Convulsions -- Congestion of the
brain -- Sunstroke -- Water on the brain -- Inflammation from
disease of the ear -- Chronic water on brain -- Brain disorder from
exhaustion -- Spasmodic croup -- Epilepsy -- St. Vitus's Dance --
Palsy -- Neuralgia and headache -- Night terrors
CHAPTER VII. 128
Disorders and diseases of the chest -- Catarrh and snuffles --
Bronchitis and pneumonia -- Influenza -- Pleurisy -- Croup --
Diphtheria -- Hooping-cough -- Asthma -- Diseases of the heart
CHAPTER VIII. 151
Diseases of organs of digestion -- Description of process of
digestion -- Dyspepsia of weakly children -- Jaundice --
Diarrh[oe]a -- Peritonitis -- Large abdomen -- Worms -- Ulcerated
mouth -- Quinsy -- Enlarged tonsils -- Abscess at back of throat --
Diseases of kidneys -- Incontinence of urine
CHAPTER IX. 173
Constitutional diseases -- Their nature -- Chronic constitutional
diseases -- Consumption -- Scrofula -- Rickets -- Acute
constitutional diseases -- Rheumatic fever -- Ague -- Mumps --
Typhoid fever -- Small-pox -- Inoculation and vaccination --
Chicken-pox -- Measles
APPENDIX. 213
Mental and moral faculties in childhood, and the disorders to which
they are liable
INDEX 231
THE MOTHER'S MANUAL
OF
CHILDREN'S DISEASES.
PART I.
_INTRODUCTORY._
CHAPTER I.
ON THE MORTALITY OF CHILDREN, AND ITS CAUSES.
The purpose of this little book will probably be best attained, and
needless repetition best avoided, if we begin by inquiring very briefly
why so many children die, what general signs indicate that they are ill,
and what general rules can be laid down for their management in
sickness.
The first of these inquiries would be as useless as it would be sad, if
the rate of infant mortality were fixed by determinate laws, such as
those which limit the stature of man or the age to which he can attain.
But this is not so; the mortality in early life varies widely in
different countries, in different parts of the same country, and in the
same country at different times. Thus, while in some parts of Germany
the mortality under one year was recently as high as 25 to 30 per cent.
of the total births, and in England as 15, it was only a little above 10
per cent. in Norway. Infantile mortality is higher in manufacturing
districts, lower in those which are agricultural, and varies from 16 per
cent. in Lancashire to 9 in Dorsetshire. It is then evident that
mortality in infancy is in part dependent on remediable causes; and of
this there is no better proof than the fact that the mortality in
England under one year has been reduced from 15 per cent. in 1872 to 13
per cent. in 1882.
It would lead us far from any practical purpose if we were to examine
into all the causes which govern the liability to disease and death
during infancy and childhood, in the different ranks of society. We must
therefore limit our inquiry to those conditions which are met with in
the class to which my readers may fairly be assumed to belong.
_First_ among the causes of sickly infancy and premature death may be
mentioned the intermarriage of near relatives. The experience of the
breeders of animals, who, by what is termed breeding in and in,
undoubtedly obtain certain qualities of speed, or strength, or beauty,
does not apply here. They select for their experiments animals whose
qualities in these respects are pre-eminent, and eliminate from them all
who do not occupy the first rank. In family intermarriages, however, it
is rare that any consideration is regarded, save that of wealth; and the
fact remains, explain it as we may, that the intermarriage of near
relatives during several successive generations is followed by a marked
deterioration of the children, physical, mental, and moral; and by the
intensifying of any hereditary predisposition to consumption, scrofula,
and other constitutional ailments which form the _second_ great cause of
early sickness and mortality.
These are facts known to all, which yet it is not easy to represent by
figures. All the world is aware that consumption is hereditary, that
consumptive parents are more likely than others to have consumptive
children; and a fourth of all the patients admitted into the Hospital
for Consumption at Brompton stated that the disease had existed in one
or other of their parents.[1] Scrofula, which is another disease closely
allied to consumption, is hereditary also; and hip disease, disease of
the spine, abscesses, and enlarged glands in any members of a family,
point to risks for the offspring which should not be forgotten, how much
soever mental endowments, personal beauty, or the charms of disposition
may be considered, and sometimes reasonably enough, to outweigh them.
The same liability exists with reference to epilepsy, insanity, and the
whole class of affections of the nervous system. Parents inquire, with
no misplaced solicitude, what is her fortune, or what are the pecuniary
resources of him to whom they are asked to entrust their son's or
daughter's future. Believe me, the question--what is the health of his
family, or of hers? is consumption hereditary, or scrofula, or epilepsy,
or insanity?--is of far greater moment, and touches much more nearly the
future happiness of those we love.
These two points regard the future parents themselves; but there are
other conditions on which the health of children to a great degree
depends; and of these the two most important are the _dwelling_ they
inhabit, and the _food_ they eat.
I do not refer here to the dwellings of the poor, situated in unhealthy
localities, where fresh air does not enter, where the rays of the sun do
not penetrate, with defective drainage and imperfect water-supply; but I
speak of the nurseries of well-to-do people. 'This will do for our
bedroom, and that will make a nice spare room, and that will do for the
children,' is what one often hears. Had you rare plants which cost much
money to obtain, which needed sunlight, warmth, and air, would you not
consider anxiously the position of your conservatory, and take much
pains to insure that nothing should be wanting that could help their
development, so that you might feast your eyes upon their beauty, or
delight yourselves with their fragrance? And yet a room at the top of
the house, one of the attics perhaps, is too often destined for the
little one and its nurse; or if there are two or three children, one
small room is set apart for the day nursery, and a second, probably with
a different aspect, for a sleeping room, and so small that it does not
furnish the needed five hundred cubic feet of air for each. And as a
consequence, the children are ailing, any predisposition in them to
hereditary disease is fostered, they have no strength to battle against
any acute illness that may befall them, and yet surprise is felt that
the doctor is never out of the house.[2]
It is needless to dwell on the hand-feeding of infants as one of the
great causes of mortality in infancy, and of sickliness in later life.
The statistics of Foundling Hospitals bear sad testimony to the fact of
its dangers, and the researches of physicians show that a peculiar form
of disease is produced by it, attended by symptoms, and giving rise to
appearances after death, peculiar to the form of slow starvation from
which the infant has perished. I will add, because it is not generally
known, one fresh illustration of the influence of artificial feeding in
aggravating the mortality of infants. In Berlin the certificates of
death of all infants under the age of one year, are required to state
whether the little one had been brought up at the breast, or on some
kind or other of artificial food. Of ten thousand children dying under
the age of one year, one-fourth had been brought up at the breast,
three-fourths by hand.[3]
It is, as I said in the preface, no part of my plan to enter on any
details with reference to the management of children in health. It may,
therefore, suffice to have pointed out the four great causes of
preventible disease among the wealthier classes of society; namely, the
intermarriage of near relatives, the transmission of constitutional
taint, the insanitary condition of the dwelling, and the injudicious
selection of the food of the infant.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is the proportion stated in Quain's _Dictionary of Medicine_,
to which the writer, Dr. Theodore Williams, adds that of 1,000 cases in
the upper classes 12 per cent. showed direct hereditary predisposition,
and 48 per cent. family predisposition.
[2] Many useful suggestions will be found in Mrs. Gladstone's little
tract, _Healthy Nurseries and Bedrooms_, published as one of the Health
Exhibition Handbooks.
[3] The actual numbers are 2,628 and 7,646. See _Generalbericht ueber
das Medizinal-und Sanitätswesen der Stadt Berlin im Jahre 1881_. 8vo.
Berlin 1883, p. 19.
CHAPTER II.
THE GENERAL SIGNS OF DISEASE IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.
The signs of disease at all ages may be referred to one or other of
three great classes: disorder of function, alteration of temperature,
complaint of pain.
In the infant it is the last of these which very often calls attention
to the illness from which it is suffering. Cries are the only language
which a young baby has to express its distress; as smiles and laughter
and merry antics tell without a word its gladness. The baby must be ill,
is all that its cries tell one person; another, who has seen much of
sick children, will gather from them more, and will be able to judge
whether its suffering is in the head, or chest, or stomach. The cries of
a baby with stomach-ache are long and loud and passionate; it sheds a
profusion of tears; now stops for a moment, and then begins again,
drawing up its legs to its stomach; and as the pain passes off,
stretches them out again, and with many little sobs passes off into a
quiet sleep. If it has inflammation of the chest it does not cry aloud,
it sheds no tears, but every few minutes, especially after drawing a
deeper breath than before, or after each short hacking cough, it gives a
little cry, which it checks apparently before it is half finished; and
this, either because it has no breath to waste in cries, or because the
effort makes its breathing more painful. If disease is going on in the
head, the child utters sharp piercing shrieks, and then between whiles a
low moan or wail, or perhaps no sound at all, but lies quiet, apparently
dozing, till pain wakes it up again.
It is not, however, by the cry alone, or by any one sign of disease,
that it is possible to judge either of its nature or of its degree, but
the mention of this serves merely as an illustration, which anyone can
understand, of the different meanings that even a baby's cry will convey
to different persons.
When a child is taken ill, be the disease from which it is about to
suffer what it may, there is at once a change from its condition when in
health, such as soon attracts the attention even of the least observant.
The child loses its appetite, is fretful and soon tired, and either very
sleepy or very restless, while most likely it is thirsty, and its skin
hotter than natural. In many instances, too, it feels sick or actually
vomits, while its bowels are either much purged or very bound. If old
enough to talk, it generally complains of feeling ill, or says that it
has pain in some part or other, though it is by no means certain that a
little child has described rightly the seat of its pain; for it very
often says that its head aches or that its stomach aches, just because
it has heard people when ill complain of pain in the head or in the
stomach. Some of these signs of illness are, of course, absent in the
infant, who can describe its feelings even by signs imperfectly; but the
baby loses its merry laugh and its cheerful look; it ceases to watch its
mother's or its nurse's eye as it was used to do, though it clings to
her more closely than ever, and will not be out of her arms even for a
moment; and if at length rocked to sleep in her lap, will yet wake up
and cry immediately on being placed in its cot again.
Symptoms such as these are sure to awaken the mother's attention to her
child, and the child's welfare and the parent's happiness alike depend,
in many instances, on the way in which she sets about to answer the
question, 'What is the matter?'
Some mothers send at once to the doctor whenever they see or fancy that
anything ails their child. But this way of getting rid of responsibility
is not always possible, nor, indeed, on moral grounds, is it always
desirable, for the mother who delegates each unpleasant duty to another,
whether nurse, governess, or doctor, in order to save herself trouble or
anxiety, performs but half a mother's part, and can expect but half a
mother's recompense of love.
Whenever a child is unwell, a mother may do much to ascertain what is
the matter, and may by the exercise of a little patience and common
sense save herself much needless heart-ache, and her child much
suffering.
The first point to ascertain is the presence or absence of fever; that
is to say, whether, and how much, the temperature of the body is higher
than natural. If the temperature is not higher than natural, it may be
taken as almost certain that the child neither has any inflammatory
affection of the chest, nor is about to suffer from any of the eruptive
fevers. The temperature, however, cannot be judged of merely by the
sensation conveyed to the hand, but must be ascertained by means of the
thermometer.[4] In the case of the grown person the thermometer is
placed either under the tongue, the lips being closed over it, or in the
armpit, and is kept there five or six minutes. In young children,
however, neither of these is practicable, and I prefer to place the
instrument in the groin, and crossing one leg over the other, to
maintain the thermometer there for the requisite five minutes. The
temperature of the body in health is about 98.5° Fahr. in the grown
person, and very slightly higher in childhood; but any heat above 99.5°
may be regarded as evidence that something is wrong, and the persistence
for more than twenty-four hours of a temperature of 101° and upwards,
may be taken as almost conclusive proof of the existence of some serious
inflammation, or of the onset of one of the eruptive fevers.
At the same time it is well to bear in mind that temporary causes, such
as especially the disorders produced by over-fatigue, or by an
over-hearty or indigestible meal, may suddenly raise the temperature as
high as 102°, or higher, but the needed repose or the action of a
purgative may be followed in a few hours by an almost equally sudden
decline of the heat to the natural standard.
It is well to learn to count the pulse and the frequency of the
breathing; but to do the former accurately, requires practice such as is
hardly gained except by hospital training; and indeed, with few
exceptions, the value of the information furnished by the pulse is less
in the child than in the adult. The reasons for this are obvious, since
the rapidity of the circulation varies under the slightest causes, and
the very constraint of holding the sick child's hand makes it struggle,
and its efforts raise the frequency of the heart-beats by ten or twenty
in the minute. The place at which to seek the beat of the pulse is at
the wrist, just inside and below the protuberance of the wrist-bone; but
if the child is very fat it is often difficult to detect it. When
detected it is not easy to count it in early infancy, for during the
first year of life the heart beats between 120 and 130 in the minute,
diminishing between that age and five years to 100, and gradually
sinking to 90 at twelve years old. In proportion, moreover, to the
tender age of the child, is the rapidity of its circulation apt to vary
under the influence of slight causes, while both its frequency and that
of the breathing are about a third less during sleep than in the waking
state.
The frequency of the breathing is less difficult to ascertain, while at
the same time it furnishes more reliable information than the pulse.
This is best tested when the child is asleep, remembering always that
the breathing is then slower than in the waking state. The open hand,
well warmed, should be laid flat and gently over the child's night-dress
on the lower part of the chest and the pit of the stomach. Each heaving
of the chest, which marks a fresh breath being taken, may be counted,
and the information thus obtained is very valuable. Up to the age of two
years the child breathes from 30 to 40 times in a minute, and this
frequency gradually declines to from 25 to 30 till the age of twelve,
and then settles down to from 20 to 25 as in the grown person. You would
thus know that a sleeping infant who was breathing more than 30 times,
or a child of five who breathes more than 25 times, has some ailment in
its chest, and that the doctor should be sent for in order to ascertain
its exact nature.
It would answer no good purpose to give a description of the information
to be obtained by listening to the chest. To learn from this, needs the
well-trained ear; and harm, not good, comes from the half-knowledge
which serves but to lead astray.
A child may be very suffering, seem very ill, and its suffering and
illness may depend on pain in the stomach owing to indigestion,
constipation, or even to an accidental chill. After early infancy it is
not difficult to make out the seat of the child's suffering: the warm
hand placed gently on its stomach will soon ascertain whether it is
tense or tender, whether the tenderness is confined to one particular
spot, or whether it is more acute at one spot than at another; and,
lastly, whether, as is the case when pain is produced by wind in the
intestines, the pain and tenderness are both relieved by gentle rubbing.
In the young infant the character of the cry will, as I have already
said, give some clue to the seat of its pain, while, if you lay it down
in its cot or in its nurse's arms in order to examine its stomach, it
will often resist and begin to cry. Its stomach then becomes perfectly
tense, and you cannot tell whether pressure on it causes pain or whether
the cries are not altogether the consequence of fretfulness and fear. It
is therefore the best plan to pass your hand beneath the child's clothes
and to examine its stomach without altering its posture, while at the
same time the nurse in whose arms it is talks to it to distract its
attention, or holds it opposite the window, or opposite a bright light,
which seldom fails to amuse an infant. If there is no tenderness of the
stomach the child will not cry on pressure; or if during your
examination the presence of wind in the intestines should occasion pain,
gentle friction, instead of increasing suffering, will give relief.
The one thing which still remains to do, especially in the case of
children in whom teething is not over, is to examine the mouth and
ascertain the state of the gums, since some ailments are caused and
others are aggravated by teething. A wise mother or an intelligent nurse
will teach the child when well the little trick of putting out its
tongue and opening its mouth to show its teeth when told to do so; and
though it may sometimes indulge rather out of place in these
performances when wished to behave especially prettily before strangers,
yet when older it will quickly learn the proprieties of behaviour, and
in the meanwhile you profit much by the lesson when illness really
comes.
Sometimes, however, infants who when well will open their mouth and
allow their gums to be felt without difficulty, refuse to do so when
ill; and it is always desirable that the mother or nurse whose duty it
is to tend the sick child constantly, should not frighten it, or lose
its confidence, by doing forcibly that which the doctor who comes
occasionally may yet be quite right in doing. You will, however,
generally get a good view of the mouth and throat in young infants by
gently touching the lips with your finger: the child opens its mouth
instinctively, and then you can run your finger quickly over its tongue,
and drawing it slightly forward perfectly see the condition of the
throat, feel the gums as you withdraw your finger, and notice the
appearance of the tongue. Sometimes it is important to ascertain whether
a tooth which was near coming through has actually pierced the gum, and
yet the child's fretfulness renders it almost impossible to induce it to
open its mouth. If now, while the nurse holds the child in her arms, you
go behind her, you can, unseen and unawares, introduce your finger into
its mouth and ascertain all you wish to know before the little one has
recovered from its surprise.
I have but little to say here about the general signs of brain disease
in infancy and childhood, because they will need minute notice
afterwards. All that I would at present observe is, that you must not at
once conclude that a child's head is seriously affected, because it is
heavy and fretful and passionate, and refuses to be amused. The head, as
we know by our own experience, suffers by sympathy in the course of
almost every ailment, certainly of every acute ailment, at all ages. If
the babe is not sick; if its bowels can be acted on by ordinary means;
if, though drowsy, it can be roused without difficulty; if, though it
may prefer a darkened room, it does not shrink from the light when
admitted gradually; if it has no slight twitchings of its fingers or of
its wrists; if the head, though hot, is not hotter than the rest of the
body; if the large vessels of the neck, or the open part of the head, or
fontanelle as it is termed, in an infant in whom the head is not yet
closed, are not beating violently; and, above all, _if when it cries it
sheds tears_, you may quiet your mind on the score of the child's brain,
at any rate until the doctor's visit, and may turn a deaf ear to the
nurse or the friend who assures you that the child is about to have
convulsions or to be attacked by inflammation of the brain.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The thermometer used for this purpose, called a _clinical_
thermometer, may be bought for about twelve shillings, of any chemist or
instrument-maker, and its mode of employment can be learned in five
minutes. No mother should be without it.
CHAPTER III.
THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF DISEASE IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.
The management of the child when ill is difficult or easy in exact
proportion to whether it has been ill or well managed when in health.
The mother who lives but little with her children, who contents herself
with a daily visit to the nursery, and who then scarcely sees her little
ones until they are brought into the drawing-room in the evening in full
dress, to be petted and admired and fondled by the visitors, cannot
expect to take her place by the child's bed in its sickness, to soothe
its pain, and to expend upon it all the pent-up tenderness which, in
spite of the calls of business or of pleasure, still dwells within her
heart. She must be content to see the infant turn from her to the nurse
with whose face it has all its life been familiar; or to hear the little
one tell her to go away, for her presence is associated with none of
those 'familiar acts, made beautiful by love,' which win the young
heart: the mother is but a stranger who brings no help, who relieves no
distress. Happy such a mother if she has found a conscientious and
intelligent nurse to whom she can delegate her office; but she must
remember that with the child, love follows in the steps of daily, hourly
kindnesses, that a mother's part must be played in health if it is to be
undertaken in sickness, that it cannot be laid down and taken up again
at pleasure.
There is another mother who cannot nurse her child to any good purpose,
she who when it was well spoilt it from excess of love, who has yielded
to each wayward wish, and has allowed it to become the petty tyrant of
the household. The child is ill, it is languid, feverish, and in pain;
no position is quite easy to it, no food pleasant to it, bed is irksome,
medicine is nasty. It knows only that it suffers, it has been accustomed
to have its will obeyed in everything, and cannot understand that its
suffering is not at once taken away. It insists on getting up and on
being dressed, or on lying in its mother's or nurse's lap, where the
warmth of another person's body does but aggravate its fever; it screams
with passion at the approach of the doctor, it will not allow itself to
be examined, it will take no medicine; the doctor is powerless, the
mother heart-broken. Sickness is not the time to exercise authority
which has not been put in force before; and, not once but many times, I
have watched, a sad spectator, the death of children from an illness not
necessarily fatal, but rendered so because it was impossible to learn
the progress of disease, impossible to administer the necessary
remedies.
_What a child has been made when well, such it will be when sick._
One more point I must insist on before going into details, and that is
as to the necessity of perfect truthfulness in dealing with sick
children. The foolish device of telling a child when ill, that the
doctor who has been sent for is its uncle or its cousin, is the outcome
of the still more foolish falsehood of threatening the child with the
doctor's visit if it does not do this or that. No endeavour should be
spared by nurse or parent, or by the doctor himself, to render his visit
popular in the nursery. Three-fourths of the difficulties which attend
the administration of medicine are commonly the result of previous bad
management of the child, of foolish over-indulgence, or of still more
foolish want of truthfulness. It may answer once to tell a child that
medicine is nice when really it is nasty, but the trick will scarcely
succeed a second time, and the one success will increase your
difficulties ever after. If medicine is absolutely necessary, and the
child is too young to understand reason, it must be given by force, very
firmly but very kindly, and the grief it occasions will be forgotten in
an hour or two. If he is old enough, tell him that the medicine is
ordered to do him good, and firmness combined with gentleness will
usually succeed in inducing him to take it. The advantage of perfect
truthfulness extends to every incident in the illness of children, even
to the not saying, 'Oh, you will soon be well,' if it is not likely so
to be. If children find you never deceive them, how implicitly they will
_trust_ you, what an infinity of trouble is saved, and how much rest of
mind is secured to the poor little sufferer!
A little boy three years old was ordered to be cupped. The cupper, a
kind old man, said to encourage him, 'Oh, dear little boy, it's
nothing.' The child turned to his mother, saying, 'Mummy, is that true?'
His mother said it was not, but that for her sake she hoped he would try
to bear it well. And the operation was performed without a cry or a
sound.
I have spoken of the moral conditions implied in the successful
management of sick children. There are certain physical conditions no
less important. The sick child should not be left in the common nursery,
of which he would taint the air, while he would be disturbed by its
other little inmates. He must (and of course I am speaking not of some
slight ailment, but of a more serious indisposition) be in a room by
himself, which should be kept quiet and shaded, and at a temperature
which should not be allowed to fall below 60° if the chest is in any way
affected, nor to exceed 55° in other cases, and this temperature should
always be measured, not by guess, but by the thermometer hung close to
the child's bed. The room is to be shaded, not by curtains round the
bed--for, save in special circumstances, curtains should be banished
from the nursery--nor by closed shutters which exclude both light and
air, but by letting down the blinds, so as to have a sort of twilight in
the room, and by shading any light which at night may be burned in the
apartment; while whether by day or night the child should be so placed
that his face shall be turned from the light, not directed towards it.
The room should be kept quiet, and this requires not only general quiet
in the house, but quiet in the movements of all persons in the room;
speaking, not in a whisper, but in a low and gentle voice; walking
carefully, not in a silk dress nor in creaky shoes, but not on tiptoe,
for there is a fussy sham quietness which disturbs the sick far more
than the loudest noise.
Little precautions, so trifling that few think of noticing them, have
much to do with the quiet of the sick-room, and consequently with the
patient's comfort. A rattling window will keep a child awake for hours,
or the creaking handle of the door rouse it up again each time anyone
enters the room; and to put a wedge in the window, or to tie back the
handle, and so quietly open and close the door, may do more than
medicine towards promoting the child's recovery. There can, however, be
no abiding quiet without a well-ordered room, and the old proverb
carried out, 'A place for everything, and everything in its place.' A
table covered with a cloth so that things may be taken up and put down
noiselessly, and set apart for the medicine, the drink, the nourishment,
cups, glasses, spoons, or whatever else the patient is in frequent need
of; with a _wooden_ bowl and water for rinsing cups and glasses in, and
a cloth or two for wiping them, will save much trouble and noise, and
the loud whispers of the attendants to each other, 'Where is the sugar?
where is the arrowroot? where did you put down the medicine?' of which
we hear so much in the sick-room, so much especially in the sick-room of
the child, who is unable to tell how extremely all this disturbs him.
One more caution still remains for me to give. Do not talk to the
doctor in the child's room, do not relate bad symptoms, do not express
your fears, nor ask the doctor his opinion in the child's hearing. The
child often understands much more than you would imagine, misunderstands
still more; and over and over again I have known the thoughtless
utterance of the mother, nurse, or doctor depress a child's spirits and
seriously retard his recovery.
It is consoling to bear in mind that how grave soever a child's illness
may be, the power of repair is greater in early life than in adult age,
that with few exceptions the probability of recovery is greater in the
child than it would be from the same disease in the grown person. This
too is due not simply to the activity of the reparative powers in early
life, but also in great measure to the mental and moral characteristics
of childhood.
To make the sick child happy, in order that he may get well, is the
unwritten lesson which they who have best learnt, know best how to nurse
sick children. It may seem strange, that from so high a purpose I should
at once come down to so commonplace a detail as to insist on the
importance, even on this account, of keeping the sick child in bed.
At the onset of every illness of which the nature is not obvious, during
the course of any illness in which the chest is affected, or in which
the temperature is higher than natural, bed is the best and happiest
place for the child. In it repose is most complete, far more complete
than after early babyhood it can be in the nurse's or mother's lap, and
free from the great objection of the increased heat from being in
contact with another person's body. Nothing is more painful than to
witness the little child, sick and feverish, with heavy eyes, and aching
head, up and dressed, trying to amuse itself with its customary toys;
then, with 'Please nurse me,' begging to be taken in the lap, then
getting down again; fretful, and sad, and passionate by turns; dragging
about its misery, wearing out its little strength, in deference to the
prejudice that bed is so weakening.
_The bed does not weaken, but the disease does which renders bed
necessary._
A child frets sometimes at the commencement of an illness if kept in
its own little cot. But put it in its nurse's or mother's big bed, set a
tea tray with some new toys upon it before the child, and a pillow
behind it, so that when tired with play it may lie back and go to sleep,
and you will have husbanded its strength and saved your own, have halved
your anxiety and doubled the child's happiness.
Young infants, indeed, when ill often refuse to be put out of the arms,
but over and over again I have found the experiment succeed of laying
the baby on a bed, the nurse or mother lying down by its side, and
soothing it to sleep. Were there no other drawback, it is a waste of
power to have two persons employed in nursing a sick child; one to keep
it in her lap, and the other to wait upon her.
It is important in all serious illnesses of children, as well as of a
grown person, that the bed should be so placed that the attendant can
pass on either side, and can from either side reach the patient to do
whatever is necessary. Most cots for young children have a rail round
them to prevent the child falling out of bed when asleep or at play; but
nothing can be more inconvenient than the fixed rail over which the
attendant has to bend in order to give the child food or medicine, or
for any other purpose. When I founded the Children's Hospital in Ormond
Street, I introduced children's cots (the idea of which I took from
those in the Children's Hospital at Frankfort) the sides of which let
down when needed, while on the top of the rail, or dependent from it, a
board is placed surrounded by a raised beading on which the toys, the
food, or drink may be put with great convenience. These bedsteads, with
probably some improved arrangement for letting down the sides, may be
seen now in most children's hospitals, but I have been surprised to
observe how seldom they are employed in private nurseries, and how
comparatively few bedstead-makers are acquainted with them. The result
would probably have been very different had a patent been taken out for
them, and had they been largely advertised as 'Dr. West's improved
children's bedsteads'! The uninclosed spring mattress, and the
wedge-shaped horsehair cushion, both of which I introduced in Ormond
Street, are also very valuable. The latter slightly raises the head and
shoulders, and renders any other than a thin horsehair pillow for the
head to rest on unnecessary.
A few more hints about the bed may not be out of place. First of all,
after early infancy is over, at latest after nine months, except for
some very special reason the napkin should be done away with. It heats
the child, chafes it, and makes it sore; it conceals the inattention of
the nurse, and at the same time renders it less easy to keep the little
one absolutely clean than if a folded napkin is placed under the hips,
whence it can be at once removed when soiled. In all serious illness a
piece of macintosh should be placed under the sheet, as is done in the
lying-in room, and a draw-sheet, as it is termed, over it. The
draw-sheet is, as its name implies, a folded sheet, laid under the hips,
and withdrawn in part when needed so as to prevent the child ever lying
on linen that is wet or soiled. It can be drawn away from under the
child, and a portion still clean and dry brought under it, while the
soiled part is rolled together and wrapped up in macintosh at one side
of the bed until a new draw sheet is substituted, which is easily done
by tacking a fresh sheet to that which is about to be withdrawn, when
the fresh one is brought under the child's body as that which is soiled
is removed. The greatest care should always be taken that the under
sheet is perfectly free from ruck or wrinkle; in long illnesses the skin
becomes chafed and bed-sores may be produced by neglect of this simple
precaution. The complaint that a child throws off the bed-clothes is
easily remedied by a couple of bits of tape tied on either side loosely
from the sheet or blanket to the sides of the cot.
When children are compelled to remain long in bed, great care is needed
to prevent the skin from being chafed, which is the first step that
leads to the occurrence of bed-sores. Careful washing with soap and
water daily of the whole body, not only of those parts which may be
soiled by the urine or the evacuations; the washing afterwards with pure
tepid water; careful drying, and abundant powdering with starch powder,
will do much to prevent the accident. If, in spite of this care, the
skin seems anywhere to be red or chafed, it should be sponged over with
brandy or with sweet spirits of nitre before powdering. Real bed-sores
must be seen and treated by the doctor.
The warm bath is a great source of comfort to the sick child, and in all
cases of feverishness, of influenza, or threatening bronchitis, it
should not be omitted before the child is put to bed, or must be given
towards evening if the child has not been up during the day. The bath
may be either warm or hot, the temperature of the former being 90° to
92°, that of the latter 95° to 96°. The temperature should always be
ascertained by the thermometer, and the _warm_ bath only should be
employed, except when the _hot_ bath is ordered by the doctor. The warm
bath relieves feverishness and quiets the system, and promotes gentle
perspiration; the hot bath is given when the eruption of scarlet fever
or of measles fails to come out properly, or in some cases of
convulsions at the same time that cold is applied to the head, or, in
some forms of dropsy when it is of importance to excite the action of
the skin as much as possible. It is not desirable that a child should
remain less than five or more than ten minutes in the bath, and
attention must be paid by the addition of warm water to maintain the
bath at the same temperature during the whole time of the child's
immersion.
Now and then infants and very young children when ill seem frightened
at the bath, and then instead of being soothed and relieved by it they
are only excited and distressed. If the bath is brought into the room,
prepared in the child's sight, and he is then taken out of bed,
undressed, and put into the water which he sees steaming before him, he
very often becomes greatly alarmed, struggles violently, cries
passionately, and does not become quiet again till he has sobbed himself
to sleep. All this time, however, he has been exerting his inflamed
lungs to the utmost, and will probably have thereby done himself ten
times more harm than the bath has done good. Very different would it
have been if the bath had been got ready out of the child's sight; if
when brought to the bedside it had been covered with a blanket so as to
hide the steam; if the child had been laid upon the blanket, and gently
let down into the water, and this even without undressing him if he were
very fearful; and then if you wish to make a baby quite happy in the
water, put in a couple of bungs or corks with feathers stuck in them,
for the baby to play with. Managed thus, I have often seen the
much-dreaded bath become a real delight to the little one, and have
found that if tears were shed at all, it was at being taken out of the
water, not at being placed in it.
In a great variety of conditions, poultices are of use. They are needed
in the case of abscesses which it is wished to bring to a head; they are
sometimes applied over wounds which are in an unhealthy condition, or
from which it is desired to keep up a discharge. They soothe the pain of
stomach-ache from any cause, and are of most essential service when
constantly applied in many forms of chest inflammation. And yet not one
mother or nurse in ten knows how to make a poultice.[5] When applied
over a wound they should not be covered with oiled silk or any
impermeable material, since the edges of the wound and the adjacent skin
are apt thereby to be rendered irritable and to become covered with
little itching pimples. When used to relieve pain in the stomach, or as
a warm application in cases of inflammation of the chest, they should be
covered with some impermeable material, and will then not require to be
changed oftener than every six hours. After poultices have been applied
over the chest or stomach for two or three days the skin is apt to
become tender, and then it is well to substitute for them what may be
termed a dry poultice, which is nothing else than a layer of dry cotton
wool an inch or an inch and a half thick, tacked inside a piece of oiled
silk.
A handy substitute for a poultice may be made of bran stitched in a
flannel bag, heated by pouring boiling water on it, then squeezed as dry
as possible and laid over the painful part. This is especially useful to
relieve the stomach-ache of infants and young children.
Spongio-piline is a useful substitute for a poultice, especially when it
is desirable to employ a soothing or stimulating liniment to the
surface. It retains heat very well when wrung out of hot water, and any
liniment sprinkled on it is brought into contact with the skin much
better than if diffused through a poultice. I may just add that its
edges should be sloped inwards, in order to prevent the moisture from it
oozing out and wetting the child's night-dress.
When I was young, leeches and bleeding were frequently, no doubt too
frequently, employed. We have now, however, gone too much to the other
extreme, for cases are met with from time to time of congestion of the
brain, or of inflammation of the chest or of the bowels, in which
leeches bring greater and more speedy relief than any other remedy. In
applying leeches it is always desirable that they should be put on where
they will be out of the child's sight if possible, and where it will be
comparatively easy to stop the bleeding. Hence, in many instances of
inflammation of the bowels, it is better to apply the leeches at the
edge of the lower bowel, the anus as it is technically termed, than on
the front of the stomach, though, of course, this will not always answer
the purpose. Leeches to the chest may usually be put on just under the
shoulder-blade; and leeches to the head on one or other side behind the
ear, where they will be out of the way of any large vein, and where the
pressure of the finger will easily stop the bleeding. Steady pressure
with the finger will, even where there is no bone to press against,
usually effect this; and then a little pad of lint put over the bite,
and one or two layers over that, and all fastened on with strips of
adhesive plaster, will prevent any renewal of the bleeding. In the few
cases where it is not arrested by these means, the application of a
little of the solution of muriate of iron will hardly fail of effect.
There is one more point to which I will refer before passing lastly to
the question of how to manage in the administration of medicine; and
this is the best way of applying cold to the head. This is often
ordered, but very seldom efficiently done. Cold is best applied by means
of a couple of bladders half-filled with pounded ice, and wrapped in two
large napkins; one of them should be placed under the child's head, the
corners of the napkin being pinned to the pillow-case to prevent its
being disturbed, while the other is allowed to rest upon the head, but
with the corners of the napkin again pinned to the pillow so as to take
off the greater part of its weight. Thus arranged, the cold application
will neither get displaced by the child's movements, nor will the child
itself be wetted, as it too commonly is when wet cloths are employed for
this purpose, nor irritated by their perpetual removal and renewal.
In London and in large towns there are various contrivances of
vulcanised rubber, which are, of course, far preferable to the bladders,
but it is not everyone who lives in London, or who can command the
resources furnished by a large city.
The difficulties in the administration of medicine to children are in
great part the fault, either of the doctor in giving needlessly
unpleasant medicine, or of the parents or nurse who either have failed
to teach the child obedience, or who are deficient in that tact by which
hundreds of small troubles are evaded.
As far as the doctor is concerned, all medicines should be prescribed by
him in small quantities, and as free from taste and smell as possible:
or where that cannot be, the unpleasant flavour should be covered by
syrup, or liquorice, or treacle.
Bulky powders should be avoided, and the child who has learned to take
rhubarb and magnesia, or Gregory's powder without resistance, certainly
does credit to his training.
Aperients are the medicines most frequently needed in the minor ailments
of children, and a wise mother will not undertake herself the management
of serious diseases. Of all aperients castor oil is perhaps the safest,
the least irritating, the most generally applicable; it acts on the
bowels and does nothing more. The idea that it tends specially to
produce constipation afterwards is unfounded; it does not do so more
than other aperients. All aperients quicken for a time what is termed
the peristaltic action of the bowels; that is to say, their constant
movement in a direction from the stomach to the lower bowel, which, as
well as a contraction on themselves, is constantly going on in every
living animal, and continues even for some time after death. The bowels
stimulated to greater activity of movement by the aperient, become for a
time more sluggish afterwards; they rest for a while, just as after a
long walk the muscles of the leg are weary and need repose.
There are indeed aperients which do more than this, as grey powder and
calomel act upon the liver, and so by promoting an increased flow of
bile cause a more permanent excitement of the bowels, and consequently
their more prolonged activity; or as Epsom salts or citrate of magnesia,
which by their action on the blood cause a greater secretion or pouring
out of fluid from the coats of the intestines, and in this way have in
addition to their purgative property a special influence in abating
various feverish conditions.
Castor oil, senna, jalap, jalapine, and scammony are simple aperients.
They empty the bowels and nothing more, and in cases of simple
constipation, or where a child is ill either from eating too much or
from taking indigestible food, are the best purgatives that can be
given. A dose of castor oil, often one of the great griefs of the
nursery, may generally be given without the least difficulty if
previously shaken up in a bottle with a wine-glassful of hot milk
sweetened and flavoured with a piece of cinnamon boiled in it, by which
all taste of the oil is effectually concealed.
The domestic remedy, senna tea with prunes which render it palatable,
confection of senna, syrup of senna, and the sweet essence of senna are
generally very readily taken by children, but all have the disadvantage
of being liable to gripe. The German liquorice powder, as it is called,
which is composed of powdered senna, liquorice powder, fennel, and a
little sulphur with white sugar, is freer from this drawback than any
other preparation, and when mixed with a little water is not generally
objected to. It is important, as senna is often adulterated and loses
its properties by exposure to the air, that this powder should always be
obtained from a very good chemist, purchased in small quantities, and
always kept in a glass-stoppered bottle.
Jalap, in the form in which it is usually sold--as compound jalap
powder--is in general readily taken; it acts speedily, but often with
pain, and is not a desirable domestic remedy. Jalapine, which is a sort
of extract of jalap, is much less apt to gripe, and owing to its small
bulk is much handier. It may be given in doses of from two to five
grains to children from two years old and upwards.
Scammony is another powerful simple aperient, apt to be violent in its
action, and therefore not to be given except when the bowels have long
been confined, or when it is given to expel worms. The compound scammony
powder is the form in which it is usually given, and of that five grains
would be a dose for a child two years old.
Scammony, however, is a costly drug, and therefore the caution given
with reference to German liquorice powder applies here also.
There is a preparation of scammony, the so-called scammony mixture,
which consists of the resin or extract of scammony dissolved in milk,
which is extremely useful when the stomach is irritable, or there is
much difficulty in inducing the child to take medicine. It is almost
tasteless, and a tablespoonful, which would be a proper dose for a child
of five years old, can be given without being detected.
Much of the difficulty experienced in giving powders arises from their
being mixed with the arrowroot or jam in which they are administered. A
very small quantity of arrowroot, bread and milk, or jam, should be put
in a tea-spoon; the powder then laid upon it, and covered over with the
arrowroot or jelly, so, in short, as to make a kind of sandwich, with
the powder, which would thus be untasted, in the middle.
Aloes is a purgative which acts chiefly on the large bowel and to some
degree also on the liver, and is of most use in the habitual
constipation of weakly children. In spite of its bitter taste the powder
is seldom objected to if given between two layers of coarse brown sugar,
while with most children the addition of a teaspoonful of treacle will
induce them to take very readily that useful medicine, the compound
decoction of aloes.
Both rhubarb, aloes, and indeed other remedies which are nauseous if
given as a liquid and are bulky in the form of powder, may very readily
be given in extract in the form of very tiny pills. Thus I have
constantly ordered the extract of rhubarb, which is nearly twice as
strong as the powder, made up into pills scarcely bigger than what
children call 'hundreds and thousands' and silver-coated. Ten or a dozen
of these go down in a teaspoonful of jelly unknown, and with no
expenditure of temper or tears.
The citrate of magnesia, or Dinneford's Magnesia, taken effervescing
with lemon juice, or when the effervescence has passed off, or the
French Limonade Purgative, are almost always very readily taken, and are
often very useful in the little febrile attacks, or in the slight
feverish rashes to which children are liable in the spring and autumn.
Mercurials should have no place among domestic remedies. I do not mean
that the doctor need be called in to prescribe each time that they are
given, but that the mother should learn from him distinctly with
reference to each individual child the circumstances which justify their
employment. They stimulate the liver, as well as produce thereby action
of the bowels, but they have, especially if often employed, a
far-reaching influence on the constitution, and that undoubtedly of a
depressing kind: an influence more than made up for when really needed
by their other qualities, and especially by their power in doing away
with the results of many forms of chronic inflammation. They are 'edged
tools,' however, and we know the proverb about those who play with
them.[6]
Grey powder, blue pill, and calomel are the three forms in one or other
of which mercurials are commonly given. Of the three, grey powder is the
mildest; but it has the inconvenience of not infrequently causing
nausea, or actual sickness. This objection does not apply to blue pill,
which can be given either in the tiny pills of which I have already
spoken, or else broken down, and given in a little jam, or in a
teaspoonful of syrup or treacle. On the whole I prefer calomel in small
doses. It has the great advantage of tastelessness, small bulk, and of
never causing sickness. Half a grain of calomel may be regarded as
equivalent to two grains of grey powder or blue pill.
I shall speak afterwards of other medicines, which may in various
circumstances be given, to act upon the bowels; but the above include
all that are at all fit for common use in the nursery.
Before leaving this subject I will add a word or two about the use of
suppositories and lavements in infancy and childhood. A piece of paper
rolled up into a conical form and greased, or a bit of soap, is not
infrequently introduced by nurses just within the bowel, as a means of
overcoming constipation in infants. The irritation of the muscle at its
orifice (the sphincter, as it is termed) excites the bowels to action,
and does away with the necessity for giving an aperient. The drawback
from this, as well as from the use of the lavement, is that if
frequently employed they become habitually necessary, and the bowels
will then never act without their customary stimulus. The lavement, too,
has the additional disadvantage that while the lower part of the bowel
is in proportion more capacious in infancy and childhood than in the
adult, this peculiarity becomes exaggerated by the constant distension
of the intestine, and a larger and still larger quantity of fluid needs
to be thrown up in order to produce the requisite action of the bowels.
Opiates and other soothing medicines should never be given except when
prescribed by the doctor. Thirty-two deaths in England under five years
of age in 1882 represent but a very small part of the evil wrought by
the overdose or injudicious use of these remedies. Above all, soothing
medicines of varying strength, as syrup of poppies, or of unknown
composition, as Dalby's Carminative or Winslow's Soothing Syrup, should
never be employed. The only safe preparation, and this to be given only
by the doctor's orders or with his approval, is the compound tincture of
camphor, or paregoric elixir, as it is called, of which sixty measured
drops contain a quarter of a grain of opium. Ten to fifteen measured
drops of this are a sufficient dose for a child one year old, and this
ought not to be repeated within twelve hours. The repetition every few
hours of small doses of opiates is quite as hazardous as the giving of a
single overdose; and if it does not work serious mischief by stupefying
the child, it renders it impossible to judge of its real condition.
Thus much may suffice with reference to the more important remedies.
Others will necessarily call for notice when the diseases come to be
considered in which they may be of service.
There are two points which still remain to be noticed before I leave the
introductory part of this little book.
The first of these concerns the importance of keeping written notes in
the course of every case of serious illness. For want of doing this the
most imperfect and conflicting accounts of what has happened are given
to the doctor. No person can watch to any good purpose for
four-and-twenty hours together; and no one's memory, least of all in the
midst of fatigue and anxiety, can correctly retain all details
concerning medicine, food, and sleep, which yet it may be of paramount
importance that the doctor should be made acquainted with. I am
accustomed to desire a record to be kept on a sheet of paper divided
into six columns, one for food, a second for medicine, a third for
sleep, a fourth for the evacuations, and a fifth for any special point
which the nature of the illness renders it of special moment to observe,
while the date is entered on the first column of all, indicating when
food or medicine was given, or when and for how long the child slept. It
is best to enter the variations of temperature on a separate paper, in
order that the doctor may at a glance perceive the daily changes in this
important respect. No one who has not made the experiment can tell the
relief which the keeping this simple record gives to the anxiety of
nursing the sick, especially when the sick one is loved most tenderly.
The other point concerns the relations of the mother or of the parents
to the doctor. I have often heard it said, 'Dr. Green always attends my
husband and myself, but we have Dr. White for the servants and
children,' implying a lower degree of medical knowledge as required in
their case, and to be acknowledged by a lower rate of remuneration.
Need I say that the assumption is a mistaken one--that as much
knowledge, as large experience, are needed in the one case as in the
other; while over and above, to treat children successfully, a special
tact and a special fondness for children are needed? A man may be a very
good doctor without those special gifts; but their possession, apart
from real medical knowledge, may make a good children's nurse, but never
a good children's doctor.
Another matter not to be forgotten is the confidence to be reposed in
the doctor--the readiness to acquiesce in his sometimes visiting the
child more frequently in the course of an illness than the symptoms may
seem to you to require. Were you involved in some civil action, in which
your succession to large property was involved, you would scarcely
expect your solicitor to give you his opinion on all the questions at a
single interview. In the same way, the doctor, even the most
experienced, may need to visit his little patient several times before
he can feel quite certain as to the nature of the disease that is
impending, while he may not wish to alarm you by suggesting all the
possibilities that are present to his mind. The child after a restless
night may be asleep, and it may be most undesirable to wake him; or he
may be excessively cross and unmanageable, so that it is impossible to
listen to his chest; or it may be very important to ascertain whether
the high temperature present in the morning has risen still higher
towards night, or whether, after free action of the bowels, it has
fallen a degree or two, showing that no fever is impending, but that the
undue heat of the body was occasioned by the constipation. Or, again,
some remedy may have been ordered, of the effect of which the doctor
does not feel quite sure: he wishes to see for himself whether it is
right to continue or wiser to suspend it. The wise physician, like the
able general, leaves as little as may be to chance.
Nearly forty years ago, in addressing a class of medical students, I
said to them:
'If you are carefully to observe all the points which I have mentioned,
and to make yourselves thoroughly masters of a case, you must be lavish
of your time; you must be content to turn aside from the direct course
of investigation, which you would pursue uninterruptedly in the adult,
in order to soothe the waywardness of the child, to quiet its fears, or
even to cheat it into good humour by joining in its play; and you must
be ready to do this, not the first time only, but every time that you
visit the child, and must try to win its affections in order to cure its
disease. If you fail in the former, you will often be foiled in your
attempts at the latter. Nor is this all; you must visit your patient
very often if the disease is serious in its nature and rapid in its
course. New symptoms succeed each other in infancy and childhood with
great rapidity; complications occur that call for some change in your
treatment, or the vital powers falter suddenly when you least expect it.
The issues of life and death often hang on the immediate adoption of a
certain plan of treatment, or on its timely discontinuance. Do not wait,
therefore, for symptoms of great urgency before you visit a child three
or four times a day; but if the disease is one in which changes are
likely to take place rapidly, be frequent in your visits as well as
watchful in your observation.'
Each year has added to my conviction of the perfect truth of each word
which I have quoted. If you believe your doctor to be a man of integrity
and intelligence, be thankful for his frequent visits, which will cease
as his anxiety abates. Be convinced that in the mean time they are made,
not for his sake, but for yours. If you doubt his integrity, change your
doctor; but do not say to him in a tone and with an emphasis which there
is no mistaking, 'Well, if you think it _really_ necessary to come'!
FOOTNOTES:
[5] I add in this note a few simple directions for making poultices,
though, as I have stated in my preface, it is no part of my purpose to
enter into all the details, important though they are, of a sick nurse's
duties.
For a linseed meal poultice, see that the water is _boiling_, not merely
hot; warm the basin, put the water in _first_; sprinkle the meal on it,
stirring the whole time, till it becomes of the uniform consistency of
porridge, then spread it about half an inch thick over the linen, or
whatever it is spread on, and turn up the edges for an inch all round to
prevent the poultice crumbling and soiling the night-dress; and then
having smeared the surface with a little oil, test its warmth by
applying it to your cheek before putting it on the patient. A broad
bandage of some sort or a soft towel must then be put round the body to
keep the poultice in its place, and secured with safety pins.
Pure mustard poultices are never used in children, on account of the
pain they occasion, and the too great irritation which they would cause
of the delicate skin of children. A mixture of one part of mustard to
two of linseed meal is, however, often of much use in the chest
affections of children.
Bread poultices are less generally useful than those of linseed meal.
They do not retain the heat nearly so well as those of linseed meal, and
are chiefly used in cuts, wounds, or small abscesses; and also because
they are so easily made. A slice of stale bread without the crust is put
on a plate, boiling water is poured over it, and drained off; it is then
placed on a piece of muslin, pressed between two plates to squeeze out
the remaining water, and its surface is greased before it is applied
with a little oil or lard. I would refer for details about how to make
poultices, and for many other things well worth the knowing, to Miss
Wood's _Handbook of Nursing_, London, 12mo, 1883.
[6] I am not ignorant of the doubts which have been raised with
reference to the special influence of mercurial remedies on the liver,
but prefer in a book written for non-medical readers to leave the
popular opinion unquestioned.
PART II.
All that has been said hitherto is only introductory to the great
purpose of this book, which is to give an account of the nature,
symptoms, and course of the more important diseases of infancy and
childhood.
Any attempt at scientific arrangement of a popular book is useless. I
prefer, therefore, to consult simply the general convenience of my
readers. I think I do so best by considering first the disorders which
beset the child in the first month of its existence, during what may be
termed its transition from the condition of existence in the womb, to
its living, breathing state as an inhabitant of this world; and next the
more important ailments to which it is liable during that important time
of development which ends with the completion of teething. Afterwards
may be studied the diseases of the head, the chest, and the bowels; next
constitutional diseases, such as consumption and scrofula; and lastly,
the various fevers, as typhoid, or, as it is popularly called, remittent
fever, measles, scarlatina, and small-pox; and last of all I will add a
few remarks on the mental and moral characteristics of childhood, and
their disorders.
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF CHILDREN DURING THE FIRST MONTH AFTER
BIRTH.
=Still-birth.=--The infant cries almost as soon as it comes into the
world. The cry is the evidence that air has entered its lungs, that the
blood has now begun to take a different course from that which it
followed before birth, and that the child has entered on a new
existence. The child who does not cry, does not breathe; it is said to
be _still-born_; its quietude means death.
After a long or a difficult labour, or after the use of instruments, the
child is sometimes still-born in consequence of blood being poured out
on its brain, and it is thus killed before birth by apoplexy. This,
however, is not usually the case, but the child is generally still-born
because some cause or other, generally the protraction of labour,
interfered with the due changes of its blood within the womb, and it is
born suffocated before its birth, and consequently unable to make the
necessary efforts to breathe afterwards.
Drowned people are often resuscitated; the child's case is analogous to
theirs; and in both the same measures have to be pursued, namely to try
to establish respiration. The degree of the warmth of the child's body,
the resistance of its muscles, the red tint or the white colour of its
surface, the presence or absence of perceptible beating of its heart,
measure the chances of success. Sometimes mere exposure to the cold air
produces the necessary effect; at other times breathing is excited by
dashing cold water in the child's face, by slapping it, by tickling its
nostrils, or by dipping it for a few seconds in a hot bath at 100° or
102°; and then swinging it a few times backwards and forwards in the
air.
Much time, however, must not be lost over these proceedings, but the
child must be laid on its back, the lower part of its body well wrapped
up, the chest slightly raised by a folded napkin placed under it. The
two arms must then be taken firmly, raised and slowly extended on either
side of the head, then brought down again and gently pressed on either
side of the chest; and this movement of alternate raising and extending
the arms and bringing them back again beside the chest must be repeated
regularly some thirty times in the minute, thus imitating the movements
of the chest in breathing. These efforts, too, must not be discontinued
so long as the surface retains its warmth, and as an occasional
heart-beat shows that life is not absolutely extinct; and I believe that
in many instances failure is due to want of perseverance rather than to
the absolute uselessness of the measure.
=Premature Birth.=--In spite of very extraordinary exceptions, it may be
laid down as a rule that children born before the completion of six and
a half months of pregnancy do not survive. After that date, each
additional week adds greatly to the chances of the child living. There
is a mistaken idea, founded on a superstition connected with the number
seven, that a seven-months child is more likely to survive than one born
at the eighth month. But this notion is as destitute of support in fact
as it is opposed to common sense, and the nearer any woman has
approached the full term of forty weeks of pregnancy, the greater are
the chances of her child being born alive and healthy.
The premature child is by no means necessarily still-born. It breathes,
but does so imperfectly, so that air does not enter all the smaller
air-cells; and its voice is a whimper rather than a cry. Those changes
in the heart and large vessels, which prepare, as pregnancy draws to a
close, for the altered course of the blood when the child has to breathe
through the lungs, are too little advanced for it to bear well the
sudden alteration in its mode of being. The feebly beating heart and the
not completely developed lungs seem but imperfectly to maintain the
bodily heat. The glands of the stomach and intestines are not yet fit to
perform digestion properly, while the muscular power is too feeble for
the effort at sucking. Everything is sketched out, but to nothing has
the finishing touch been put, and hence the frail machinery too often
breaks down, in the endeavour to discharge its functions.
It is surprising, however, with what rapidity Nature in some instances
perfects the work which she has been called on prematurely to perform.
It is our business to second Nature's endeavours. First of all, and of
most importance, is the duty of providing from without the warmth which
the child is unable to generate. When very feeble, it must, even without
any previous washing or dressing, be at once wrapped in cotton wool, and
then in a hot blanket, and surrounded with hot-water bottles. A tin
stomach-warmer filled with hot water is very convenient to place under
the blanket on which the child lies. Being too feeble to suck, it must
be fed, a few drops at a time, from a small spoon; or still better, if
it is able to make any effort at sucking, it may draw its nourishment
through a quill. The mother after a premature confinement is almost sure
to have no milk with which to nourish her child, at any rate for two or
three days. It is, therefore, wise to obtain the help of a woman with a
healthy baby. She must be allowed to bring her baby with her, since
otherwise her supply of milk would fail, especially if she had no other
means of getting rid of it than by the breast-pump or by drawing her
breast. Even though she may have her own baby, there are few women who
can submit, for more than a very few days, to the artificial emptying
their breast without the secretion being either greatly lessened or
altogether arrested. This, therefore, must be regarded as a resource
available only for a few days, and as the child gains strength every
effort must be made to get it to take its mother's breast, if she has
any supply, or that of the wet-nurse. If this is found impossible, it
will be wisest to give up, at any rate for the present, the attempt to
nourish the child from the breast, and to obtain for it asses' milk,
which is the best substitute. By no means whatever can more than from a
sixth to a fourth part of a pint of milk be obtained either by the
breast-pump or by drawing the breast; and since a healthy infant of a
few weeks old sucks about two pints of milk in twenty-four hours, it is
evident that the supply artificially obtained must after the first few
days be utterly inadequate.
I have in cases of extreme weakness in premature children succeeded in
preserving them by giving them every two hours for two or three days ten
measured drops of raw beef juice, five of brandy, and two teaspoonfuls
of breast milk. Medicine has no place in the management of these cases;
the question is one entirely of warmth, food, and for a time the
judicious use of stimulants.
=Imperfect Expansion of the Lungs.=--Children not premature and
perfectly well nourished are yet sometimes feeble, breathe imperfectly,
cry weakly, suck difficultly or not at all, and die at the end of a few
days. Their lamp of life flickered and went out. Such cases are met with
for the most part in conditions similar to those in which children are
actually still-born; or now and then they take place when labour has
been of unusually short duration, the child hurried into the world too
rapidly; while in other instances it is not possible to account for
their occurrence.
For a long time the nature of these cases was not understood; but
rather more than sixty years ago a German physician discovered that air
had entered the lungs but imperfectly; that perhaps a third, perhaps
even as much as half, of the lungs had never been dilated, but had
remained solid and useless; that in consequence the blood was but
half-purified, and vitality therefore but half-sustained. The lungs,
however, were found to have undergone no real change; they were not
diseased, but if air was blown into them the dark solid patches sunk
below the level of the surrounding substance, expanded, grew bright in
colour and like a sponge from which the water has been squeezed, and
crackled, or crepitated as the technical term is, from the air contained
within them.
We breathe in health so without conscious effort that we never realise
the fact that, according to the calculation of most competent observers,
the mere elasticity of the lungs, independent even of the elasticity of
the chest walls, opposes a resistance to each inspiration equal to 150
pounds avoirdupois in the grown man and 120 in the grown woman. The want
of breath puts the respiratory muscles into play: the man takes a deep
inspiration, and by this unconscious effort, he overcomes the resistance
of the chest and the elasticity of the lungs. The new-born infant feels
the same want and makes the same effort; but its muscular power is
small, and its inspirations are often so feeble as to draw the air in
some parts only into the larger tubes, while many of the smaller remain
undilated, and much of the lung continues in the state in which it was
before birth. The blood being thus but imperfectly purified, all the
processes of nutrition go on imperfectly, the vital powers languish, the
inspiratory efforts become more and more feeble, while the elasticity of
the lung is constantly tending to empty the small cells of air and to
oppose its entrance, and next the temperature sinks and the infant dies.
Cases in which this condition of the lungs exists usually present the
history of the child from the very first having failed to utter a strong
and loud cry like that of other children. Even after breathing has gone
on for some time, such children usually appear feeble, and they suck
with difficulty, although they often make the effort. An infant thus
affected sleeps even more than new-born infants usually do; its voice is
very feeble, and rather a whimper than a cry. In the cry of the healthy
infant you at once detect two parts--the loud cry, suffering or
passionate as the case may be, and the less loud back draught of
inspiration. The French have two words for these two sounds--the _cri_
and the _reprise_. The _cri_ is feeble, the _reprise_ is altogether
wanting wherever expansion of the lung has to any considerable extent
failed to take place, and you would hail this second sound as the best
proof of an improvement in the child's condition.
If you watch the child with a little attention you will see that while
the chest moves up and down, it is very little, if at all, dilated by
the respiratory movements. The temperature falls, the skin becomes pale,
and the lips grow livid, and often slight twitching is observed about
the muscles of the face. The difficulty in sucking increases, the cry
grows weaker and more whimpering, or even altogether inaudible, while
breathing is attended with a slight rattle or a feeble cough, and the
convulsive movements return more frequently, and are no longer confined
to the face, but affect also the muscles of the extremities. Any sudden
movement suffices to bring on these convulsive seizures, but even while
perfectly still the child's condition is not uniform, but it will
suddenly become convulsed, and during this seizure the respiration will
be extremely difficult, and death will seem momentarily impending. In a
few minutes, however, all this disturbance ceases, and the extreme
weakness of the child, its inability to suck, its feeble cry, and its
frequent and imperfect inspirations, are the only abiding indications of
the serious disorder from which it suffers. But the other symptoms
return again and again, until after the lapse of a few days or a few
weeks the infant dies.
I have dwelt at some length on this condition because it is important to
know that during the first few weeks of life real inflammation of the
lungs or air-tubes is of extremely rare occurrence, and that the
symptoms which are not infrequently supposed to depend on it are really
due to a portion of the lung more or less extensive never having been
called into proper activity. I may add that we shall hereafter have to
notice a similar condition of the lung--its collapse after having once
been inflated--as occurring sometimes in the course of real inflammation
of the organs of respiration in early life, and forming a very serious
complication of the original disease.
If the collapse of the lung is not so considerable as to destroy life
within the first few hours or days after birth, the babe wastes as well
as grows weaker and weaker, and this wasting coupled with the difficult
breathing not seldom causes the fear that the child has been born
consumptive and that its death is inevitable.
No such gloomy view need be taken. Collapse, or at least non-expansion
of the lung to some extent, is by no means unusual: consumptive disease
to such an extent in the new-born infant as to interfere with the
establishment of breathing is extremely rare. The consumptive babe can
suck, it is not so weak as the one whose lungs are imperfectly expanded;
it has no convulsive twitchings, nor any of the strange head-symptoms
which we notice in the former. It wastes less rapidly, it is feverish
instead of having a lower temperature than natural, it seems less ill,
and yet its death within a few weeks or months is absolutely certain;
while the child whose lungs are not diseased but simply unexpanded may,
if that accidental condition is removed, grow up to vigorous manhood.
The treatment of these cases is abundantly simple. The child who
breathes imperfectly but ill maintains its heat. It must be kept warm at
a temperature never less than 70°; it may, like the premature child,
need stimulants, and all the precautions already mentioned as to
feeding. Twice in the day it should be put for five minutes in a hot
bath at 100°, rendered even more stimulating by the addition of a little
mustard. The back and chest may be rubbed from time to time with a
stimulating liniment, and an emetic of ipecacuanha wine may be given
twice a day. The act of vomiting not only removes any of the mucus which
is apt to accumulate in the larger air tubes, but the powerful
inspirations which follow the effort tend to introduce air into the
smallest vesicles of the lungs, and to do away with their collapse.
Let these directions be carried out sensibly, patiently, perseveringly,
and three times out of four, or oftener still, the mother's ear will
before many days be greeted by the loud cry, with its _cri_ and
_reprise_ of which I have already spoken, and which assures her that her
little one will live.
There are no other affections of the lungs so peculiar to the first
month of life as to call for notice here. I shall have a few
observations to make about malformations of the heart, and the
precautions for which they call in the after-life of children; but they
will find their fittest place in the chapter on Affections of the Chest.
=Jaundice of New-born Children.=--A certain yellow tinge of the skin,
unattended by any other sign of jaundice, such as the yellowness of the
eye and the dark colour of the urine, is by no means to be confounded
with real jaundice. It is no real jaundice, but is merely the result of
the changes which the blood with which the small vessels of the skin are
overcharged at birth is undergoing; the redness fading as bruises fade,
through shades of yellow into the genuine flesh colour.
This is no disease, to be treated with the grey powder and the castor
oil wherewith the over-busy monthly nurse is always ready. It is a
natural process, which the intelligent may watch with interest, with
which none but the ignorant will try to interfere.
There is, however, beside this a real jaundice, in which the skin is
more deeply stained, the whites of the eyes are yellow, the urine
high-coloured, and in which the dark evacuations that carry away the
contents of the bowels before birth are succeeded by white motions, from
which the bile is absent. This condition is not very usual, save where
children have been exposed to cold, or where the air they breathe is
unwholesome. Of this no better proof can be given than is afforded by
the fact that in the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, where the children are
defended with the greatest care both from cold and from a vitiated
atmosphere, infantile jaundice is extremely rare, while it attacks
three-fourths of the children received into the Foundling Hospital of
Paris. Still it does sometimes occur when yet no cause can be assigned
for it, and it is noteworthy that it is sometimes met with in successive
infants in the same family.
As the respiratory function and that of the skin increase in activity,
the jaundice will disappear of its own accord. Great attention must be
paid during its continuance to avoid exposure of the child to cold,
while no other food than the mother's milk should be given. If the
bowels are at all constipated, half a grain of grey powder or a quarter
of a grain of calomel may be given, followed by a small dose of castor
oil, and the aperient will often seem to hasten the disappearance of the
jaundice; but in a large number of cases even this amount of medical
interference is not needed.
There is, indeed, a very grave form of jaundice, happily of excessive
rarity, due to malformation of the liver, to absence or obstruction of
the bile-ducts, and often accompanied with bleeding from the navel. I do
but mention it; the intensity and daily deepening of the jaundice, the
fruitlessness of all treatment, and the grave illness of the child, even
though no bleeding should occur, render it impossible to confound this
hopeless condition with the trivial ailment of which I have been
speaking.
The next chapter will furnish a fitter place than the present for
speaking fully of the Disorders of the Digestive Organs.
I will say now but this: that whatever a mother may do eventually, she
avoids grave perils for herself by suckling her infant for the first
month; while the health of her child, just launched upon the world, is
terribly endangered if fed upon those substitutes for its proper
nutriment on which after the lapse of a few weeks it may subsist, may
even manage to thrive.
There are some local affections incident to the new-born child
concerning which a few words may not be out of place; and first of the
=Ophthalmia of New-born Children.=--It is the cause of the loss of sight
of nine-tenths of all persons who, among the poor, are said to have been
born blind. In the wealthier classes of society it is comparatively
rare, and seldom fails to meet with timely treatment, yet many people
scarcely realise its dangerous character, or the extreme rapidity of its
course.
It generally begins about the third day after birth with swelling of
the lid of one or other eye, though both are soon involved. The eyelids
swell rapidly, and if the affection is let alone, they soon put on the
appearance of two semi-transparent cushions over the eyes. On separating
the lids, which it is often very difficult to do owing to the spasmodic
contraction of the muscles, their inner surface is seen to be enormously
swollen, bright red, like scarlet velvet, bathed in an abundant
yellowish thin secretion, which often squirts out in a jet as the lids
are forcibly separated. Great care must be taken not to allow any of
this fluid to enter the eye of a bystander, nor to touch his own eye
until the fingers have been most carefully washed, since the discharge
is highly contagious, and may produce most dangerous inflammation of the
eyes of any grown person. The discharge being wiped or washed away, the
eye itself may be seen at the bottom of the swelling very red, and its
small vessels very blood-shot. By degrees the surface of the eye assumes
a deeper red, it loses its brightness and its polish, while the swelling
of the lids lessens, and they can be opened with less difficulty; their
inner surface at the same time becomes softer, but thick and granular,
and next the eyes themselves put on likewise a granular condition which
obscures vision. The discharge by this time has become thicker and
white, and looks like matter from an abscess. By slow degrees the
inflammation may subside, the discharge lessen, the swelling diminish,
and the eye in the course of weeks may regain its natural condition. But
the danger is--and when proper treatment is not adopted early the danger
is very great--lest the mischief should extend beyond the surface of the
eye, lest ulceration of the eye should take place, the ulceration reach
so deep as to perforate it, and not merely interfere with the sight, but
destroy the organ of vision altogether.
In every instance, then, in which the eyelids of a new-born infant
swell, or the slightest discharge appears from them, the attention of
the doctor must at once be called to the condition. In the meantime, and
during whatever treatment he may think it right to follow, the eye must
be constantly covered with a piece of folded lint dipped in cold water;
and every hour at least the eye must be opened and tepid water squeezed
into it abundantly from a sponge held above, but not touching it, so as
to completely wash away all the discharge. A weak solution of alum and
zinc, as one grain of the latter to three of the former to an ounce of
water, may in like manner be dropped from a large camel's-hair brush
four times a day into the eye after careful washing. Simple as these
measures are they yet suffice, if adopted at the very beginning, and
carried on perseveringly, to entirely cure in a few days an ailment
which if let alone leads almost always to most lamentable results.
I do not pursue the subject further, for bad cases require all the care
of the most skilful oculist for their treatment.
=Scalp Swellings.=--Almost every new-born child has on one or other side
of its head a puffy swelling, owing to the pressure to which the head
has been subjected in birth, and this swelling disappears at the end of
twenty-four or forty-eight hours.
Now and then, however, though indeed very seldom, the swelling does not
disappear, but it goes on gradually increasing and becoming more
definite in its outlines until at the end of three or four days it may
be as big as half a small orange, or sometimes even larger, soft,
elastic, painless, under the unchanged scalp, but presenting the
peculiarity of having a hard raised margin with a distinct edge, which
gives to the finger passed over it the sensation of a bony ridge, beyond
which the bone seems deficient. This tumour is due usually to the same
cause as that which produces the other temporary puffy swelling of the
scalp, only the pressure having been more severe, blood has actually
been forced out from the small vessels under the membrane which covers
the skull, and hence its gradual increase, its definite outline; and
hence, too, the bony ridge which surrounds it, and which is due to
nature's effort at cure, in the course of which the raised edge of the
membrane covering the skull (the _pericranium_) becomes converted into
bone.
When the nature of these swellings was not understood, they used to be
poulticed, and to be opened with a lancet to let out their contents. We
know now, however, that we have nothing to do but to let them alone;
that by degrees the blood will be absorbed and the tumour will
disappear, and as it does so we may trace the gradual transformation of
the membrane which covered it into bone, as we feel it crackling like
tinsel under the finger. Two, three, or four weeks may be needed for the
entire removal of one of these blood-swellings. The doctor will at once
recognise its character, and you will then have nothing to do but to
wait--often, unhappily, so much harder for the anxious mother than to
meddle.
=Ruptured Navel.=--There is a period some time before the birth of a
child when the two halves of its body are not united in front, as they
become afterwards; and hare-lip or cleft-palate sometimes remains as the
result of the arrest of that development which should have closed the
fissured lip or united the two halves of the palate.
In a similar way it happens sometimes that though the skin is closed,
the muscles of the stomach (or, more properly speaking, of the belly)
are not in the close apposition in which they should be, so that the
bowels are not supported by the muscles, but protected only by the skin.
More frequently than this, especially in the case of children who are
born before the time, the opening through which the navel string passes
is large at birth, and fails to close as speedily and completely as it
should do afterwards. When everything goes on as it ought, the gradual
contraction of the opening helps to bring about the separation of the
navel string and its detachment, and the perfect closure of the opening
takes place at the same time, between the fifth and the eighth day after
birth.
If this does not occur, the bowels are very apt to protrude through the
opening, and if allowed to do so for weeks or months, the opening
becomes so dilated that its closure is impossible, and the child grows
up afflicted permanently with rupture through the navel. This is always
an inconvenience, sometimes even a source of serious danger; but if
means are taken to prevent the condition becoming worse, nature seldom
fails eventually to bring about a cure, and to effect the complete
closure of the opening.
If the muscles on either side do not come into apposition, but leave a
cleft between them, the infant should constantly wear a broad bandage of
fine flannel round the stomach, not applied too tightly, in order to
give support. The circular bandages of vulcanised india-rubber with a
pad in the centre are nowise to be recommended. The pad is apt to become
displaced, and to press anywhere but over the navel, while its edges
irritate the infant's delicate skin, and the pressure which it exerts if
it is sufficiently tight to retain its place interferes with
respiration.
A pad composed of pieces of plaster spread on wash-leather, and of
graduated sizes and kept in place by adhesive strapping,[7] answers the
purpose of preventing the protrusion at the navel, and of thus
facilitating the closure of the ring better than any other device with
which I am acquainted. They need, however, to be continued even for two
or three years, and though they should have been left off it is wise to
resume their use if the child should be attacked by whooping-cough,
diarrh[oe]a, or any other ailment likely to occasion violent straining.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] These plasters for ruptured navel in sets of a dozen are to be had
of Ewen, 106 Jermyn Street, St. James's, London, and I dare say at many
other places besides.
CHAPTER V.
ON THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF CHILDREN AFTER THE FIRST MONTH, AND
UNTIL TEETHING IS FINISHED.
=Infantile Atrophy.=--In by far the greater number of instances, the
wasting of young children is due to their being fed upon food which they
cannot digest, or which when digested fails to yield them proper
nourishment. I quoted some figures in my introductory remarks, to show
from the evidence obtained at Berlin how much larger was the proportion
of deaths under the age of one year among hand-fed infants than among
those brought up at the breast. Foundling hospitals on the Continent, in
which the children are all drawn from the same class, and subjected in
all respects to a similar treatment, except that in some they are fed at
the breast, in others brought up by hand, show a mortality in the latter
case exactly double of that in the former.
It is as idle to ignore these facts, and to adduce in their disproof the
case of some child brought up most successfully by hand, as it would be
to deny that a battle-field was a place of danger because some people
had been present there and had come away unwounded.
But it is always well not merely to accept a fact, but also to know the
reason why a thing is so. The reason is twofold: partly because the
different substitutes for the mother's milk, taken for the most part
from the vegetable kingdom, are less easy of digestion than the milk,
and partly because, even were they digested with the same facility, they
do not furnish the elements necessary to support life in due proportion.
All food has to answer two distinct purposes: the one to furnish
materials for the growth of the body, the other to afford matter for the
maintenance of its temperature; and life cannot be supported except on a
diet in which the elements of nutrition and those of respiration bear a
certain proportion to each other. Now, in milk, the proper food of
infants, the elements of the former are to those of the latter about in
the proportion of 1 to 2, while in arrowroot, sago, and tapioca they are
only as 1 to 26, and in wheaten flour only as 1 to 7. If to this we add
the absence in these substances of the oleaginous matters which the milk
contributes to supply the body with fat, and the smaller quantity, and
to a certain extent the different kind, of the salts which they contain,
it becomes apparent that by such a diet the health if not the life of
the infant must almost inevitably be sacrificed.
But these substances are not only less nutritious, they are also less
easy of digestion than the infant's natural food. We all know how
complex is the digestive apparatus of the herbivorous animal, of which
the four stomachs of the ruminants are an instance, and how large is the
bulk of food in proportion to his size which the elephant requires,
compared with that which suffices for the lion or the tiger.
The stomach of the infant is the simple stomach of the carnivorous
animal, intended for food which shall not need to stay long in that
receptacle, but shall be speedily digested; and it is only as the child
grows older, and takes more varied food, that the stomach alters
somewhat in form, that it assumes a more rounded shape, resembling
somewhat that of the herbivorous animal, and suited to retain the food
longer. The young of all creatures live upon their mother for a certain
time after birth; but in all the preparation for a different kind of
food, and with it for an independent existence, begins much sooner and
goes on more rapidly than in man. Young rabbits are always provided with
two teeth when born, and the others make their appearance within ten
days. In the different ruminants the teeth have either begun to appear
before birth, or they show themselves a few days afterwards; and in
either case dentition is completed within the first month, and in dogs
and cats within the first ten weeks of existence.
In the human subject the process of teething begins late, between the
seventh and the ninth month, and goes on slowly: the first grinding
teeth are seldom cut before the beginning of the second year, and
teething is not finished until after its end. Until teething has begun
the child ought to live exclusively on the food which nature provides;
for until that time the internal organs have not become fitted to digest
other sustenance, and the infant deprived of this too often languishes
and dies. To get from other food the necessary amount of nourishment,
that food has to be taken in larger quantities, and, from the difficulty
in digesting it, needs to remain longer in the stomach than the mother's
milk. One of the results of the indigestibility of the food is that the
child is often sick, the stomach getting rid of a part of that food
which it is unable to turn to any useful purpose; and so far well. But
the innutritious substances do not relieve the sense of hunger. The
child cries in discomfort, and more is given to it, and by degrees the
over-distended stomach becomes permanently dilated, and holds a larger
quantity than it was originally meant to contain. The undigested mass
passes into a state of fermentation, and the infant's breath becomes
sour and offensive, it suffers from wind and acid eructations, and
nurses sometimes express surprise that the child does not thrive since
it is always hungry. While some of the food is got rid of by vomiting,
some passes into the intestines, and there becomes putrid, as the
horribly offensive evacuations prove. They come away, large and solid
and white, for the secretion of the bile is inadequate to complete that
second digestion which should take place in the intestines; or else the
irritation which they excite occasions diarrh[oe]a--a green putty-like
matter comes away mixed with a profuse watery discharge.
What wonder is it that in such circumstances the body should waste most
rapidly; for it is forced from its own tissues to supply those elements
essential to the maintenance of life, which its food contains in far too
scanty a proportion. Every organ of the body contributes to the general
support, and life is thus prolonged, if no kind disease curtail it,
until each member has furnished all that it can spare, and then death
takes place from starvation, its approach having been slower, but the
suffering which preceded it not therefore less, than if all food had
been withheld.
Do not suppose that in this description I have been painting too dark a
picture, or that children who die thus have been exceptionally weak, and
so under the acknowledged difficulties of hand-feeding at length became
consumptive. They do not die of consumption, and in a large number of
instances their bodies show no trace of consumptive disease, but present
appearances characteristic of this condition of starvation, and of this
only.
Along the whole track of the stomach and intestines are the signs of
irritation and inflammation. The glands of the bowels are enlarged,
actual ulceration of the stomach is often met with; while so
far-reaching is the influence of this slow starvation, that even the
substance of the kidneys and of the brain are often found softened and
otherwise altered, though it might not unreasonably have been supposed
that these organs lay quite beyond the reach of any disorder of
digestion.
No doubt all these grievous results do not always follow; and sometimes
children exceptionally strong manage to take and digest enough even of
unsuitable food to maintain their health, and may as they grow up, and
the changes take place in the system which fit it for a varied diet,
even become robust. In the majority of instances, however, hand-fed
infants, and those especially who have been brought up chiefly on
farinaceous food, are less strong than others, and are more apt to
develop any latent tendency to hereditary disease, such as scrofula or
consumption, than members of the same family who have been brought up at
the breast.
Enough has already been said to satisfy all but those who do not wish
to be convinced, how incumbent it is on every mother to try to suckle
her child. But though it is most desirable that for the first six months
of their existence children should derive their support entirely from
their mother, and that until they are a year or at least nine months old
their mother's milk should form the chief part of their food, yet many
circumstances may occur to render the full adoption of this plan
impracticable. In some women the supply of milk, although at first
abundant, yet in the course of a few weeks undergoes so considerable a
diminution as to become altogether insufficient for the child's support;
while in other cases, although its quantity continues undiminished, yet
from some defect in its quality it does not furnish the infant with
proper nutriment. Cases of the former kind are not unusual in young,
tolerably healthy, but not robust women; while instances of the latter
are met with chiefly among those who have given birth to several
children, whose health is bad, or among the poor, who have been
enfeebled by hard living or hard work. The children in the former case
thrive well enough for the first six weeks or two months, but then,
obtaining the milk in too small a quantity to meet the demands of their
rapid growth, they pine and fret, they lose both flesh and strength,
and, unless the food given to supply their wants be judiciously
selected, their stomach and bowels become disordered, and nutrition,
instead of being aided, is more seriously impaired. In the case of the
mother whose milk disagrees with the child from some defect in its
quality, the signs are in general more pronounced. Either the infant
vomits more than that small quantity which a babe who has sucked
greedily or overmuch often rejects immediately on leaving the breast, or
it is purged, or it seems never satisfied, does not gain flesh, does not
thrive, cries much and is not happy. In these cases, too, the mother's
supply of milk, though abundant at first, diminishes in a few weeks; she
feels exhausted, and suffers from back-ache, or from pain in the breasts
each time after the child's sucking; while, further, her general
weakness leaves her no alternative but to wean the child.
Knowing the attempt to rear her child entirely at the breast to be
vain, the mother may in such cases be tempted to bring it up by hand
from the very first. But how short soever the period may be during which
the mother may be able to suckle her child, it is very desirable that
she should nurse it during that period, and also that her milk should
then constitute its only food. For the first four or five days after the
infant's birth the milk possesses peculiar qualities, and not merely
abounds in fatty and saccharine matter, but presents its casein or curd
in a form in which it is specially easy of digestion. These
peculiarities indeed become less marked within a week or two; but not
only is it of moment that the infant should at any rate make its start
in life with every advantage, but the mother who nurses her little one
even for a month avoids thereby almost half the risks which follow her
confinement. For the indolent, among the wealthy, a numerous class who
have but to form a wish in order to have it gratified, a wet-nurse for
the baby suggests itself at once to the mother as a ready means of
saving herself trouble, and of shirking responsibility. This course, to
which love of pleasure and personal vanity tend alike to prompt her,
often finds, in spite of all opposing reasons, the approval of the
nurse, to whom it saves trouble, and the too ready acquiescence of the
doctor in a course which pleases his patient. But many circumstances
besides those moral considerations, which ought never to be forgotten
before the determination is formed to employ a wet-nurse, may put this
expedient out of the question, and it becomes therefore of importance to
learn what is the best course for a mother to adopt who is either wholly
unable to suckle her child, or who can do so only for a very short time.
It is obvious that the more nearly the substitute approaches to the
character of the mother's milk, the greater will be the prospect of the
attempt to rear the child upon it proving successful. There is no
argument needed to prove that the milk of some animal more closely
resembles the mother's milk, and is more likely to prove a useful
substitute for it than any kind of farinaceous substance. The milk of
all animals, however, differs in many important respects from human
milk, and differs too very widely in different animals. Thus, the milk
of the cow and that of the ewe contain nearly double the quantity of
curd, and that of the goat more than twice the quantity of butter, and
it is only in the milk of the ass that the solid constituents are
arranged in the same order as in man. On this account, therefore, asses'
milk is regarded, and with propriety, as the best substitute for the
child's natural food. Unfortunately, however, expense is very frequently
a bar to its employment, and compels the use of the less easily digested
cows' milk. But though the cost may be a valid objection to the
permanent employment of asses' milk, it is yet very desirable when a
young infant cannot have the breast, that it should be supplied with
asses' milk for the first four or five weeks, until the first dangers of
the experiment of bringing it up by hand have been surmounted. The
deficiency of asses' milk in butter may be corrected by the addition of
about a twentieth part of cream, and its disposition to act on the
bowels may be lessened by heating it to boiling point, not over the fire
but in a vessel of hot water; and still more effectually by the addition
to it of a fourth part of lime-water or of a teaspoonful of the solution
of saccharated carbonate of lime to two ounces or four tablespoonfuls of
the milk.
When cows' milk is given, it must be borne in mind that it contains
nearly twice as much curd, and about an eighth less sugar, than human
milk. It is therefore necessary that it should be given in a diluted
state and slightly sweetened. The dilution must vary according to the
infant's age; at first the milk may be mixed with an equal quantity of
water, but as the child grows older the proportion of water may be
reduced to one-third. Mere dilution with water, however, leaves the
proportion of curd unaltered, and it is precisely the curd which the
infant is unable to digest. Instead, therefore, of diluting the milk
simply with water, it is often better to add one part of whey to about
two parts of milk, which, according to the child's age, may or may not
be previously diluted.[8]
Attention must be paid to the temperature of the food when given to the
infant, which ought to be as nearly as possible the same as that of the
mother's milk, namely from 90° to 95° Fahrenheit, and in all cases in
which care is needed a thermometer should be employed in order to insure
the food being given at the same temperature. Human milk is alkaline,
and even if kept for a considerable time it shows little tendency to
become sour. The milk of animals when in perfect health likewise
presents an alkaline reaction, and that of cows when at grass forms no
exception to this rule. Milk even very slightly acid is certain to
disagree with an infant; it is therefore always worth while the moment
that a hand-fed infant seems ailing to ascertain this point. If
alkaline, the milk will deepen the blue colour of litmus paper, which is
to be had of any chemist; if acid, it will discharge the colour and turn
it red. It is, perhaps, as well to add that, as the oxygen in the
atmosphere tends to redden litmus paper, it should not be left exposed
to the air, but should always be kept in a glass-stoppered bottle.
The milk of the cow is very liable to alteration from comparatively
slight causes, and particularly from changes in the animal's diet; while
even in the most favourable circumstances if the animal is shut up in a
city and stall-fed, all the solid constituents of its milk suffer a
remarkable diminution; while the secretion further has a great tendency
to become acid, or to undergo even more serious deterioration. Mere
acidity of the milk can be counteracted for the moment by the addition
of lime-water, or by stirring up with it a small quantity of prepared
chalk, which may be allowed to subside to the bottom of the vessel; or
if it should happen, though indeed that is rarely the case in these
circumstances, that the child is constipated, carbonate of magnesia may
be substituted for the chalk or lime-water. If these simple proceedings
are not sufficient to restore the infant's health, it will be wise to
seek at once for another source of milk supply, and to place the
suspected milk in the hands of the medical officer of health or of the
public analyst, in order that it may be submitted to a thorough chemical
and microscopical examination.
The difficulty sometimes found in obtaining an unvaryingly good milk
supply, as well as practical convenience in many respects, has led to
the extensive employment of various forms of condensed milk. They form
undoubtedly the best substitute for fresh cows' milk which we possess,
and are a great boon especially to the poor in large towns where the
milk supply is often scanty, not always fresh, and sometimes of bad
quality. I should certainly prefer condensed milk for an infant to milk
from cows living in close dirty stables, such as my experience thirty
years ago made me familiar with in some parts of London.
Still all the varieties of condensed milk are far inferior in quality
to good fresh milk. They contain less butter, less albumen, that is to
say less of the main constituents of all animal solids and fluids, and a
greater proportion of what are termed the hydro-carbonates, such for
instance as sugar; or, to state the same thing differently, the elements
which serve for nutrition are in smaller proportion than in fresh milk
to those which minister to respiration. They are not only less
nutritious, but the large quantity of sugar which they contain not
infrequently disagrees with the child, and causes bowel complaint. I do
not know how far the so-called unsweetened condensed milk which has of
late come into the market is free from this objection; but I have always
preferred the Aylesbury condensed milk, which is manufactured with
sugar, to the Swiss condensed milk, into which, as I have been given to
understand, honey largely enters.
How much food does an infant of a month old require? what intervals
should be allowed between each time of feeding? and how should the food
be given? are three questions which call for a moment's notice. The
attempt has been made to determine the first point by two very
distinguished French physicians, who weighed the infants before and
after each time of sucking. Their observations, however, were not
sufficiently numerous to be decisive, and their results were very
conflicting; the one estimating the quantity at two pounds and a quarter
avoirdupois, which would be equivalent to nearly a quart, the other at
not quite half as much; but the observations of the latter were made on
exceptionally weak and sickly infants. Infants no doubt vary, as do
grown people, as to the quantity of food they require. I should estimate
from my own experience and observation, apart from accurate data, a pint
as the minimum needed by an infant a month old; and while Dr.
Frankland's estimate of a pint and a half for an infant of five months
seems to me very reasonable, I should doubt its sufficing for a child of
nine months unless it were supplemented by other food.
The infant during the first month of life takes food every two hours,
and even when asleep should not be allowed to pass more than three
hours; and this frequent need of food continues until the age of two,
sometimes even until three, months. Afterwards, and until six months
old, the child does not need to be fed oftener than every three hours
during the twelve waking hours, and every four hours during the sleeping
time. Later on, five times in the twenty-four hours, namely thrice by
day, once the last thing at night, and once again in the early morning,
are best for the child's health as well as for the nurse's comfort.
How is an infant not at the breast to be fed? Certainly not with the
cup or spoon; a child so fed has no choice in the matter, but must
either swallow or choke, and is fed as they fatten turkeys for the
market. The infant, on the other hand, sucks the bottle as it would suck
its mother's breast; it rests when fatigued, it stops to play, it leaves
off when it has had enough, and many a useful inference may be drawn by
the observant nurse or mother who watches the infant sucking, and
notices if the child sucks feebly, or leaves off panting from want of
breath, or stops in the midst, and cries because its mouth is sore or
its gums are tender.
But it is not every bottle which an infant should be fed from, and
least of all from those so much in vogue now with the long elastic tube,
so handy because they keep the baby quiet, who will lie by the hour
together with the end in its mouth, sucking, or making as though it
sucked, even when the bottle is empty. These bottles, as well as the
tubes connected with them, are most difficult to keep clean; and so
serious is this evil, that many French physicians not only denounce
their use, in which they are perfectly justified, but prefer, to the use
of any bottle at all, the feeding the infant with a spoon; and here I
think they are mistaken. The old-fashioned flat bottle, with an opening
in the middle, and a short end to which the nipple is attached without
any tube, the only one known in the time of our grandmothers, continues
still the best, and very good. My friend, Mr. Edmund Owen, in a lecture
at which I presided at the Health Exhibition in August last year,
pointed out very humorously the differences between the old bottle and
the new. An infant to be kept in health must not be always sucking, but
must be fed at regular intervals. The careful nurse takes the infant on
her knee, feeds it from the old-fashioned feeding-bottle, regulating the
flow of the milk according as the infant sucks heartily or slowly,
withdraws it for a minute or two, and raises the child into a sitting
posture if it seems troubled with flatulence, and then after a pause
lets it recommence its meal. This occupies her a quarter of an hour or
twenty minutes of well-spent time, while the lazy nurse, or the mother
who has never given the matter a thought, just puts the tube in the
infant's mouth, and either takes no further trouble or occupies herself
with something else. And yet, obvious though this is, how constantly one
sees infants taken about in the perambulator with the feeding-bottle
wrapped up and laid by its side, because it is said the child always
cries when it is not sucking, and the intelligence and the common sense
are wanting, as well as the patient love, that would strive to make out
which it is of many possible causes that makes the infant cry. One more
observation with reference to bottle-feeding may not be out of place. It
is this: that no food be left in the bottle after the child has had its
meal, but that it should be emptied, washed out with a little warm water
and soda, and it and the india-rubber end should be kept in water till
again needed. To insure the most perfect cleanliness it is always well
to have two bottles in use, and to employ them alternately.
How strictly soever an infant may be kept at the breast, or however
exactly the precautions on which I have insisted are observed, sickness,
constipation, or diarrh[oe]a may occur, causing much anxiety to the
parents, and giving much trouble to the doctor.
It sometimes happens, without its being possible to assign for it any
sufficient reason, that the mother's milk disagrees with her infant, or
entirely fails to nourish it, so that, much against her will, she is
compelled to give up suckling it. In some instances this is due to
errors in diet, to the neglect of those rules the observance of which is
essential to health, as proper exercise for instance; and then the
secretion is usually deficient in quantity as well as defective in its
composition. In such cases the child often vomits soon after sucking, it
suffers from stomach-ache, its motions are very sour, of the consistence
of putty, and either green, or become so soon after being passed,
instead of presenting the bright yellow colour and semi-fluid
consistence of the evacuations of the healthy infant, and sometimes they
are also lumpy from the presence of masses of undigested curd. In
addition, also, the child is troubled with griping, which makes it cry;
its breath is sour, or actually offensive, and the tongue is much whiter
than it should be, though it must be remembered that the tongue of the
sucking child always has a very slight coating of whitish mucus, and is
neither as red nor as perfectly free from all coating as it becomes in
the perfectly healthy child of three or four years old.
In these circumstances, the diminution of stimulants, such as the stout
of which young women are sometimes mistakenly urged to take a quantity
to which they were previously quite unaccustomed, is often followed by
an increase of the quantity as well as an improvement in the quality of
the milk. It is true that a nursing mother may often find her strength
maintained, and her supply of milk increased, by taking a glass of stout
at lunch and another at dinner, instead of, but not in addition to, any
other stimulant; but mere stimulants will no more enable a woman to
suckle her infant better than she otherwise would do, than they would
fit a man to undergo great fatigue for days together, or to go through a
walking tour in Switzerland. A tumbler of one-third milk and two-thirds
good grit gruel taken three times a day will have greater influence in
increasing the quantity of milk than any conceivable amount of
stimulant.
There is an entirely opposite condition in which the infant does not
thrive at the breast, and this for the most part is met with when the
mother has already given birth to and suckled several children. In these
instances the secretion is sometimes, though not always, abundant, but
the infant does not thrive upon it. The babe does not get on, is always
hungry after leaving the breast, and cries as though it wanted more; in
addition to which it is often purged, either while sucking or within a
few minutes afterwards, though the motions, except in being more
frequent and more watery than in health, do not by any means constantly
show any other change. The mother's history explains the rest. She is
constantly languid, suffers from back-ache, feels exhausted each time
after the babe has sucked, probably has neuralgia in her face, or
abiding headache. In many instances, too, her monthly periods return,
though as a rule they do not appear in healthy women while suckling. All
these symptoms show that her system is not equal to the duty she has
undertaken, and that therefore, for her sake as well as for that of the
infant, she must give up the attempt.
One more case there is in which suckling has to be given up, at any rate
in part, and that is when the milk is good in kind, but insufficient in
quantity for the child as it grows older. This insufficiency of quantity
shows itself at different periods after the infant's birth--at two
months, three, or four. The child is not otherwise ill than that it is
no longer bright, as it was wont to be, it ceases to gain flesh, it
sleeps more than it used to do, though when it wakes it is always eager
for the breast, and cries when leaving it, and if the experiment is made
of giving it some milk and water immediately on leaving it, it takes
that greedily. Mothers are loth to believe this failure of their
resources, and in the case of some who have firm and well-formed
breasts, there is but little change in their appearance to show that
what remains may serve for beauty, not for use. But if while the child
is sucking, the nipple is taken suddenly from its mouth, instead of
innumerable little jets of milk, spirting out from the openings of the
milk-ducts, the nipple will be seen to be barely moistened by its
languid flow.
In conditions such as these the question of weaning partially or
completely inevitably occurs, and where the mother's weakness is the
occasion of the failure to nourish the child, half-measures are of no
avail, for so long as she does not entirely give up the attempt to do
that to which her health is unequal, her own state will grow worse, that
of the child will not improve. When errors of diet or inattention to
general rules of health incapacitate the mother from the performance of
her duty, there may be hope from the adoption of a wiser course; while
when the supply simply fails from its inadequacy, much may be hoped for
from a wise combination of hand-feeding with nursing at the breast; the
mother perhaps suckling the infant by day, but being undisturbed by
demands upon her at night.
Last of all, I must refer to cases in which love has been stronger than
reason, as indeed it often is, and in which young people with some
pronounced hereditary taint of scrofula or consumption marry and have
children. In such cases, if the consumptive taint is on the mother's
side, it is, I believe, much wiser, in the inability to obtain a good
wet-nurse, to bring up the child by hand rather than at the mother's
breast. One word, however, applicable in such circumstances, age and
long experience entitle me to add, and it is this. It is essential that,
in the absence of that guarantee against the too rapid succession of
pregnancies which suckling for a reasonable time presents, there should
be self-restraint on both sides, lest the inscription on the young
wife's grave should be, as I have too often known it, the same as, in
despite of poetry and romance, her biographer assigns as the cause of
the death of Petrarch's Laura, that she died worn out _crebris
partubus_, by too many babies.
In all of these cases the rules which I have already given with
reference to hand-feeding have to be borne in mind: the preference for
asses' milk at first, the careful regulation of the amount of curd in
the cows' milk afterwards, increased or diminished by the greater or
less proportion of whey mixed with it. Sometimes, however much the
quantity of curd or casein may be reduced, the child is yet unable to
digest it, for it is firm and not easily acted on by the juices of the
stomach. It is then best to omit it altogether, and to supply the
necessary albumen by white of egg. A very good food in these
circumstances is made of--
White of one raw egg,
Quarter of an ounce of sugar of milk,
Three teaspoonfuls of cream,
Half a pint of whey.
In the course of a few weeks, or when the child seems to need stronger
nourishment, one part of veal-tea, made with a pound of veal to a pint
of water, may be added to one part of whey, with the white of egg and
sugar of milk as before, and one part of white decoction, as it was
called some two centuries ago in England. It is composed of--
Half an ounce of hartshorn shavings,
Inside of one French roll,
Three pints of water--boiled to two, strained and sweetened.
This forms an extremely useful way of introducing farinaceous food into
the infant's diet, and preparing the way for a larger amount of it which
by degrees becomes necessary. Of these, one of the most generally useful
is Liebig's or Savory and Moore's food for infants, which has the
advantage of not constipating as so many other farinaceous foods do.
Chapman's Entire Wheat Flour is an extremely good food; and wheat, as
you will remember, excels other farinaceous substances in its nutritive
properties, but it is not so easy of digestion as Liebig. There is,
however, scarcely any kind of farinaceous food, among which Nestlé's
must not be forgotten, which may not answer for an infant; provided
always that at first it is not given oftener than twice a day, that it
is not made too thick, nor given in larger proportion than one-third of
the farinaceous food to two-thirds of the whey, milk, or whatever it is
mixed with; and besides, whatever the food may be, it should be prepared
each time afresh.
This is not the place for going into all details on the subject of
feeding infants, or to explain how if wisely managed the child weans
itself by degrees from the bottle or the breast--the best way, be it
said, of weaning--or how by degrees it comes to its daily midday meal of
beef-tea and bread, and then, when the first grinding teeth have been
cut, to a small meat meal daily, finely minced or scraped, and so little
by little adopts the modes of living of its elders.
But, last of all, there are instances, though not so many as the public
imagine, in which the infant, in spite of most judicious management,
fails to thrive, and suffers from various disorders of its digestion.
The most unmanageable and the least hopeful of these cases are those in
which the infant is the subject of consumptive disease. It is very rare
for its symptoms, even in cases of the most marked tendency to
consumption on the part of the parents, to show themselves before the
age of three months, and I think I may add, that apart from such
tendency consumption never appears in infancy or early childhood, except
when it follows on some acute illness, such as inflammation of the
lungs, or on typhoid, or, as it is commonly called, remittent fever.
Consumption of the bowels, as it is popularly termed, may be said never
to occur in early infancy apart from consumptive disease of the lungs,
and is then always accompanied by an increase towards evening of the
temperature from its natural standard of 98.5° to 100°. Hence the
absence of cough and the persistence of a natural temperature may be
taken as almost conclusive evidence that there is no consumptive disease
of the bowels. Consumptive disease in infancy is invariably attended
with glandular enlargement. The glands of the bowels when irritated
always communicate their irritation to the glands in the groin and the
bend of the thigh, which are felt hard and enlarged, like little peas,
under the finger. But further, if there is real disease of the glands of
the bowels, other tiny enlarged glands will be felt, like shot, under
the skin of the belly, from which in the general progress of emaciation
the layer of fat always present in the healthy baby will already have
been removed. Besides this, too, the veins running beneath the skin
there, invisible in the healthy infant, will be seen meandering like
blue lines, and telling the story that more blood than usual flows
through them, because the diseased glands inside interfere with its
ready passage through its proper channels.
Two cautions, however, have to be borne in mind with reference to both
of these indications of disease. The first is, that the glands in the
groin may be enlarged from mere irritation, independent of actual
disease communicated to them from the glands inside. If, however, you
find the glands at the corner of the lower jaw and those on either side
of the neck enlarged too, you are then driven to the conclusion that the
glands in the groin are enlarged not from mere local irritation, but
from general disease, and that consumption is its cause.
Again, the superficial veins of the belly may be enlarged from any
cause which interferes with the proper circulation through the vessels
inside. Hence they are often enlarged in grown people in dropsy, and
hence too in infants and young children from flatulent distension of the
bowels. But in this case the other signs of consumption are wanting; the
emaciation, the cough, the increase of evening temperature, and the
enlargement of the glands, are all absent.
Sometimes we meet with instances where the child does not digest its
food, does not thrive, does not gain flesh, never passes healthy
evacuations, at length wastes, loses strength, and dies, without having
had any of the signs which I have pointed out as indicative of
consumptive disease, and in fact without having suffered from it. Now,
these cases are connected with imperfect performance of the function of
the liver, and sometimes with an imperfection of its structure. Before
birth the functions of the liver are not called into action in the same
way nor to the same degree as afterwards, and its structure differs in
this respect that it contains a larger amount of fat and a smaller
proportion of bile-secreting cells than afterwards. It sometimes happens
from causes which we do not understand that the liver structure not only
does not undergo that higher development which should take place, but
that the fat cells increase at the expense of the bile cells. In these
circumstances the food is ill-digested and the health is much impaired,
and at last wasting takes place to as great a degree as in the case of
consumption, only there are no cough, no glandular enlargement, no big
superficial veins, no increased temperature, while on a careful
examination the doctor will seldom fail to find the rounded edge of the
enlarged liver coming lower down than natural. In these cases too there
is a disposition to convulsive affections, and to that peculiar form of
convulsion called spasmodic croup, concerning which I shall have
something to say later on.
In its less serious form this is both a more frequent and a less grave
condition than consumption, and its existence explains to a great degree
those cases in which young children have failed to be nourished by the
milk food which commonly suits their tender age, but have improved on
beef-tea, raw meat or its juice, and food entirely destitute of
saccharine matter.
In cases where there is reason to apprehend consumptive disease, the
skill and resources of the doctor will often be heavily taxed to meet
each difficulty as it arises. A good wet-nurse, or, in default of her,
asses' milk, with the addition of cream to supply the butter in which
the asses' milk is deficient, a couple of teaspoonfuls of raw meat juice
in the course of every twenty-four hours, much care in the introduction
of farinaceous substances into the diet, and cod-liver oil twice a day,
beginning with ten drops and gradually increasing the dose to a
teaspoonful, are all that the mother herself can do. When the cod-liver
oil is not borne by the stomach, or when--which, however, is not often
the case--the child refuses to take it, glycerine may be substituted for
it, though it must be owned that it is a very poor and inefficient
substitute. The inunction of cod-liver oil is in any case not to be had
recourse to; it makes the child unpleasant to itself and loathsome to
others, while the power of the skin to absorb oily matters is far too
limited to be worth taking into account.
Vomiting, though by no means a prominent symptom of either of the two
very grave conditions of which I have been speaking just now, is yet a
very common attendant on all disorders of digestion in early life. It is
indeed much more frequent in the infant than in the adult, and the
greater irritability of the stomach continues even after the first few
months of existence are past, and does not completely cease during the
early years of childhood. In every case of vomiting in childhood,
therefore, the first question to set at rest is whether it depends on
disorder of the digestive system, or whether it heralds the onset of one
of the eruptive fevers, or of inflammation of the chest, or of affection
of the brain; and in determining this all the directions given when I
was speaking of the general symptoms of disease are to be carefully
studied. Vomiting often accompanies infantile diarrh[oe]a, even when the
food taken cannot be regarded as its occasion; and now and then the
stomach, with no obvious exciting cause, suddenly becomes too irritable
to retain any food, and this indeed may be the case even though attended
by few or no other indications of intestinal disorder. The child in such
cases seems still anxious for the breast; but so great is the
irritability of the stomach that the milk is either thrown up unchanged
immediately after it has been swallowed, or it is retained only for a
few minutes, and is then rejected in a curdled state; while each
application of the child to the breast is followed by the same result.
It will generally be found, when this accident takes place in the
previously healthy child of a healthy mother, that it has been
occasioned by some act of indiscretion on the part of its mother or
nurse. She perhaps has been absent from her nursling longer than usual,
and returning tired from a long walk or from some fatiguing occupation,
has at once offered it the breast, and allowed it to suck abundantly; or
the infant has been roused from sleep before its customary hour, or it
has been over-excited or over-wearied at play, or in hot weather has
been carried about in the sun without proper protection from its rays.
The infant in whom from any of these causes vomiting has come on, must
at once be taken from the breast, and for a couple of hours neither food
nor medicine should be given to it. It may then be offered a teaspoonful
of cold water; and should the stomach retain this, one or two spoonfuls
may be given in the course of the next half-hour. If this is not
rejected, a little isinglass may be dissolved in the water, which must
still be given by a teaspoonful at a time, frequently repeated; or cold
barley-water may be given in the same manner. In eight or ten hours, if
no return of vomiting takes place, the experiment may be tried of giving
the child its mother's milk, or cows' milk diluted with water, in small
quantities from a teaspoon. If the food thus given does not occasion
sickness, the infant may in from twelve to twenty-four hours be restored
to the breast: with the precaution, however, of allowing it to suck only
very small quantities at a time, lest, the stomach being overloaded, the
vomiting should again be produced.
In many instances when the sickness has arisen from some accidental
cause, such as those above referred to, the adoption of these
precautions will suffice to restore the child's health. If, however,
other signs of disorder of the stomach or bowels have preceded the
sickness, or are associated with it, medicine cannot be wholly dispensed
with, and the advice of the doctor must be sought for. Very likely in
addition to directing the rules above laid down to be attended to, he
may lay a tiny dose of calomel, as a quarter, half or a whole grain on
the tongue, which often has a wonderful influence in arresting sickness;
while he may further put a small poultice not much bigger than a crown
piece, made half of mustard, half of flour, on the pit of the stomach
for a few minutes, and may give the child a little saline, with a grain
or two of carbonate of soda, and perhaps a drop of prussic acid. These,
however, are not remedies to be employed by the mother, but must be
prescribed, and their effect watched by the medical attendant.
Sickness, indeed, is not always a solitary symptom unattended by other
evidences of disordered digestion, but is sometimes associated with
signs of its general impairment, and this may be so serious as to lead
to great loss of flesh, and even to end in endangering life. In many
instances, however, the child does not lose much flesh though it digests
ill, and its symptoms would be troublesome rather than alarming, if it
were not that they are often the signs of an unhealthy constitution, out
of which in the course of a few months consumption is not infrequently
developed. Long-continued indigestion in the infant always warrants
anxiety on the part of the parent.
In some of these cases there is complete loss of appetite, the infant
caring neither for the breast nor for any other food. It loses the look
of health and grows pale and languid, though it may not have any special
disorder either of the stomach or of the bowels. It sucks but seldom and
is soon satisfied, and even of the small quantity taken, a portion is
often regurgitated almost immediately. This state of things is sometimes
brought on by a mother's over-anxious care, who, fearful of her infant
taking cold, keeps it in a room too hot or too imperfectly ventilated.
It follows, also, in delicate infants on attacks of catarrh or of
diarrh[oe]a, but it is then for the most part a passing evil which time
will cure. In the majority of cases, however, the loss of appetite is
associated with evidence of the stomach's inability to digest even the
small quantity of food taken, and the bowels are irregular in their
action, as well as unhealthy in their secretion. Loss of appetite, too,
though a frequent is by no means a constant attendant on infantile
indigestion, but is replaced sometimes by an unnatural craving, in which
the child never seems so comfortable as when sucking. It sucks much, but
the milk evidently does not sit well upon the stomach; for soon after
sucking, the child begins to cry and appears to be in much pain until it
has vomited. The rejection of the milk is followed by immediate relief;
but at the same time by the desire for more food, and the child often
can be pacified only by allowing it to suck again. In other cases
vomiting is of much less frequent occurrence, and there is neither
craving desire for food, nor much pain after sucking; but the infant is
distressed by frequent acid or offensive eructations; its breath has a
sour or nauseous smell, and its evacuations have a most f[oe]tid odour.
The condition of the bowels that exists in connection with these
different forms of indigestion is variable. In cases of simple loss of
appetite, the debility of the stomach is participated in by the
intestines, and constipation is of frequent occurrence, though the
evacuations do not always appear unhealthy. In other instances in which
the desire for food still continues, the bowels may act with due
regularity, but the motions may have a very unnatural appearance. If the
child is brought up entirely at the breast, the motions are usually
liquid, of a very pale yellow colour, often extremely offensive, and
contain shreds of curdled milk, which not having been digested within
the stomach, pass unchanged through the whole track of the bowels. In
many instances, however, the infant having been observed not to thrive
at the breast, arrowroot or other farinaceous food is given to it, which
the stomach is wholly unable to digest, and which gives to the motions
the appearance of putty or pipe-clay, besmeared more or less abundantly
with slime or mucus. The evacuations are often parti-coloured, and
sometimes one or two unhealthy motions are followed by others which
appear perfectly natural; while attacks of diarrh[oe]a often come on,
and the matters discharged are then watery, of a dark dirty green
colour, and exceedingly offensive.
Children, like grown persons suffering from indigestion, often continue,
as I have already said, to keep up their flesh much better than could be
expected, and in many cases grow up to be strong and healthy. Still the
condition is one that not merely entails much suffering on the infant,
but by its continuance seriously impairs the health, and tends to
develop the seeds of any constitutional predisposition to consumptive
disease.
In these cases there are many respects in which the mother can most
efficiently second the doctor. All causes unfavourable to health must be
examined into, and as far as possible removed. It must be seen that the
nursery is well ventilated, and that its temperature is not too high;
while it will often be found that no remedy is half so efficacious as
change of air. Next, it must not be forgotten that the regurgitation of
the food is due in great measure to the weakness and consequent
irritability of the stomach, and care must therefore be taken not to
overload it. If these two points are attended to, benefit may then be
looked for from the employment of tonics, and as the general health
improves the constipated condition of the bowels, so usual in these
cases, will by degrees disappear; while if aperients are needed those
simple remedies only should be employed of which I spoke in the first
part of this book, and the use of mercurials is not to be resorted to
without distinct medical order.
The above mode of treatment is appropriate to cases of what may be
termed the indigestion of debility, but a different plan must be adopted
in those instances in which it depends on some other cause. The rule,
indeed, which limits the quantity of food to be given at one time is no
less applicable here, for the rejection of some of the milk may be the
result of nothing more than of an effort which nature makes to reduce
the work that the stomach has to do within the powers of that organ. But
when, notwithstanding that due attention is paid to this important
point, uneasiness is always produced by taking food, and is not relieved
till after the lapse of some twenty minutes, when vomiting takes place,
or when the infant suffers much from flatulence and from frequent acid
or nauseous eructations, it is clear that the symptoms are due to
something more than the mere feebleness of the system.
It is not, however, the mere fact that the child vomits its food, or of
the milk so vomited being rejected in a coagulated state, which proves
that the stomach is disordered, but it is the fact of firmly coagulated
milk being rejected with much pain, and after the lapse of a
considerable interval from the time of its being taken, which warrants
this conclusion. The coagulation of the curd is the first change which
the milk of any animal undergoes when introduced into the stomach. The
coagulum of human milk is soft and flocculent, and not so thoroughly
separated from the other elements of the fluid, as the firm hard
coagulum or curd of cow's milk becomes from the whey in which it floats.
In a state of health the abundantly secreted gastric juice speedily
redissolves the chief part of the curd in the stomach, while when it has
passed into the intestine the alkaline bile which there becomes mixed
with it, completes its solution, and converts the whole into a fluid
which closely resembles one of the chief elements of the blood, is
consequently very easily taken up by the minute vessels whose office it
is to do so, and thus supplies with nourishment the whole body.
Milk tends, however, to undergo changes spontaneously, which produce
its coagulation, and the occurrence of these changes is greatly favoured
by a moderately high temperature, such as that which exists in the
stomach. But the alterations of the fluid that accompany this
spontaneous coagulation are very different from those which are brought
about by the vital processes of digestion. An acid becomes formed within
it, and the acid thus produced has none of the solvent power of gastric
juice, but by its presence impedes rather than favours digestion. Every
nurse is aware that a very slight acidity of the milk will suffice to
give an infant vomiting, stomach ache, and diarrh[oe]a, and the result
must be much the same whether fermentation had begun in the milk before
it was swallowed, or whether it commences afterwards, in consequence of
the disordered condition of the stomach, and the absence of a healthy
secretion of gastric juice.
The nature of the food is the first point that requires attention in the
management of these cases of infantile dyspepsia. If the child had been
fed on cow's milk the symptoms may be due to the gastric juice not
having been able to dissolve the curd, which you will remember is much
firmer than that of human milk as well as twice as abundant. In this
case the substitution of asses' milk, the employing whey either entirely
or in part instead of milk, and the adding white of egg in order to
present the elements of the curd in a more easily digestible form, may
all be tried with advantage. Sometimes children refuse whey; and then a
mixture of cream and veal broth, more or less diluted either with water
or with the white decoction, may be given instead. The addition of soda,
potash, chalk or lime water to milk before it is given is also of
service, since it not only prevents the occurrence of fermentation, but
also renders the curd of cow's milk more easily soluble.
The indiscriminate and over-free employment of these alkalies, however,
as nursery remedies is by all means to be avoided, for the symptoms of
indigestion for which a grown person if suffering would seek the advice
of a skilful doctor require his help no less when the patient is a
child. When acids will be of service in promoting the secretion of the
gastric juice, when pepsine will be likely to be of use, when stimulants
such as a little brandy, when aromatics to get rid of flatulence,
opiates to relieve pain or check diarrh[oe]a, or when an occasional
mercurial, or some other remedy may be of use by stimulating the liver
to increased action, are questions which I would not advise any mother
to try to answer for herself. Much care and pains and knowledge and
experience are often required by the doctor to enable him to answer them
correctly.
I must not leave the consideration of the ailments of the digestive
organs in early infancy without some notice of that affection of the
mouth popularly known as _thrush_ to which an exaggerated importance was
once attached as the supposed cause of those symptoms of disordered
health, of which it is in reality only the accompaniment. Still it is a
sign of such grave disorder that it needs a careful study.
THRUSH.--If you examine the mouth of a young infant, in whom the attempt
at hand-feeding is not turning out well, you will often observe its
lining to be beset with numerous small white spots, that look like
little bits of curd lying upon its surface, but which on a more
attentive examination are found to be so firmly adherent to it as not to
be removed without some difficulty, when they leave the surface beneath
it a deep red colour, and now and then bleeding slightly. These specks
appear upon the inner surface of the lips, especially near the angles of
the mouth, on the inside of the cheeks, and upon the tongue, where they
are more numerous at the tip and edges than towards the centre. They are
likewise seen upon the gums, though less frequently and in smaller
numbers. When they first appear they are usually of a circular form,
scarcely larger than a small pin's head; but after having existed for a
day or two, some of the spots become three or four times as large, while
at the same time they in general lose something of their circular form.
By degrees the small white crusts fall off of their own accord, leaving
the surface where they were seated redder than before; a colour which
gradually subsides, as with the infant's improved health the mouth
returns to its natural condition. If the improvement is tardy the white
specks may be reproduced and again detached several times before the
mouth resumes its healthy aspect. In the worst cases the specks
coalesce, and coat the mouth as though lined with a membrane which is
usually of a yellowish-white tint instead of having the dead white
colour of the separate spots. Even here, however, though the surface is
very red, it scarcely bleeds if the deposit is removed from it gently
and with care.
The popular notion that when the deposit of thrush appears not only in
the mouth, but also at the edge of the bowel, it has passed through the
child is altogether erroneous. The lining membrane of the bowel indeed
is red, inflamed, and presents those conditions to which I have already
referred when speaking of the atrophy of hand-fed children, but the
actual deposit of thrush can take place only where there exists an
appropriate structure for its formation, and that is to be found, not in
the bowels, but only at the inlets and outlets of the digestive canal.
The actual deposit at the outlet of the bowel is indeed exceptional,
though the edges are often red and sore from the irritation produced by
the acrid motions, and this irritation sometimes extends to the skin
over the lower part of the baby's person, which becomes rough, and
covered with a blush of redness.
Thrush in the child is of far less serious import than in the grown
person. In the latter it indicates the existence of some very serious,
almost hopeless disease, and hence it is that we meet with it in the
last stages of dysentery, cancer, and consumption. In the child a slight
attack of thrush may occur from causes which are by no means serious,
and may disappear under the use of simple means, such as I have already
described when speaking of the troubles of digestion in early infancy.
While in any case it must rest with the doctor to regulate as he best
knows how the constitutional treatment of the condition on which the
thrush depends, it must be for the mother to see that appropriate local
measures are adopted. One point of considerable moment, and to which
less care than it deserves is usually paid, is the removing from the
mouth, each time after the infant has been fed, of all remains of the
milk or other food. For this purpose whenever the least sign of thrush
appears, the mouth should be carefully wiped out with a piece of soft
rag dipped in a little warm water every time after food has been given.
Supposing the attack to be but slight this precaution will of itself
suffice in many instances to remove all traces of the affection in two
or three days. If, however, there is much redness of the mouth, or if
the specks of thrush are numerous, some medicated application is
desirable.
The once popular honey and borax is not the best application, and this
for a reason which I will at once explain. The secretion of the mouth in
infants is acid, disease increases this acidity; and it has been found
that this acid state is not merely favourable to the increase of thrush,
but also to the development between the specks of thrush of a sort of
membrane formed by a peculiar microscopic growth, of whose existence,
just as of that of the phylloxera which destroys the vine, or the
muscardine which kills the silkworm, we were ignorant till brought to
light by recent scientific research.
You will therefore at once see why saccharine substances, apt as they
are to pass into a state of fermentation, are not suitable, and why it
is better to employ a solution of--
Borax, twenty grains
Glycerine, one teaspoonful
Water, an ounce.
Now and then the use once or twice a day in addition of a very weak
solution of caustic, as two grains of lunar caustic to an ounce of
water, in bad cases is necessary; but of this it must be left to the
doctor to decide.
TEETHING.--The transition is a very natural one by which we pass from
the study of the dangers and difficulties which attend the feeding and
rearing of young infants, to those which accompany _teething_.
The time of teething is looked forward to by most mothers with
undisguised apprehension, nurses attribute to it the most varied forms
of constitutional disturbance, and doctors constantly hold forth to
anxious parents the expectation that their child will have better health
when it has cut all its teeth. The time of teething, too, is in reality
one of more than ordinary peril,[9] though why it should be so is not
always rightly understood. It is a time of most active development, a
time of transition from one mode of being to another, in respect of all
those important functions by whose due performance the body is nourished
and built up.
The error which has been committed with reference to this matter,
consists not in overrating the hazard of the time, when changes so
important are being accomplished, but in regarding only one of the
manifestations--though that indeed is the most striking one of the many
important ends which nature is then labouring to bring about. A child in
perfect health usually cuts its teeth at a certain time and in a certain
order, just as a girl at a certain age begins to show signs of
approaching womanhood; and at length attains it with but slight
inconvenience or discomfort. The two processes, however, have this in
common, that during both, constitutional disturbance is more common, and
serious diseases are more frequent than at other times, and the cause in
both lies far deeper than the outward manifestation.
The great changes which nature is constantly bringing about around us
and within us are the result of laws operating silently but unceasingly;
and hence it is that in her works we see little of the failure which
often disappoints human endeavours, or of the dangers which often attend
on their accomplishment. Thus when her object is to render the child no
longer dependent on the mother for its food, she begins to prepare for
this long beforehand. The first indication of it is furnished by the
greatly increased activity of the salivary glands, which during the
first few months of existence have scarcely begun to perform their
function, a fact which accounts for the tendency to dryness of the
tongue of the young infant under the influence of very trivial ailments.
About the fourth or fifth month, this condition undergoes a marked
alteration; the mouth is now found continually full of saliva, and the
child is constantly drivelling; but no other indication appears of the
approach of the teeth to the surface, except that the ridge of the gums
sometimes becomes broader than it was before. No further change may take
place for many weeks; and it is generally near the end of the seventh
month before the first teeth make their appearance. The middle cutting
teeth of the lower jaw are in most instances the first to pierce the
gum; next the middle cutting teeth of the upper jaw; then usually the
side cutting teeth of the lower jaw, and lastly, the corresponding ones
of the upper. This, however, is not quite invariable, for sometimes all
the cutting teeth in one jaw precede in their appearance any of those in
the other. The first four grinding teeth next succeed, and often without
any very definite order as to whether those of the upper or of the lower
jaw are first visible, though in the majority of instances the lower are
the first to appear. The four eye teeth follow, and lastly, the
remaining four grinding teeth, which complete the set of first, or as
they are often called, milk teeth.
We must not, however, picture to ourselves this process as going on
uninterruptedly until completed--a mistake into which parents often
fall, whose anxiety respecting their children is excited by observing
that after several teeth have appeared in rapid succession, the process
appears to come to a standstill. Nature has so ordered it that teething
which begins at the seventh or eighth month, shall not be completed
until the twenty-fourth or thirtieth; and has doubtless done so in some
measure with the view of diminishing the risk of constitutional
disturbance that might be incurred if the evolution of the teeth went on
without a pause. As a rule the two lower central incisors or cutting
teeth make their appearance in the course of a week; six weeks or two
months often intervene before the central upper incisors pierce the gum,
but they are in general quickly followed by the lateral incisors. A
pause of three or four months most frequently occurs before we see the
first grinding teeth, another of equal length previous to the appearance
of the eye teeth, and then another still longer before the last grinding
teeth are cut.
Though a perfectly natural process, teething is almost always attended
with some degree of suffering. This, however, is not always the case,
for sometimes we discover that an infant has cut a tooth, who yet had
shown no signs of discomfort, nor any indication that teething was
commencing, with the exception of an increased flow of saliva. More
frequently indeed, the mouth becomes hot, and the gums look tumid,
tense, and shining, while the exact position of each tooth is marked,
for some time before its appearance, by the prominence of the gum; or
the eruption of the teeth is preceded by much redness, and great heat of
the mouth with profuse flow of saliva, and even with little painful
ulcers of the edge of the tongue, or of the inner surface of either lip.
With either of these conditions the child is feverish, fretful, and
cries from time to time with pain, while at the same time the bowels
often are relaxed, or the child coughs and wheezes as if it had caught
cold.
Symptoms such as these make up what nurses mean when they say that the
child is suffering from its teeth, and this opinion is constantly
followed by a request to the doctor to lance the baby's gums. Now this
little operation when really called for often gives great relief, both
to the local discomfort, and also to the general ailment from which the
infant suffers, but it is often done when there is no occasion for it,
and when consequently it causes needless pain, and does no good.
There are four different conditions in which it may be right to have the
child's gums lanced:
First. When a tooth is very near the surface, and by cutting through the
thin gum the child may be spared some needless suffering.
Second. When the gums are very red and hot and swollen; only in this
case the gum is scratched or cut, to bleed it, not with the idea of
letting out the imprisoned tooth.
Third. When the child has for some week or two been feverish and
suffering; while, though the gum is tense and swollen, the tooth does
not seem to advance.
Fourth. As an experiment, when during the progress of teething a child
is suddenly seized with convulsions for which there is no obvious cause.
The irritation of the teeth may have to do with their occurrence; and
the chance of relieving it by so simple a means is not to be thrown
away.
If the process of teething is going on quite naturally, no
interference, medical or other, is either necessary or proper. The
special liability of children to illness at this time must indeed be
borne in mind, and care must be taken not to make any alteration in the
infant's food while it is actually cutting its teeth, but rather to
choose the opportunity of some one of those pauses to which reference
has been made, as occurring between the dates of appearance of the
successive teeth, for making any such change. If the child is feverish,
a little soda or seltzer water sweetened and given after the
effervescence has subsided will be taken eagerly, and avoid the risk of
putting the child too often to the breast, or giving it food too
frequently. It seeks the one or the other because it is thirsty, and
craves for moisture to relieve its hot mouth; not because it is hungry
and needs nourishment. If the child has been weaned, still greater care
will be required, for it will often be found that it is no longer able
to digest its ordinary food, which either is at once rejected by the
stomach, or else passes through the intestines undigested. Very thin
arrowroot made with water, with the addition of one third of milk, will
suit in many cases, or equal parts of milk and water with isinglass, or
equal parts of milk and the white decoction. The bowels of course must
be kept open with very simple and mild aperients, but the bowels are in
general more inclined to diarrh[oe]a than to constipation, and the
diarrh[oe]a of teething children is often troublesome and requires good
medical advice.
The ulcerated state of the mouth is usually connected with special
disorder of the digestive organs, and that condition of acidity for
which I have already recommended soda, magnesia, and similar remedies,
while locally the mouth needs just that local care which is applicable
in cases of thrush. Now and then, severe inflammation of the gums
occurs, in which they become extremely swollen; and ulceration takes
place of the gum just above where the tooth should come through, and
even around some of those which have already appeared. These are cases
in which lancing the gums would do nothing but mischief. They require
the local care already insisted on, a mild plan of diet, and treatment
to reduce any feverishness; and above all one medicine, the chlorate of
potass, which in doses of four grains every four hours for a child a
year old, is almost a specific.
AFFECTIONS OF THE SKIN.--There are a few affections of the skin to which
children in early infancy are especially liable, concerning which a few
words must be said.
The Latin word _intertrigo_ is used for that _chafing_ of the skin of
the lower part of the body of an infant which is by no means unusual,
and is often very distressing. It is almost invariably due to want of
care. Either wetted napkins are dried, and put on again without previous
rinsing in water, or they have been washed in water containing soda, and
not passed through pure water afterwards, or attention is not paid to
change the infant's napkin immediately that it requires; or a fresh
napkin is put on without previous careful ablution of the child; or
lastly it occurs almost unavoidably in cases of diarrh[oe]a from the
extension of irritation beginning at the edge of the bowel.
Care is usually all that is needed to remove, as it is to prevent this
condition. The precautions which I have referred to with regard to
cleanliness must be carefully observed, and moreover, each time even
after passing water, the child should be carefully washed with thin
gruel, or barley water, then dusted abundantly with starch powder, while
the napkin must be thickly greased with zinc ointment. After the first
six or seven months of life the napkin can be almost always dispensed
with, if the child has been brought up in good habits, and in all cases
of chafing, it is much the better way to put no napkin on the child when
in bed, but to lay under it a folded towel, which can be removed, and a
clean one substituted for it as soon as it becomes soiled.
There is a very obstinate form of chafing, with great redness of the
skin, and disposition to crack about the edge of the bowel which depends
on constitutional causes, and calls at once for the interference of the
doctor.
Besides this purely local ailment, there is another skin affection
which is seen over the body generally, and is known popularly by the
name of _red gum_, or in Latin _strophulus_. I mention the Latin name
because I have known persons sometimes, misled by the similarity of
sound, fancy that it had some connection with scrofula. It is met with
less commonly now than formerly, when people were accustomed to keep
infants unduly wrapped up, and to be less careful than most are
now-a-days about washing and bathing. It depends on over-irritation of
the sweat glands of the delicate skin of the infant, the result of which
shows itself in the eruption on the body and face of a number of small
dry pimples sometimes surrounded by a little redness, itching
considerably, and when their top has been rubbed off by scratching
having a little speck of dried blood at their summit.
A rash like this, a sort of _nettle rash_, more blotchy and causing
little lumps on the skin, which in a day or two come and go, sometimes
appears in the intervals between the pimples, sometimes takes their
place, and causes, as they do, much irritation. This nettle rash is
usually dependent on some error of diet, on some acidity of the stomach,
and, on their being corrected soon passes away, leaving the pimples as
they were before, but sometimes being reproduced if the pimples cause
excessive irritation of the tender skin.
The matter of chief importance for a mother to know, is that these
rashes have no serious signification. Their treatment is very simple. It
consists in dressing the child very lightly, in bathing it very
frequently with tepid water, avoiding as far as may be the use of soap,
and in sponging it often to relieve the irritation with some simple
alkaline lotion; such for instance as one recommended by the late Dr.
Tilbury Fox, and which is composed of twenty grains of carbonate of
soda, two teaspoonfuls of glycerine, and six ounces of rose water. Of
course if the stomach is out of order that must be attended to, but a
little fluid magnesia, once or twice a day, is all that is usually
needed in the way of medicine.
One other affection of the skin, very common, very distressing, very
tedious, of which there are many varieties, generally known by the
technical name of _eczema_, from a compound Greek word which signifies
to flow, needs that I should say something about it. It is not limited
in its occurrence to infancy, nor does it of necessity cease when
childhood is over, but continues to recur even in grown persons, and
shows itself still from time to time even in the aged.
For the most part, however, it makes its appearance between the fifth
and twelfth month; sometimes seeming to be induced by the change of food
when the child is weaned, and that even though the weaning may have been
wisely managed; at other times showing itself when the irritation of
teething begins, and in every instance being aggravated by the approach
of each tooth to the surface, and abating in the intervals.
It does not occur in all children with equal frequency or severity, and
though there is no doubt but that it is often hereditary, and this
especially in families some members of which have suffered from gout,
yet it is by no means unusual for two or three of the children of the
same parents to be affected by it severely, while no trace of it appears
in the others.
It shows itself in general first on the cheeks and sides of the face,
where the skin becomes red and rough, and slightly puffy. On looking
very closely--more closely indeed than most persons are wont to do--this
appearance will be seen to be produced by innumerable small pimples,
smaller than pins' heads, and which itch violently. Now and then, even
in the course of a few hours, these pimples disappear, leaving the skin
rough, and peeling off in branny scales, while the surface beneath is
red and irritable, a condition which also in a few days may subside.
This, however, is less frequent than the opposite course of the
affection, in which a drop of fluid forms at the top of each tiny
pimple, and escaping forms a yellowish, thin, transparent, watery,
irritating discharge, which reddens still more the raw and weeping
surface of the skin. The fluid when abundant dries at length into
yellowish flakes or crusts, which sometimes assume a brownish colour if
the surface is made to bleed by irritating or scratching. If the crusts
are not removed, the fluid which still continues to be poured out
beneath them soon changes into matter or _pus_ as it is called, and
this, shut up beneath the hard crust above, increases the irritation,
and thickens the deposit. After a time the inflammation lessens of its
own accord, the secretion diminishes, the crusts dry up, and at length
fall off, leaving the skin red, slightly swollen, and its surface
scaling off in flakes, which gradually cease to form, and the skin by
degrees becomes quite sound again, and so remains, until perhaps the
irritation caused by the approach of a new tooth to the surface,
rekindles the old trouble, to go once again through the same stages as
before.
It is on the cheeks, the sides of the face, and the top of the head that
these changes may be best studied, but there are other situations in
which the same kind of process often goes on. It may be seen in the
creases of the neck, or the folds of the thigh in fat children, only as
two surfaces of skin are there in contact the fluid never dries to a
crust, but the skin, red and sore and swollen, pours out an abundant
secretion which, just as when it occurs behind the ears, gives out a
strong and offensive smell. It occurs, too, at the bends of the joints,
as under the knee, and at the inside of the elbow joint, as well as on
the front of the chest, the back, and sometimes even over the whole
body, and especially at any part where the pressure of the dress
irritates the skin. When thus general, it seldom fails to pass into a
chronic state such as to call for constant, skilled medical treatment.
The attack often comes on with general feverishness, a hot skin,
fretfulness, and restlessness, which subside when the skin begins to
discharge, though the discomfort produced by the local irritation still
continues. At other times, and this perhaps more often when the eruption
first appears on the head, its onset is more gradual, and slight
scurfiness and redness at the top of the head are first noticed, and
then a little crust forms there which is firmly adherent, and is,
therefore, often not entirely removed as it should be, and thus bit by
bit the mischief extends until its cure becomes tedious and troublesome.
When either from neglect, or from the ailment having set in acutely, the
affection of the scalp is severe, the child's state is one of much
suffering. The whole of the scalp becomes hot and swollen, and covered
over a large surface by a thick dirty crust, through cracks in which a
thick ill-smelling greenish-yellow matter exudes on pressure. At
different points around, pimples form with mattery heads,--pustules they
are called--while the glands on each side of the neck become swollen and
tender. When thus severe on the head it will be found also not merely on
the face, but also on the body, and the poor suffering child is not only
a miserable object to look upon, but, worn by constant restlessness, it
loses flesh, and seems almost as though it could not long survive.
Happily, however, the condition scarcely ever terminates fatally, though
feeble health and stunted growth are not seldom the results of the early
suffering. But besides, severe eczema in infancy always returns again
and again in childhood and in after-life, and there is also a distinct
connection between liability to eczema and to asthma; and this not
simply nor mainly that the disappearance of an attack of eczema may be
succeeded by an attack of asthma, but that the child who in infancy has
had severe general eczema is more prone than another to develop a
disposition to asthma as he attains the age of five or six, and this
even though he should not have had any return of the skin affection in a
severe form.
It is evident then, that one cannot take too much pains to guard
against the occurrence of eczema if possible, and at any rate to prevent
its becoming severe. The disposition to it is often controlled by very
simple precautions, such as bathing the face, the moment the skin shows
any redness or roughness, with thin gruel or barley water, then
powdering it with starch powder, and when the infant goes out, smearing
the spot very lightly with benzoated zinc ointment, and making the child
wear a veil. It will be observed that the exclusion of the air is in all
these cases the object of the application far more than any specific
virtue which it is supposed to possess, and many of the worst cases of
eczema in grown persons are treated, in the great hospital for skin
diseases in Paris, by an india-rubber mask, or by india-rubber covering
of the affected part, and benefit thereby without any medicated
application whatever. The thin layer of scurf which often forms on an
infant's head should not be allowed to remain there, since its presence
is a source of irritation. If it is very adherent, the surface may be
well greased overnight with a little clarified lard which will soften
it, so that it can be readily washed off with weak soap and water in the
morning. If, however, the skin is very irritable soap must not be used,
but the head must be washed with yelk of egg and warm water, and instead
of a sponge, which would be too harsh, it is better to employ a very
large camel's hair brush or a soft shaving brush, which is more handy,
and the surface after careful drying may be lightly smeared with zinc
ointment. All ointments used must be washed off most scrupulously every
day, otherwise they become rancid, irritate, and make matters worse.
When eczema sets in acutely, with general feverish disturbance, cooling
medicines are required, and the help of the doctor becomes necessary.
These are the cases in which the eruption is not confined to the head or
the face, but extends over the body generally. The child must be dressed
as loosely as possible; and when in its cot, should lie there with no
other covering than its little shirt; and nothing gives so much relief
to the irritation as the abundant use of powder, either simple starch
powder, or ten parts of starch powder to one of oxide of zinc, or
carbonate of bismuth. All powders must be absolutely free from grit, or,
in other words, quite impalpable; otherwise they irritate the surface.
On the face and other parts where it can be employed, the puff may be
used to apply the powder; but between the creases of the skin--which it
is important to keep apart--fine linen, lint, or charpie must be
employed, covered freely with powder, so as to prevent the surfaces from
coming into contact. If the irritation is very distressing, a weak
spirit lotion with a little carbolic acid may sometimes be sponged over
the surface, and the powder renewed immediately; or other forms of
soothing lotions may be used to abate the irritation.
When the scalp is affected in the acute form of eczema crusts form very
quickly; or in other cases they collect because people fear to disturb
them when they see the raw surface beneath. It is, however, a grievous
mistake to allow them to collect; they are in themselves a source of
irritation, and they entirely prevent any application reaching the skin
beneath. They must always be removed, and never be allowed to form
again. They can be removed either by the employment of a poultice, half
of bread, half of linseed meal, or by the application over-night of a
handkerchief soaked in sweet oil, and covered over with a piece of oiled
silk, which softens the crusts effectually, and allows of their easy
removal by abundant washing with weak soap and water.
The best applications afterwards vary so much that it is impossible to
lay down any positive rule. Sometimes the Carron oil, as it is termed: a
liniment compound of equal parts of linseed oil and lime-water--a
popular and most useful application in burns--gives most ease to the
irritated skin; sometimes the mere exclusion of the air by means of the
india-rubber cap; sometimes the abundant use of powder. In every case,
at least once in every twenty-four hours the whole surface must be
washed quite clean with barley water or thin gruel; and when the
discharge lessens or ceases, as it will do in the course of time, then,
but not till then, various ointments may be of service.
When the chronic stage arrives, in which the skin becomes dry and scaly,
then is the time for tonics, for iron, sometimes for cod-liver oil, and
for arsenic; of which latter remedy, however, the results are uncertain;
while in the acute stage, its influence is simply mischievous. Nothing
is more difficult, nor calls for more skill, or larger medical
experience, than the proper management of the various forms of chronic
eczema.
The question is sometimes asked whether it is safe to cure, or, as
people call it, to dry up these eruptions in teething children. There
can be no doubt but that it is very desirable to prevent their
occurrence as far as may be by the use of the precautionary measures
which I have explained. But when they have existed for some time, either
attended with profuse discharge, or causing great irritation by their
extent, there is no doubt but that care must be exercised in attempts at
their cure, that soothing measures such as I have advocated should be
chiefly employed, and that the sudden drying up of the discharge by a
too abundant use of dusting powders must be avoided. If, too, the
diminution of the rash were followed by a worsening of the child's
condition, by feverishness, by heaviness of the head, or any sign of
disturbance of the brain, the attempt to cure the rash must at once be
abandoned. At the same time I must add that such occurrences are very
rare, and that for one case where I have had to regret my success in
curing the rash, I have seen fifty in which I have been mortified by the
failure of my endeavour.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] The directions given by the distinguished chemist, Dr. Frankland, to
whom I am indebted for the suggestion, are as follows: 'One-third of a
pint of new milk is allowed to stand until the cream has settled; the
latter is removed, and to the blue milk thus obtained about a square
inch of rennet is to be added, and the milk vessel placed in warm
water.' (I may add that the artificial rennet sold by most chemists may
be substituted for the other.) 'In about five minutes the rennet, which
may again be repeatedly used, being removed, the whey is carefully
poured off, and immediately heated to boiling to prevent its becoming
sour. A further quantity of curd separates, and must be removed by
straining through calico. In one quarter of a pint of this hot whey is
to be dissolved three-eighths of an ounce of milk sugar, and this
solution, along with the cream removed from the one-third of a pint of
milk, must be added to half a pint of new milk. This will constitute the
food for an infant of from five to eight months old for twelve hours;
or, more correctly speaking, it will be one-half of the quantity
required for twenty-four hours. It is absolutely necessary that a fresh
quantity should be prepared every twelve hours; and it is scarcely
necessary to add that the strictest cleanliness in all the vessels used
is indispensable.'
[9] In our tables of mortality we find teething registered as having
occasioned the death of nearly 5 (4.8) per cent. of all children who
died in London under one year old; and of 7.3 per cent. of those who
died between the age of twelve months and three years.
PART III.
_ON THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES INCIDENT TO ALL PERIODS OF CHILDHOOD._
The ailments hitherto noticed are by no means all that may occur during
infancy and early childhood, but those only which either happen then
exclusively, or at least with far greater frequency than at other times.
It will be most convenient to consider the others under the different
systems to which they belong, as diseases of the head, of the chest, and
of the bowels.
Before entering on these new subjects, however, a few words may not be
out of place with reference to what may be termed the second period of
childhood. It is above all a time of wonderfully lessened sickness and
mortality. We have not the means of stating exactly the rate at which
mortality is lessened between the cessation of the first and the
commencement of the second dentition; but we do know that it is ten
times less between the age of one and five, and nearly twenty times less
between five and ten than it was in the first year of existence.[10] A
mother's anxiety then may safely be quieted after the first year of her
infant's life, and still more after the first set of teeth have been
cut, for if her child is strong and healthy then, there will be
comparatively little to fear for its future.
Four years or thereabouts now follow, before any important change takes
place in the child's condition, for it is not until between six and
seven years old that the first set of teeth begin to be shed, and the
second to take their place. This change of teeth too is of far less
moment as far as the health is concerned, than was the cutting of the
first set. The first dentition was the preparation for an entirely new
mode of life for the child, and was intended to fit it for a life
independent of its mother. The second has no such signification; it is a
mere local alteration rendered necessary by the growth of the jaws, and
takes place quietly, by the gradual absorption of the roots of the first
set of teeth, brought about by the pressure of the others as they
approach the surface. Four teeth in each jaw are new, and replace no
others, but usually they are cut without much discomfort, and the wisdom
teeth do not concern us here, for they do not appear until childhood has
long passed.
But, though between the age of two years and of ten there is no
important change, nor even preparation for a change in the constitution,
the time is yet one of most active growth of the body, and consolidation
of the skeleton. The stature increases from 2 ft. 6 in. to 4 ft. 6 in.,
and the weight nearly doubles, while at the same time the ends of the
long bones previously connected with the shafts by means of cartilage or
gristle, become firmly united by the conversion of that cartilage into
bone, and a similar process goes on, though not completed till later, in
the ribs and the breast bone.
Rapid increase of height and weight; conversion of the elements of bone
into bone itself, formation of muscle out of the fat, which in the young
child was stored up as so much building material for an edifice in
course of construction, require for their accomplishment perfect health,
and the power of converting to its highest purposes all the nourishment
received. What wonder then, if from time to time, the machinery thus
hardly taxed, fails to be quite equal to the demands upon it, if pains
in the limbs--growing pains, as they are commonly called, or head-ache,
tell of the inadequate nerve supply. Or if from the same cause, a vague
feverish condition comes on, in which the temperature is slightly
raised, and the child listless, and yet fretful, loses its cheerfulness,
is dull at its easy tasks, and yet indifferent to play. This too is the
time when any unsuspected defects, physical, or mental, or moral, begin
to show themselves distinctly; when short sight becomes apparent so soon
as the child has to learn its letters, when the dull hearing is
perceived which makes it seem inattentive, and gives to its manner an
unchildlike nervousness; and the weak intellect is displayed in
causeless laughter, causeless mischief, causeless passion, imperfect
power of articulation, or want of words, and by a restless busyness in
doing nothing.
Of all these things I shall have to speak later on more fully. They are
the things however, which only those mothers notice who live much with
their children, who do not banish them all day long to the nursery or
the school-room, and learn from another whether they fare well or ill.
They and only they will notice these things in whom there dwells that
which the poet tells us of:
The mother's love that grows
From the soft child, to the strong man; now soft,
Now strong as either, and still one sole same love.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] The exact numbers as given at p. xiv of the forty-fifth Report of
the Registrar-General for all England in 1881 are to 1,000 living under
one year 58 deaths; from one to five 6.1; from five to ten 3.3.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM.
It is stated on good authority[11] that more than half of the deaths at
all ages from these causes take place in children under five years, a
fact which at first sight seems as inexplicable as it is startling.
There is, however, a twofold explanation of it: the circulation through
the much softer tissue of the brain, unenclosed within a _firm bony
case_ as in after-life, varies with far greater rapidity in the infant
than in the grown person, and hence the organ is far more easily
overfilled with or emptied of its blood. Besides, any organ in which
growth is going on with great rapidity is proportionately liable to
become disordered or diseased. Now the brain doubles its weight in the
first two years of life, and attains nearly its full size by the end of
the seventh year.
These two facts suggest a bright as well as a dark view of disorders of
the brain and nervous system in early life. If disorder is more
frequent, it is excited by slighter causes, is more likely to be
temporary, and even its gravest symptoms, such as convulsions and
paralysis, have a less serious import in the one case than in the
others. If the grown man has a fit, and still more, if that fit is
followed by paralysis, we fear and with reason that some vessel in the
brain-substance has given way, or that some grave, probably irreparable
damage has been inflicted on it. In the child, and especially in the
young infant, these accidents may mean nothing more than that the brain
has suddenly become over-filled with blood, or that it has been
disturbed by irritation--I know of no better term--in some distant
organ.
CONVULSIONS.--There are in the body two great nerve masses, the brain
and the spinal cord, through which all parts are brought into relation
with each other. The spinal cord or spinal marrow receives impressions
from all parts, imparts movement to the limbs, as well as gives activity
to the functions of the various internal organs. The brain is the
controlling power, and governs more or less consciously the movements
which the spinal cord originates, and hence in proportion as the
development of the brain advances, and its controlling power increases,
those involuntary movements, fits or convulsions, which originate in
irritation of the spinal cord, become rarer. The brain, at the age of
three years, is more than twice as large as in the first year of life,
and deaths from convulsions have then sunk to a third of their former
frequency; while from the age of ten to fifteen years, when the brain
may be said to be perfected, only four per cent., instead of nearly
eighty per cent. as in the first years of life, of all deaths from
disorders of the nervous system are due to convulsions.[12]
I dwell on this subject the more because there is in a fit of
_convulsions_ something so intensely painful to behold that it is easy
to exaggerate its danger, and to lose all presence of mind in panic.
First, then, it is well to bear in mind that real disease of the brain
rarely, very rarely, I do not say never, begins with convulsions; and
next, that their real danger is in general in exactly opposite relation
to the frequency of their occurrence. Convulsions now and then return
thirty, forty, or more times in twenty-four hours, and continue to do so
sometimes for three or four days together. They are, indeed, not without
peril, for the perpetually returning disturbance of the circulation may
give rise to an overfilling of the vessels of the brain, or to a
stagnation of the blood within them, or the spasm may affect the muscles
which open and close the entrance to the windpipe, and the child may die
choked as in a paroxysm of whooping cough, or in a fit of spasmodic
croup, or lastly the violent and frequently repeated muscular movements
may at length exhaust its feeble frame. But still, such frequently
recurring convulsions are in themselves no evidence that the brain is
diseased; they do but show that the irritability of the spinal cord is
increased to a degree which the brain is no longer able to control, and
which therefore manifests itself in violent convulsive movements.
It is thus that the poison of scarlet fever or of small-pox sometimes
displays its influence over the whole system by producing violent
convulsions at the outset of those diseases; thus that they follow on
some indigestible article of food, or that the mother, over-heated by
violent exertion, or overwhelmed by the news of some unexpected
calamity, sees her babe, to whom she is in the act of giving the breast,
suddenly seized by a violent convulsion.
In every instance, therefore, the first business is to ascertain the
cause of the convulsion, to determine the seat of the irritation which
has excited the nervous system to such tumultuous reaction. The
convulsion which ushers in any one of the eruptive fevers in the infant
or in the child, is only an exaggeration of the shivering which precedes
the onset of fever in the adult. Has the child been exposed to the
contagion of measles, small-pox, or scarlatina? is it teething, and if
so, when did its last tooth appear? of what did its last meal consist?
when were its bowels last open? has it been exposed to the sun with its
head uncovered? or has it, though in the shade, been sitting or playing
out of doors in the intense heat of a summer's day? has it had a fall,
or been frightened? or is it suffering from whooping-cough which has of
late been very severe? or has its breathing been accompanied with a
peculiar catch or crow, the sign of spasmodic croup, and have at the
same time its hands been usually half clenched, and the thumb shut into
the palm, the sign of that disturbance which at length has culminated in
an attack of convulsions? Such are the questions, which in less time
than it takes me to write, or others to read, the intelligent mother
will put to herself, and will answer, instead of, in unreasoning alarm,
giving all up as lost, or hastening without reflection to do something
or other that were better left undone.
The first thing to do in every case of convulsions, be their cause what
it may, is to loosen the dress, so that no string nor band may interfere
with respiration, and for this purpose strings must be cut and dresses
torn. The next thing is to dash cold water on the face to induce a deep
inspiration, for sudden death in a fit almost always takes place from
interruption to breathing. With the same purpose the forefinger should
be put into the mouth, and run rapidly to the root of the tongue, which
should be drawn forward. The object of doing this is twofold; first, to
prevent the tongue falling back, as in these circumstances it is apt to
do, over the entrance of the windpipe and so producing suffocation, and
in the next place the act very frequently puts an end to the spasmodic
closure of the windpipe, and is followed by a deep-drawn breath which
announces the infant's safety. If the child has cut any teeth, the
handle of a spoon, round which a bit of rag has been wrapped, or a bit
of wood, or a thin strip of india-rubber, should be put between the
teeth as far back as possible to prevent the tongue being bitten; and
often this is all that can be done.
There are two circumstances, and two only, in which the warm bath is
likely to be of use. At the onset of one of the eruptive fevers, a hot
bath is sometimes of great service by stimulating the skin and thus
bringing out the rash. In these cases the fit scarcely ever comes on in
a child previously in perfect health, but for some hours at least it has
appeared very ill, tossing about with great restlessness, with a dry,
hot skin, and twitching of the tendons of the wrists; or, perhaps, with
a pale face and cold hands and feet, but with the temperature of the
body as high as 103° or 105°. Here the hot bath at 96° to 98°, even
rendered more stimulating by the addition of mustard, and continued for
not more than five minutes, is sometimes of great service, and is
speedily followed by the cessation of the convulsions and the outbreak
of the eruption.
These, too, are the cases in which the use of the wet sheet, as
practised in hydropathic institutions, is sometimes of great benefit,
but I do not advise its employment except under medical advice.
The second condition in which the bath, and here it is the tepid and not
the hot bath--that is to say, the bath at from 87° to 90°--is of
service, is where the child is feverish and restless from over-fatigue
or over-excitement, or from exposure to the sun or to an excessively hot
atmosphere, and convulsions have come on in the course of this ailing.
Here the tepid bath for ten or fifteen minutes, coupled with the
application of cold to the head, will soothe the excitement and prevent
the return of the convulsions.
In neither this case, nor in that in which the hot bath is employed, is
the result of the agent as magical as people sometimes seem to expect.
It is rarely that convulsions cease while a child is actually in the
bath. For the most part the influence of the bath is limited to abating
their severity, shortening their duration, and indisposing to their
return.
The bath, then, is to be used when either a stimulating or a soothing
influence on the surface is likely to be of service, and only then. In
cases where the fits are produced by constipation, by improper food, or
by the irritation of a tooth pressing against the gum, it is idle to use
it, and equally so in instances where many fits have been recurring in
the course of the same day. Where that is the case it must be
self-evident that, be the cause what it may, it must be one over which
either a hot or a tepid bath can have no influence, and that, painful as
it must be to wait a passive spectator, that position is far wiser than
that of a mischievous meddler. It is some consolation, also, to know
that unconsciousness to suffering attends convulsions.
There is one agent, chloroform, which often has a very remarkable
influence in controlling frequently repeated convulsions. It is an
agent, however, too hazardous to be trusted out of medical hands, and
even when the doctor administers it himself, the parents must fully
recognise the fact that, inasmuch as the child may die during a fit
quite independently of breathing chloroform, so the occurrence of that
catastrophe during its employment is not to be made a subject of
self-reproach to them, or of blame to the doctor.
But you may ask whether there are no _signs_ of that disturbance of the
nervous system, by which you can judge beforehand that the occurrence of
convulsions is probable. In proportion to the tender age of a babe, the
greater is the probability, as I have already stated, that convulsions
will be induced by slight causes, especially by such as digestive
troubles. Unless you are aware of the phraseology that used at any rate
to be common among nurses, you may be much alarmed at being told that
the child who had seemed scarcely unwell has been very much convulsed,
when all that is meant is that the child has shown some of the signs
that threaten convulsions--has had, in short, what in the time of our
grandmothers used to be called _inward fits_. A child thus affected lies
as though it were asleep, winks its imperfectly closed eyes, and gently
twitches the muscles of its face--a movement especially observable about
the lips, which are drawn as though into a smile. Sometimes, too, this
movement of the mouth is seen during sleep, and poets have told us that
it is the angels' whisper which makes the babe to smile--I am sorry that
its meaning in plain prose should be so different. If this condition
increases, the child breathes with difficulty, its respiration sometimes
seems for a moment almost stopped, and a livid ring surrounds the mouth.
At every little noise the child wakes up; it makes a gentle moaning,
brings up the milk while sleeping, or often passes a great quantity of
wind, especially if the stomach is gently rubbed. When the disorder of
the digestion, on whatever cause it depended, is removed, these symptoms
speedily subside, nor is there much reason to fear general convulsions
so long as no more serious symptoms show themselves. There is more cause
for apprehension, however, when the thumbs are drawn into the palm,
either habitually or during sleep; when the eyes are never more than
half-closed during sleep; when the twitching of the muscles is no longer
confined to the angles of the mouth, but affects the face and
extremities; when the child awakes with a sudden start, its face growing
flushed or livid, its eyes turning up under the upper eyelid, or the
pupils suddenly dilating, while the countenance wears an expression of
great anxiety or alarm, and the child either utters a shriek, or
sometimes begins to cry.
When a fit comes on, the muscles of the face twitch, the body is stiff,
immovable, and then in a short time, in a state of twitching motion, the
head and neck are drawn backwards and the limbs violently bent and
stretched. Sometimes these movements are confined to certain muscles or
are limited to one side, and I may add that such cases are of more
importance as far as the state of the brain is concerned than those in
which the convulsions are general. The eye is fixed and does not see;
the fingers may be passed over it without its winking, the pupil is
immovably contracted or dilated; the ear is insensible even to loud
sounds, the pulse is small, very frequent, often too small, and too
frequent even for the skilled doctor to count it; the breathing hurried,
laboured and irregular; the skin bathed in abundant perspiration.
After this condition has lasted for a minute, or ten minutes, or an hour
or more, the convulsions cease; and the child either falls asleep, or
lies for a short time as if it were bewildered, or bursts out crying,
and then returns to its senses, or sinks into a state of stupor, in
which it may either be perfectly motionless, or twitching of some
muscles may still continue; or, lastly, it may, though this seldom
happens, die in the fit.
It seems then, from all that has been said, that convulsions, though one
of the most striking, are by no means one of the most conclusive signs
of brain disease; that they are even more commonly the result of
disorders of the nervous system from causes seated elsewhere, than of
actual disease of what may be termed the great nervous centre.
We may now therefore pass to the examination of these diseases, which
for the purposes of this book may be considered under the two heads of
congestion and inflammation.
I am forced to use these terms in somewhat of a popular sense, for to
attempt in a little book like this to define everything with strict
scientific accuracy would simply confuse and mislead.
CONGESTION OF THE BRAIN.--By _congestion of the brain_ is meant a
condition in which its vessels are overcharged with blood; a condition
which if it exists in an aggravated degree, ends either in the pouring
out of blood on, or into the brain, on the one hand, or in inflammation
on the other. Either of these terminations, however, is so rare in the
previous healthy child, that I shall confine my remarks entirely to
congestion of the brain, an affection specially liable to occur in
children during teething. A certain degree of feverishness almost always
accompanies teething. It is, therefore, not difficult to understand how,
when the circulation is in a state of permanent excitement, a very
slight cause may suffice to overturn its equilibrium, and occasion a
greater flow of blood to the brain than the organ is able to bear.
Congestion of the brain, however, is not by any means limited to this
season, but may occur at other times without any obvious exciting cause,
and with no other explanation than is furnished by the well-known fact
that all periods of development such as childhood, are periods during
which the growing organs are most apt to become disordered.
In the great majority of cases the symptoms of congestion of the brain
come on slowly; and for the most part, general uneasiness, or disordered
state of the bowels, which are usually, though not invariably
constipated, and feverishness precede for a few days the more serious
attack. The head by degrees becomes hot, the child grows restless and
fretful, and seems distressed by light, or noise, or sudden motion, and
children who are old enough sometimes complain of their head. Usually
too, vomiting occurs repeatedly; a symptom of the greatest importance,
since it may exist before there is any well-marked sign of head
affection. Causeless frequently repeated vomiting in a child not ill but
ailing, is nine times out of ten a sign of mischief in the head. The
degree of fever which attends this condition varies much, and its
returns are irregular; but any one who knows how to feel the pulse will
find it permanently quickened, and if the head is unclosed the
pulsations of the brain may be seen and felt distinctly. The sleep is
disturbed, the child often waking with a start, while there is
occasional twitching of the muscles of its face, or of the tendons of
its wrist.
The child may continue in this condition for many days and then recover
its health without any medical interference. This is especially likely
to be the case with children while teething, the fever subsiding, the
head growing cool, and the little one appearing quite well so soon as
the tooth has cut through the gum, but the approach of each tooth to the
surface being attended by the recurrence of the same symptoms.
The fortunate issue of these cases though frequent, is by no means
invariable, for sometimes they are but the precursors of that
formidable, I might indeed say, all but hopeless disease, water on the
brain. But even of itself congestion of the brain is by no means a
trivial ailment, for it may pass into a stage in which the smaller
discomforts of the child lead to the sad mistake that the condition of
the child is improving, instead of which it is really the dulling of
sensibility from approaching death. The head, indeed, becomes less hot,
the flush of the face grows slighter and less constant; but the
countenance is heavy and anxious, the indifference to surrounding
objects increases, and the child lies in a state of torpor or
drowsiness, from which indeed it can at first be roused to complete
consciousness The manner on being roused is always fretful, but, if old
enough to talk, the child's answers are natural, though generally very
short; and murmuring, 'I am so sleepy, so sleepy,' it subsides into its
former drowsiness. The bowels generally continue constipated, and the
vomiting seldom ceases, though it is sometimes less frequent than
before. In this state, without any apparent cause, the child sometimes
has an attack of convulsions, which subsiding, leaves the torpor deeper
than before. The fits return, and death may take place in one of them,
or the torpor growing more profound after each convulsive seizure, the
child at length dies insensible.
Now and then, especially in infants of only five or six months old,
recovery takes place even where there seemed almost no ground for hope.
The overfull vessels have at length relieved themselves, fluid has been
poured out into the cavities of the brain, the yielding skull has given
way under the pressure from within, and should the child after all
survive, its large head, due to chronic water on the brain, tells to all
who know how to interpret the signs, the tale of its past illness, and
the manner of its imperfect recovery.
Cases such as these are obviously beyond the reach of domestic
management, and call for all the resources of medical skill. The mistake
commonly made is that of calling in the doctor too late, because it is
not realised how grave may be the import of symptoms which at first
appear so little alarming; and the so-called experienced nurse having
said, 'Oh! it's nothing but the baby's teeth,' time is lost and danger
not anticipated till too late for remedy.
The application of two, three, or four leeches at the very outset of
these cases is often of great service, and sometimes cuts short symptoms
which had seemed very threatening. The doctor, of course, must be the
judge of its expediency, but I refer to it because I have known parents
raise objections to it, and beg to have milder means tried first. It
must be borne in mind then, that whenever leeches are of use it is at
the beginning of an attack, and that the opportunity once let slip does
not return. Purgatives, cold to the head, saline medicines, and perhaps
some carefully selected sedative, are the measures which will probably
be employed in most cases, but success will in great measure depend on
the minute care with which all the details which I dwelt on in the
introduction, are carried out.
It is not always, indeed, that active treatment is desirable, and
gentle measures then suffice; but nothing except close and frequent
watching can enable the doctor to steer safely between the two opposite
dangers of too little and too much.
When I come to speak of the eruptive fevers, I shall have to mention the
convulsions and other signs of most serious brain disturbance, which
sometimes occur at their outset, and which are due to the condition of
the blood charged with the fever poison.
A somewhat similar set of symptoms, attributed with reason to the
overheated state of the blood, occurs in cases of _sunstroke_. It is
true that sunstroke, with the formidable characters that it presents in
hot countries, is not seen in England, but even here the mere exposure
of an infant or young child to an overheated atmosphere, is by no means
unattended with risk, and I refer to it here, because mothers are by no
means aware of the danger, and believe that it suffices to guard the
child from the direct rays of the sun.
Alarm, restlessness, and fretfulness, alternating with drowsiness,
hurried, irregular breathing, intense heat of skin, violent beating of
the open part of the head, twitching of the limbs, and starting of the
tendons of the wrists, with a pulse too rapid to be counted, are the
symptoms when the attack is severe. Convulsions are rare, though they
sometimes occur. Sickness is almost invariable, the stomach rejecting
everything, and the bowels are almost invariably relaxed, severe
diarrh[oe]a or dysentery sometimes coming on, as the brain disturbance
abates. The first shock may kill the child in a few hours, or it may
sink under the subsequent diarrh[oe]a, but as a rule recovery eventually
takes place.
All cases, indeed, are not equally severe, but all require careful and
gentle treatment, the cool and darkened room, the quiet, the cold to the
head, the tepid bath, and on the part of everyone the care not to allow
the apparently serious condition of the child to urge them to those
active measures which will here be out of place, and destroy the hopes
which would revive after a few hours of patience and gentle means.
Really acute inflammation of the brain is of so rare occurrence except
as the result of accident or injury, and its symptoms are of so serious
a character, even from the first, that medical advice is obviously
needed at once. I shall, therefore, pass it over here, and endeavour to
describe two forms of inflammation of the brain which are much more
frequent, and at their commencement more likely to be overlooked.
=Water on the Brain.=--One of these is the form of inflammation commonly
known as _water on the brain_, a term which, though incorrect medically,
has the advantage of being well understood. This, now, is not a simple
disease, occurring in a previously healthy child, but it is a disease
dependent on the same state of constitution as gives rise in other
children to consumption, or scrofula, or disease of the mesenteric
glands.
It is this circumstance which renders the disease so serious, and
recovery from it so extremely rare. This it is also which makes it so
desirable to become acquainted with its symptoms, both that you may be
alive to the approach of danger, and also not indulge in needless alarm
when brain symptoms occur from other causes which have no relation
whatever to those which give rise to water on the brain.
The disease comparatively seldom comes on in a child who had previously
seemed in perfect health; a state of vague ailing usually precedes its
outbreak. The child loses flesh and strength, and the look of health,
and the lustre of the eye, and the silky softness of the hair. The
appetite becomes uncertain, the bowels irregular, with a tendency to
constipation; there are little feverish attacks for a few hours,
subsiding of their own accord. The sleep is not sound, the temper
uncertain, the child tires even of its favourite toys; the brightness of
the little face is changed for a strange, weird, wistful look--an
unnatural earnestness; the child sits for moments gazing upward on
vacancy, as though it saw, or sought something beyond.
By degrees these vague premonitions, which may continue for weeks,
become more and more marked till they pass into what may be called the
first stage of the affection, in which there are signs of congestion of
the brain, such as I have already described, coupled with general
irregular attacks of feverishness. The child becomes more gloomy, more
pettish, and slower in its movements, and is little pleased by its usual
amusements. Or, at other times, its spirits are very variable; it will
sometimes cease suddenly in the midst of its play, and run to hide its
head in its mother's lap, putting its hands to its head, and complaining
of headache, or saying merely that it is tired and sleepy, and wants to
go to bed. Sometimes, too, it will turn dizzy, as you will know, not so
much from its complaint of dizziness as from its suddenly standing
still, gazing around for a moment as if lost, and then either beginning
to cry at the strange sensation, or seeming to awake from a reverie, and
at once returning to its play. The infant in its nurse's arms betrays
the same sensation by a sudden look of alarm, a momentary cry, and a
hasty clinging to its nurse. If the child can walk it may be observed to
drag one leg, halting in its gait, though but slightly, and seldom as
much at one time as at another, so that both the parents and the medical
attendant may be disposed to attribute it to an ungainly habit which the
child has contracted. The appetite is usually bad, though sometimes very
variable; and the child, when apparently busy at play, may all at once
throw down its toys and beg for food, then refuse what is offered; or
taking a hasty bite may seem to nauseate the half-tasted morsel, may
open its mouth, stretch out its tongue, and heave as if about to vomit.
The thirst is seldom considerable, and sometimes there is an actual
aversion to drink as well as to food, apparently from its exciting or
increasing the sickness. The stomach, however, seldom rejects
everything; but the same food as occasions sickness at one time is
retained at another. Sometimes the child vomits only after taking food,
at other times, even when the stomach is empty, it brings up some
greenish phlegm without much effort, and with no relief. These attacks
of vomiting seldom occur oftener than two or three times a day, but they
may return for several days together, the child's head probably growing
heavier, and its headache more severe. The bowels during this time are
disordered, generally constipated from the very first, though their
condition in this respect sometimes varies at the commencement of the
disease. The evacuations are usually scanty, sometimes pale, often of
different colours, almost always deficient in bile, frequently
mud-coloured and very offensive. The tongue is not dry, generally rather
red at the tip and edges, coated with white fur in the centre and
yellowish towards the root, but occasionally very moist, and uniformly
coated with white fur. The skin is harsh, but not very hot, the
temperature seldom above 100° Fahr., varying causelessly, but usually
higher towards evening than in the daytime. The nostrils are dry, the
eyes lustreless, and _the child sheds no tears_. It is drowsy, and will
sometimes want to be put to bed two or three times in a day; but it is
restless, sleeps ill, grinds its teeth in sleep, lies with its eyes
partially open, awakes with the slightest noise, or even starts up in
alarm without any apparent cause. At night, too, the existence of
intolerance of light is often first noticed in consequence of the
child's complaints about the presence of the candle in the room.
I have purposely dwelt long on this preliminary stage because it is only
in it that treatment is likely to be of any service, while the very
indefiniteness of the symptoms constantly leads to their being
overlooked, or referred to teething, or thought at any rate to be a mere
temporary ailment for which it is not worth while to call in the doctor.
After four or five days, however, the illness of the child becomes too
marked to escape notice. All cheerfulness has fled, the eyes are closed
to shut out the light, the child lies apparently dozing, but answers
questions rationally, in a short quick manner in as few words as
possible, and from time to time complains of its head, or utters a
short, sharp lamentable cry. The night brings with it no other change
than an increase of restlessness, attended sometimes with noisy cries,
or with the wandering talk of delirium. Sickness often diminishes, but
the bowels continue constipated, and it is to be noted that whereas in
fevers the bowels are distended with wind, here all wind has disappeared
and the belly is sunken to a striking degree.
Next comes the last stage. Each stage is distinguished by peculiarities
of the pulse which tell the expert what is passing; quick and regular in
the first stage; irregular and slower in the second; quick, variable,
irregular from time to time in the third; growing more rapid and more
feeble as the end arrives. Squinting, stupor, dilated pupil, difficulty
of swallowing, tremulous limbs, convulsions, profound insensibility,
such are the series of occurrences which bring on death usually within a
fortnight, always within three weeks from the appearance of the first
decided symptoms.
What are you to do in these cases? Above all save yourselves the
heartbreak of feeling that you have overlooked the premonitory symptoms
of the disease. Guard with special care the health of any child in whose
family a disposition to consumptive disease has ever shown itself, and
keep it at any cost from the risk of catching the hooping cough or
measles. Since, too, it is not in early infancy, but after the age of
one year, and in the majority of instances between the ages of three and
six years that this disease occurs, that is to say, at the time when the
brain begins to be most actively exercised, when the new world on which
the child is just entering brings with it new wonders every day; be very
careful not to over-stimulate its intelligence, over-excite its
imagination, or over-strain its mental powers. After the age of ten the
great danger is over; up to that time it is the health of the body which
requires care; not fuss, not rearing like a hothouse plant, but the
healthy training that may fortify the system.
When any signs such as I have described indicate the threatening of
disease, do not look on them as within the scope of domestic management,
but place the child at once under the watchful care of a skilful doctor.
I have seen but one recovery in all my life, after the disease had fully
set in, and that was a recovery almost worse than death.
=Earache.=--There is another form of inflammation of the brain which is
likewise oftenest met with in children who are of weakly constitution,
or of scrofulous habit, or in whom scarlet fever has left behind that
very troublesome ailment, discharge from the ear. This is so tedious, so
difficult to cure, so apt to return under the influence of very slight
causes, that people are too ready to put up with it as an inconvenience
which it is useless to try to remedy.
In addition, however, to the risk of the child's hearing being impaired
by the extension of the mischief to the internal ear, there is another
still greater danger, namely, that of the _disease passing from the ear
to the brain_, and producing inflammation of its membranes, or even
abscess of its substance.
It is therefore of the greatest moment that every case of chronic
discharge from the ear should be looked on as important, and that no
pains be spared to bring about its cure; and further, that during its
continuance the slightest sign of disturbance of the brain--headache,
sickness, feverishness, and dulness--should at once be noticed, and the
advice of a competent doctor be immediately sought for.
These dangers, however, follow almost entirely on long-continued
discharges from the ear, but do not attend that acute inflammation of
the passage to the ear which is often met with in childhood, and the
symptoms of which sometimes cause needless fear, from being taken for
those of inflammation of the brain. Attacks of _earache_ are most
frequent before the first set of teeth have been cut, and are by no
means rare in young children, who are perfectly unable to point out the
seat of their sufferings. The attack sometimes comes on quite suddenly,
but usually the child is languid and fretful for a period varying from a
few hours to one or two days before acute pain is experienced. In this
premonitory stage, however, it will often cry if tossed or moved
briskly; noise seems unpleasant to it, and it does not care to be played
with; while children who are still at the breast show a disinclination
to suck, though they will take food from a spoon. The infant seeks to
rest its head on its mother's shoulder, or, if lying in its cot, moves
its head uneasily from side to side, and then buries its face in the
pillow. If you watch closely, you will see that it is always the same
side of the head which it seeks to bury in the pillow, or to rest on its
nurse's arm, and that no other position seems to give any ease, except
this one, which, after much restlessness, the child will take up, and to
which, if disturbed, it will always return. The gentle support to the
ear seems to soothe the little patient: it cries itself to sleep, but
after a short doze, some fresh twinge of pain arouses it, or some
accidental movement disturbs it, and it awakes crying aloud, and
refusing to be pacified, and may continue so for hours together.
Sometimes the ear is red, and the hand is often put to the affected side
of the head, but neither of these symptoms is constant. The intensity of
the pain seldom lasts for more than a few hours, when, in many instances
a copious discharge of matter takes place from the ear, and the child is
well. In some instances, indeed, the subsidence of the disease on one
side is followed by a similar attack on the opposite side, and the same
acute suffering is once more gone through, and terminates in the same
manner. Sometimes, too, this complete cure does not take place, but the
earache abates, or altogether ceases, for a day or two, and then
returns; no discharge, or but a very scanty discharge, taking place,
while, for weeks together, the child has but few intervals of perfect
ease. In infants, earache seldom follows this chronic course, but it
does sometimes in older children, and is then of the more importance,
since it shows that the disease is no longer confined to the external
passage, but has extended to the internal ear.
In children who are too young to express their sufferings by words, the
violence of their cries, coupled with the absence of any sign of disease
in the chest or the bowels, naturally leads to the suspicion of
something being wrong in the head. There are several facts, however,
which may satisfy you that the case is not one of water on the
brain--the child does not vomit, its bowels are not constipated, there
is but little fever, the cries are loud and passionate, and are attended
with shedding tears. If you watch closely, you will notice the dread of
movement and the evident relief afforded by resting one side of the
head, and always the same side, while often the movement of the hand to
the head, and the redness of the ear, with the swelling at its entrance,
will all serve to point to that organ as the source of the trouble.
Sometimes, when in doubt, you will be able to satisfy yourselves that
the cause of the suffering is in the ear by pressing the gristle of the
organ slightly inwards, which will produce very evident pain on the
affected side, while on the other side it will not occasion any
suffering.
The treatment of this painful affection is very simple. In many
instances the suffering is greatly relieved by warm fomentations, or by
applying to the ear a poultice of hot bran or camomile flowers, while at
the same time a little warm oil and laudanum are dropped into the ear.
When these means do not bring relief, a leech applied on the bone
directly behind the ear seldom fails to give ease; while the disposition
to the frequent return of the attack is often controlled by a series of
small blisters, not larger than a sixpence, behind the ear. As soon as
the tendency has sufficiently abated to admit of it, the ear should be
syringed out twice a day with warm water, or with equal parts of warm
water and Goulard lotion; but if pain or discharge still continues,
medical advice must in all cases be sought for.
=Chronic Water on the Brain.=--There is still another form of
inflammation of the brain, concerning which a few words will suffice. It
constitutes what is termed _chronic water on the brain_, and in this
instance the term is a correct one, for the disease usually depends on a
slow form of inflammation of the lining membrane of the cavities of the
brain, often beginning before, still oftener very soon after, birth,
which ends in the pouring out of a quantity of fluid into them
sufficient to enlarge the head to three or four times its natural
dimensions.
Such cases are very sad and very hopeless, and the great resource, which
is sometimes adopted by medical men, of puncturing the head and letting
out the fluid, is very seldom successful.
But there are more hopeful cases sometimes met with, those namely of
children in whom, either from simple weakness, or from that
constitutional disorder called rickets, bone formation has been
backward, and the head has consequently long remained unclosed. If such
children, either from the irritation of teething, or from the straining
during paroxysms of hooping cough, suffer from congestion of the brain,
fluid may be poured out, which, not being compressed by the too yielding
skull, may in consequence enlarge it. These cases, however, may be
distinguished from the other more serious ones by the date of their
commencement, which is always much later than that of the other form, by
the symptoms which attend them being less severe, and by the enlargement
of the skull being far slighter.
Still they require watching, for while with improved health the
enlargement ceases, the fluid is in a measure absorbed, and the head
diminishes in size, though always remaining larger than the average;
brain mischief is yet more readily set up in children with such
antecedents than in others.
The anxiety of parents about the size or shape of their child's head
after infancy has passed, is perfectly needless. When the head has once
closed it always remains so. An odd shape, with an unusual protuberance
of the forehead and the hind head, sometimes remain as the evidence of
that condition in infancy to which I have just referred. It is, however,
an evidence of mischief passed, not of mischief going on. In children
too who have suffered from rickets, an affection rarely met with except
among the poor in crowded cities, distortion of the limbs is often
associated with a peculiar form of the skull, but in this too there is
nothing to call for anxiety, still less to excite alarm. It is only a
preternaturally small head and shelving forehead, which are found
associated with mental deficiency; otherwise the greatest varieties of
size and shape, of symmetry, or of want of it, may be associated with an
equal variety of intellectual endowment, which is just as likely to be
above as below the average.
=Brain Disorder from Exhaustion.=--It may at first sight appear strange
that before leaving the subject of congestion and inflammation of the
brain, I should find it necessary to give a caution against being misled
by symptoms which though in some respects similar to those of congestion
or inflammation, are in reality due to an exactly opposite condition.
This mistake, however, is very possible; doctors themselves sometimes
fall into it, and some distinguished physicians have thought it worth
their while to lay down very minute rules for distinguishing between the
two opposite states. Headache we all know attends an overfull condition
of the vessels of the brain, and grown persons usually suffer from it
severely before an attack of apoplexy; but we also know that bad
headache accompanies states of great weakness, and that it is one of the
most distressing consequences from which a woman suffers who has lost
much blood in her confinement. In just the same way, the infant who has
been exhausted by diarrh[oe]a or by some trying illness, or who after
weaning has been kept on a diet not sufficiently nutritious, may show
symptoms of disorder of the brain.
It may become irritable, restless, very startlish, with occasional
flushings of the face, moaning in its sleep, and sleeping with
half-closed eyes. But the head is not hotter than the rest of the body;
if the head is not closed, the open part or fontanelle is not tense and
pulsating, but flat or even depressed, the hands and feet are cool, and
very readily become cold; there may be occasional vomiting, but nothing
like the constant sickness of real brain-disease, the bowels are not
shrunken but distended, constipation is not present, but on the contrary
there is a disposition to diarrh[oe]a. If the symptoms are
misinterpreted and wrongly treated, unmistakable signs of exhaustion at
last come on, and the child may die from its not being borne in mind
that results at first sight much the same may flow from causes
diametrically opposite.
The moral of this is too obvious for me to need insist upon it. Cold to
the head, low diet, aperients, possibly leeches, are needed in the one
case; increased nourishment, perhaps stimulants, in the other. In every
instance where symptoms of brain disorder occur in the child, remember
the grievous consequences of a mistake as to their nature, and seek for
further help and guidance to preserve you from the possibility of error.
=Spasmodic Croup.=--I have already tried to explain how, in early life,
the brain is often unequal to control the sensitiveness of the nervous
system to various sources of irritation from without, and how, in
consequence this irritation manifests itself by those involuntary
movements which we call convulsions. But in addition to, or in the place
of those violent contortions or convulsions, the same condition shows
itself sometimes in disordered action of the muscles which subserve
parts not directly subject to the will, as those for instance which open
and close the entrance to the windpipe, or glottis as it is called in
medical phraseology.
Cases in which this occurs are known in popular language as
child-crowing, or _spasmodic croup_, from the peculiar catch or crow
which accompanies the entrance of air through the spasmodically
contracted opening of the windpipe; a spasm which if severe and
sufficiently continued closes the opening altogether, so that after
fruitless efforts to get its breath the child dies suffocated. This
affection occurs chiefly during teething, just as the fits of a
hysterical girl oftenest occur during the transition from girlhood to
womanhood; but many other causes besides the local irritation of the
teeth may produce it, such as constipation, indigestible food, or
disorder of the bowels.
It does not often occur in perfectly healthy children; but an infant
who is attacked by it is usually observed to have been drooping for some
time previously, to have lost its appetite, to have become fretful by
day and restless at night, and to present many of those ill-defined
ailments which are popularly ascribed to teething. At length, after
these symptoms have lasted for a few days or weeks, a slight crowing
sound is occasionally heard with the child's respiration, shorter, more
high-pitched, but less loud than the hoop of hooping cough. Usually it
is first noticed on the child awaking out of sleep, but sometimes it is
perceived during a fit of crying, or comes on while the infant is
sucking. The spasm may have been excited by some temporary cause, and
the sound which is its token may not be heard again; but generally it
returns after the lapse of a few hours, or of a day or two, and its
loudness usually increases in proportion as its return becomes more
frequent. It will soon be found that certain conditions favour its
occurrence; that the child wakes suddenly with an attack of it, that
excitement induces it, or the act of swallowing, or the effort at
sucking, so that the child will drop the nipple, make a peculiar croupy
sound with its breathing, and then return to the breast again.
Throughout the whole course of the affection, its attacks will be found
to be more frequent by night than by day; and to occur mostly soon after
the child has lain down to sleep, or towards midnight, when the first
sound sleep is drawing to a close.
At first, the child seems, during the intervals of the attack, much as
before; except, perhaps, that it is rather more pettish and wilful; but
it is not long before graver symptoms than the occasional occurrence of
an unusual sound when the child draws a deep breath excite attention,
and give rise to alarm. Fits of difficult breathing occasionally come
on, in which the child throws its head back, while its face and lips
become livid, or an ashy paleness surrounds the mouth, slight convulsive
movements pass over the muscles of the face; the chest is motionless,
and suffocation seems impending. But in a few seconds the spasm yields,
expiration is effected, and a long loud crowing inspiration succeeds, or
the child begins to cry. Breathing now goes on naturally: the crowing is
not repeated, or the crying ceases; a look of apprehension dwells for a
moment on the infant's features, but then passes away; it turns once
more to its playthings, or begins sucking again as if nothing were the
matter. A few hours, or even a few days, may pass before this alarming
occurrence is again observed, but it does recur, and another symptom of
the disturbance of the nervous system is soon superadded, if it has not,
as is often the case, existed from the very beginning. This consists in
a peculiar contraction of the hands and feet; a state which may likewise
not infrequently be noticed during infancy, unattended by any
peculiarity in breathing. It differs much in degree; sometimes the thumb
is simply drawn into the palm while the fingers are unaffected; at other
times the fingers are closed more or less firmly, and the thumb is shut
into the palm; or, coupled with this, the hand itself is forcibly flexed
on the wrist. In the slightest degree of affection of the foot, the
great toe is drawn a little away from the other toes; in severer degrees
the toe is drawn away still further, and the whole foot is forcibly bent
upon the ankle, and its sole directed a little inwards. Affection of the
hands generally precedes the affection of the feet, and may even exist
without it, but the spasmodic contraction of the feet never exists
without the hands being involved likewise. At first this state is
temporary, but it does not come on and cease simultaneously with the
attacks of crowing breathing, though generally much aggravated during
its paroxysms. Sometimes a child in whom the crowing breathing has been
heard, will awake in the morning with the hands and feet firmly bent,
though he may not have had any attack of difficult breathing during the
night. When the contraction is but slight, children still use their
hands; but when considerable they cannot employ them, and they sometimes
cry, as if the contraction of the muscles were attended with pain.
Sometimes, too, there is a degree of puffiness both of hands and feet, a
sort of dropsical condition, which, whenever it is present, adds much to
the anxiety with reference to the child.
As the condition becomes more serious, a slight crowing sound is heard
each time the child draws its breath, the fits of difficult breathing
are much more severe; they last longer, and sometimes end in general
convulsions. The breathing now does not return at once to its natural
frequency, but continues hurried for a few minutes after the occurrence
of each fit of difficult breathing, and is sometimes attended with a
little wheezing. The slightest cause is now sufficient to bring on an
attack; it may be produced by a current of air, by a sudden change of
temperature, by slight pressure on the windpipe, by the act of
swallowing, or by momentary excitement. The state of sleep seems
particularly favourable to its occurrence, and the short fitful dozes
are interrupted by the return of impending suffocation, in one paroxysm
of which longer and severer than the others the infant may fall back
dead.
It scarcely need be said that the great majority of cases have no such
sad ending as I have described, but still, whenever this spasm exists,
even in a slight degree, there is always the possibility, never to be
forgotten, of a sudden catastrophe. Usually, after some tooth has been
cut which caused special irritation, or as disorder of the bowels has
been set right, the symptoms abate by degrees, and then cease
altogether, though liable to be reproduced by the same causes as those
to which they were originally due.
The seeking out and removing the exciting causes must be the care of the
medical man, but there are some special precautions which come within
the mother's own province to observe.
First of all, as sudden excitement, and especially a fit of crying, are
likely to bring on the attack, and since there is a possibility that any
attack may prove fatal, the greatest care must be taken in the
management of the child to avoid all unnecessary occasion of annoyance
or of distress.
Although the benefit that accrues from fresh air, or from a change of
air, is often very great, yet it is very important that the child should
not be exposed to the cold or wind, for I have seen such exposure
followed by a severe attack of difficult breathing, or by the occurrence
of general convulsions. Another reason for caution in this respect is
that the occurrence of catarrh is almost sure to be followed by an
aggravation of the spasmodic affection, which, though previously slight,
may thereby be rendered serious or even dangerous.
I have nothing to add to what I have already said with reference to the
treatment of the attack, when actual convulsions come on. Since,
however, in this affection convulsions may occur quite unexpectedly at
any moment, it is well always to have a basin of cold water and a bunch
of feathers handy, in order to be able at once to dash the water on the
child's face, and induce that deep inspiration which saves it from the
threatening danger. If this should not suffice, the finger must be put
into the mouth, and run over the back of the tongue in the way that I
have already explained when speaking of convulsions. Now and then it
happens, though but very rarely, that violent _general convulsions_ come
on in infancy quite independent of spasmodic croup, not preceded nor
attended by any sign of disease of the brain, and which end in the
course of some hours or of a few days in death, the child being partly
worn out by the violence of the muscular movements, partly by the
disturbance of breathing which each fit occasions. Happily, however, in
most of these instances the convulsions by degrees lessen both in
violence and frequency, and the child recovers.
=Epilepsy.=--There is one other point of view from which convulsions in
infancy and early childhood must be looked on with apprehension, and
that is from their being frequently followed in after years by
_epilepsy_. In nearly a fifth of all cases of epilepsy in childhood that
have come under my notice the first occurrence of fits dated back to
early infancy, and this, even though an interval of years had passed
between the last fit in infancy and the first in childhood. It seems,
indeed, as though there were in these cases a peculiar abiding
sensitiveness of the nervous system, which, dating back from very early
life, dependent often on hereditary predisposition, was kindled into
activity by any special cause, such as the cutting of the second set of
teeth, or the transition from boyhood or girlhood to manhood or
womanhood.
In the child, just as in the grown person, epilepsy manifests itself in
two different ways; either by momentary unconsciousness, or by violent
convulsions, in which latter there is little distinction from the
occasional fit which may be observed at any period of infancy.
The attacks of momentary unconsciousness often pass long unnoticed.
They occur, perhaps, when the child is at play or at meals; it stops as
if dazed, its eye fixed on vacancy; if standing, it does not fall, nor
does it drop the toy or the spoon which it was holding from its hand. If
speaking, it just breaks off in the midst of the half-uttered sentence.
Then, in less time than it takes to tell, it suddenly looks up again,
finishes what it was saying, or goes on with its play, or with its meal
as though nothing had happened; or it suffices to call the child and the
cloud passes from its face, and it is itself again; and the nurse or
perhaps even the mother, thinks that it is some odd trick which the
child has got. By degrees the attacks become more frequent, and may
continue to recur several times a day without any obvious cause, even
for months; and this without any change in their character. By degrees,
however, under their influence, an alteration takes place slowly in the
child's disposition. It loses its cheerfulness and brightness, its face
assumes a heavy look, it becomes fretful, and its intelligence grows
duller.
Almost invariably after the attacks of this, which has been called the
_petit mal_, have continued for some months, a change begins to take
place, which does not fail to excite attention and to cause alarm. If
seated, the child's head drops forward for a moment, and strikes against
the table; if standing, it becomes for an instant dizzy, and staggers,
or even falls, and then there is twitching of one limb, or of the
muscles of the face, and then the complete fit of epilepsy, ushered in
sometimes, but not always, by a momentary cry, and then the convulsive
twitching of one limb, followed in a minute or in less time by
convulsions of the whole body as well as of the limbs. The upturned
eyes, which do not see, are horribly distorted, the child foams at the
mouth, it is insensible, and the insensibility deepens into stupor, or
is followed by heavy sleep, for a quarter of an hour, or an hour or
more, from which the patient arouses feeling tired and bruised, and
often with an aching head, but with no remembrance of what has passed
during the seizure so distressing to bystanders.
It has throughout been my endeavour not to lose sight of those for whom
this little book has been written, and with reference to epilepsy, as
with reference to many other things, I pass over much that would be
important to the practitioner of medicine, to dwell on those points
which mainly interest the parents, and which they are perfectly able to
appreciate.
The question is often put as to the probability of fits terminating in
epilepsy; or, on the other hand, as to the ground for hope in any case
that epileptic attacks, which have already often recurred, will
eventually cease. In the first place, no conclusion can safely be drawn
from the severity of a convulsion, nor from its general character, as to
the probability of its frequent recurrence, or of its passing into
permanent epilepsy. The severity of a fit certainly affords no reason
for this apprehension, nor does its recurrence, so long as a distinct
exciting cause can be discovered for each return. The fits, which cease
in the teething child when the gum is lanced, and which, on each
succeeding return are equally relieved by the same proceeding, do not
imply that there is any great tendency on their part to become habitual.
In the same way, the attacks which follow on constipation, or on
indigestion, or on some other definite exciting cause, may probably with
care be guarded against, and their return prevented. It is not the
violence of a single fit, nor even the frequent return of fits for a
limited time, which warrants the gravest apprehension; but it is their
recurrence when all observable causes of irritation have passed away; it
is their return when the child is otherwise apparently in perfect
health.
If, on the one hand, the violence of a convulsion does not by any means
imply the greater proportionate risk of its recurrence, so neither can
any hopeful conclusion be drawn from the slightness of an attack, or
from its momentary duration. In childhood, such attacks are at least as
common preludes to confirmed epilepsy as in the adult, and are the more
deserving of attention from their very liability to be overlooked. I
believe, too, that an imperfect suspension of consciousness, the child
knowing what passes, though unable to speak, is not very uncommon, and
further, that it is far from unusual to have the early stage of epilepsy
in childhood announced by sudden incoherent talking for a few seconds,
or by a wild look; a cry of surprise, or a short fit of sobbing,
announcing as in a hysterical girl, the close of the paroxysm. The early
symptoms of epilepsy in childhood are also the more likely to be
misinterpreted from the circumstance that they are frequently
accompanied by a moral perversion much more striking than any loss of
mental power. It is true that in early life there are alternations of
intellectual activity and mental indolence, of quickness and comparative
dulness, which all who have had much to do with education are well aware
of, and which are perfectly compatible with health of body and health of
mind. But changes in the moral character of a child who is still under
the same influences, have a far deeper meaning than is often attached to
them; a child does not suddenly become wayward, fretful, passionate, or
mischievous, except under the pressure of some grave cause.
One other point there is also to be borne in mind; namely, that the
child is compelled by the vague sensation of hitherto unknown dread, not
to conceal the early symptoms of epilepsy as the grown person would do;
longing as the child does for love and sympathy, and weakened in its
moral force, it craves for more love, more sympathy, it exaggerates its
symptoms, it assumes some which do not exist at all. The conclusion is a
natural one, but none the less mistaken, that the child who is
discovered to be shamming has nothing the matter with it--is simply a
naughty child. This is a fact of much importance, on which I shall have
occasion to insist further on.
In the child, as in the adult, epilepsy blunts the intellect as well as
weakens the moral powers; and does both more speedily and more
effectually in proportion as the child is younger, and its mind and will
are less developed. And yet this has its compensation; for as the powers
fade quickly, so, if the attacks cease, they recover with surprising
rapidity, and as the moral powers are the first to suffer, so they are
the first to regain--I will not say full vigour, but at least a degree
which raises the children to be objects of specially tender affection,
rather than of pity and compassion.
The conditions which justify the most hopeful view of any case of
epilepsy are then, first, the absence of any history of frequently
recurring convulsions in early infancy; secondly, the existence of a
distinct exciting cause for the attacks; thirdly, the rarity of their
return far more than their slight severity; and lastly, the more the
attacks approach in character to what one knows as hysteria, the less
profound the insensibility in the fit, the shorter its duration
afterwards, the greater are the grounds for hope that the seizures will
eventually cease.
Cases of this last class are to some degree, at any rate, under the
child's control. I have several times seen a fit warded off by the
threat of the shower bath, or even by calling to the child, and sending
it to fetch something in another room. Such cases may indeed pass into
ordinary epilepsy, but often, under judicious management, moral rather
than medical, they cease, so that one can venture on taking a more
hopeful view of them than of others.
And this brings me to the question of what can be done, or rather what
can parents do to promote recovery from epilepsy. First of all, do not
listen to what you may hear about this medicine or the other being a
specific for it. There is no specific whatever for epilepsy, but there
are certain remedies which in skilful hands do have a real though
limited power to control the frequency and lessen the severity of the
attacks. Next, there are cases in which the attacks depend on some
definite cause; it may be indigestion, or constipation, or the cutting
of the second set of teeth, and on the irritation produced by those
teeth being too crowded. Thus, I remember a boy twelve years old, in
whom two severe epileptic fits occurred apparently without cause. He was
cutting his back grinding teeth, and in the lower jaw the teeth seemed
overcrowded. I had a tooth extracted on either side, the fits ceased,
and when I last heard of him many years afterwards they had not
returned.
Epilepsy often lasts for many years, and no one's memory is retentive
enough to be trusted with all the details between the different attacks,
the causes which seemed to produce them, the measures which appeared at
different times to be of service. I am therefore accustomed to advise
people, any of whose children have the misfortune to be epileptic, to
write as brief an account as possible of the child's previous history,
and to supplement it by a daily record kept in parallel columns of date,
food, state of bowels, sleep, medicine, attacks, specifying their
character and duration; and general remarks, which would bear on the
child's temper and general condition, and in which column any probable
exciting cause of an attack would be recorded. It is surprising how much
important information is gathered in a few months from such a record
kept faithfully.
The diet should be mild, nutritious, but as a general rule
unstimulating; and should include meat comparatively seldom, and in
small quantities. Some fifty years ago, a very distinguished American
physician, Dr. Jackson of Boston, in the United States, insisted very
strongly on the importance of a diet exclusively of milk and vegetables
in greatly lessening the frequency and severity of epileptic attacks. I
believe in the great majority of cases of epilepsy in childhood Dr.
Jackson's advice is worth following. And I may add that, while I have
little faith in the influence of mere drugs, I have a yearly increasing
confidence in that of judicious management, mental and moral, as well as
physical.
The first requisite in all cases is a firm and gentle rule of love on
the part of those who have charge of the child. As violent and sudden
excitement of any kind will often bring on an epileptic seizure, so the
influence of the opposite condition in warding off its attacks is very
remarkable; and on several occasions I have received patients into the
Children's Hospital who were reported to have epileptic seizures several
times in a day, and who nevertheless remained a fortnight or more in the
institution without any attack coming on. The disorder, however, was not
cured, but only kept in check by the gentle rule to which the little
ones were subjected. The order goes for much in these cases; the novelty
goes for something too, for almost invariably I have found that after a
time the apparent improvement becomes less marked, and though they
continued better than when they first came to the hospital, the children
were still epileptic; the advance of the disease had been retarded, but
its progress had not been arrested. The quiet then which suits the
epileptic, is not the quiet of listless, apathetic idleness, but the
judicious alternation of tranquil occupation and amusement. The mind
must not be left to slumber from the apprehension of work bringing on a
fit, but the work must, as far as possible, be such as to interest the
child. In the occupations of epileptics therefore, pursuits which not
merely employ the mental faculties, but also give work to the hands,
such as gardening, carpentering, or the tending of animals, are
specially to be recommended; and if by these the mind can be kept awake,
the grand object of teaching is answered, and backwardness in reading,
writing, or those kinds of knowledge which other children at the same
age have acquired, is of very little moment. Many epileptics have an
indistinct articulation, and almost all have a slouching gait, and an
awkward manner. The former can often be corrected to a considerable
degree by teaching the child simple chants, which are almost always
easily acquired, and practised with pleasure. The latter may be
rectified by drilling, not carried out into tedious minutiæ, but limited
to simple movements; and the irksomeness of drill is almost completely
done away with by music, while I believe that the accustoming a child to
the strict control and regulation of all its voluntary movements is of
very great importance indeed as a curative agent.
It is difficult to carry out these minute precautions on which so much
depends in the home with other children of the same family. It is
therefore, I believe, better for the child, painful though it is to the
parents, that he should be placed under the care of some competent
person who will devote the whole of his time to the care of the patient.
=St. Vitus's Dance.=--A state of unconsciousness, accompanied with more
or less violent involuntary movements, is characteristic of epilepsy.
Involuntary movements without loss of consciousness constitute the
disorder commonly known as _St. Vitus's Dance_. It is rare in early
childhood, becomes more common after the age of five, and attains its
greatest frequency between the ages of ten and fifteen, girls, owing to
their more impressionable nervous system, being affected by it more than
twice as often as boys.
It seldom comes on in a child previously in perfect health, and
strangely enough it occurs with special frequency in children who have
before suffered from rheumatism. Sudden shock or fright is often said to
have been its exciting cause; but even then the symptoms seldom come at
once, but are gradually developed in the course of two or three days. At
first, it is noticed that the child has certain odd fidgety movements,
usually of one arm, next of the leg of the same side, so that it
stumbles in walking, and then the muscles of the face become affected,
the child grimacing strangely, and next the limbs of the opposite side
become involved, and as things go on from bad to worse, the child
becomes unable to hold anything in its hand, to walk, or even to stand,
and even if on the ground still writhes about with the strangest
contortions of its body. If matters grow still worse, the child becomes
unable to put out its tongue, it swallows with difficulty, it loses not
only the power of distinct articulation but even the faculty of speech,
while the mind itself becomes weakened, the child seems half idiotic,
and even though the movements lessen in violence, power over the limbs
is lost for the time, and they seem almost paralysed. Happily cases so
severe are very rare, and it is rarer still for them to have a fatal
termination. Almost invariably recovery takes place by degrees, the
movements lessen, swallowing is performed with less difficulty, the
power of speech, returns, and the intellect regains its brightness: but
the child is left with a special liability to return of the affection,
though the first attack is usually the most severe.
Even at the best, however, the disorder is always tedious, as is shown
by the fact that its average duration is seventy days. It is very
natural, therefore, that parents should be anxious when they see that
their child has some awkward or ungainly habit, some odd trick or
gesture never noticed before, lest it should be the beginning of this
tedious ailment. Now it is well to remember that St. Vitus's dance does
not begin with twitching of the muscles of the face, but that its
earliest symptoms are involuntary movements of the arms and twitching of
the fingers, and that contortions of the face do not come on till
afterwards. Movements of this sort too, even when not limited to the
face, vary in the course of a few days in the parts which they affect,
and show themselves, now in winking the eyes, then in grimacing, in
twitching of the muscles of the face or neck, or in some awkward gait or
manner. These are all best left unnoticed, for they are almost
invariably made worse if the child's attention is called to them. They
are, or at least before the days of Board Schools they were, scarcely
ever met with among the children of the poor, for they almost invariably
depend on mental strain; not of necessity on undue length of the hours
of study, or on the difficulty of the tasks imposed, but often on a
child's anxiety to make progress and to keep up with his schoolfellows.
In corroboration of this being their cause I may say that, contrary to
the rule which obtains with St. Vitus's dance, these movements are more
frequent in boys than in girls, for the over-mental strain of boys comes
earlier; that of girls seldom occurs before the time of transition to
womanhood, and its results are then different, though much graver. In
cases of this kind, lessening the mental strain is almost always
followed by a cessation of the movements; change of air, country
amusements, and a generally tonic treatment perfect the cure, and
dancing and gymnastics overcome the remains of any awkward habit.
The movements in real St. Vitus's dance do not shift about as these do
from one part to another, but tend to involve various parts in
succession, without previously ceasing where they had begun.
The relative share which the parents and the doctor take in the
treatment of these cases depends to a great extent on their severity.
While attention to the state of the bowels, and a generally tonic
treatment are almost always needed, gymnastics and drill are often of
very great service in the slighter cases; and a very distinguished Paris
physician was accustomed to send children thus affected to march round
the Place Vendôme, keeping step while the band was playing. The utility
of gymnastics turns very much on the degree in which the child is able
by attention to control his movements, and when either as in young
children fixed attention cannot be roused, or as in severe cases the
effort only adds to the child's nervousness, and in consequence
increases the movements, they must be given up. All drill and gymnastics
are best carried out in class with other children, and regulated not
simply by word of mouth, but by a tune or chant. When recovery is in
progress gymnastics will then in almost all instances find their place.
Even when drill and gymnastics cannot be practised, regulated movements
of the limbs carried out twice a day for ten minutes at a time are of
very real service. Another's will here takes the place of that of the
patient, and the limbs are thus taught, though far more imperfectly, to
act in concert.
Two or three more cautions may still be of service. Do not keep a child
out of bed, and force it to try to exert itself when the movements are
very severe; continued movement, voluntary or involuntary, fatigues. Let
the child lie in bed; it rests there, and the movements, which always
cease during sleep, become at once greatly lessened. So important indeed
is it to avoid the exhaustion caused by incessant violent movement, that
in bad cases it is sometimes necessary to swathe the limbs in flannel
bandages, and so to confine them to splints in order to restrain them.
Next, do not become over-anxious because the child grows stupid and
ceases to talk; intelligence and the power of speech will certainly come
back again. And, lastly, do not be impatient and think your medical
adviser incompetent because the disorder lasts so long. An average
duration of seventy days implies that while sometimes it ceases sooner,
in others it lasts much longer than the two weary months of watching and
waiting with which in any case you must lay your account.
=Paralysis, or Palsy.=--When speaking of St. Vitus's dance I said that
there was a partial loss of power in the limbs as well as an inability
to control their movements. After a fit of convulsions, or an epileptic
seizure, power over some limb is often lost for a time which may vary
from a few minutes to some hours. In the course of some serious diseases
of the brain, one of the manifestations of the mischief is the
impairment or the loss of power over one arm or leg, rarely over both;
and lastly, that terrible disease diphtheria is often followed by a
paralysis so general that the patient is sometimes for days unable to
move even a finger, although the condition may eventually pass away.
There is, however, a very _real paralysis_ which occurs sometimes in
infants and young children. It comes on for the most part quite
suddenly, often unaccompanied by any sign of brain disorder, but tending
nevertheless to issue in great permanent impairment of the power over
the affected limb or limbs, and eventually to interfere with their
growth and thus to produce serious deformity.
It is in general impossible to assign any distinct exciting cause for
the affection, though the fact that in two-thirds of the cases it occurs
between the ages of six months and three years, proves it to be in some
way intimately associated with teething. The oldest child in whom I have
ever seen it was aged between seven and eight years, and the youngest a
little under six months. It is of excessive rarity for the arm alone to
be affected, but it is by no means unusual for the legs alone to be
paralysed; though in the majority of instances power is lost on one side
only, the leg and arm being both involved.
A child goes to bed quite well, or at the worst having seemed slightly
ailing and feverish for a day or two, and on waking in the morning it is
suddenly discovered that power is lost over one leg or both, or over
both arm and leg of one side. The loss of power is at first seldom
complete, though neither arm nor leg can be used to any good purpose,
and during the ensuing twenty-four hours the palsy often grows worse,
and sometimes affects one or both limbs of the opposite side. After that
time recovery in general begins. It is now and then speedy, so that in
three or four days all trace of the paralysis may have disappeared.
This, however, is a fortunate exception to the general rule, which is
that amendment is very tardy, showing itself first in the arm,
afterwards in the leg, and, if both sides have been affected, more on
one side than on the other. Unless the improvement is very rapid, it is
almost always only partial, and the palsied limb, though it does not
lose sensation, regains but little power; it grows much more slowly than
the other, is always colder and wastes considerably, while, some muscles
still retaining more power than others, it becomes twisted out of shape,
and requires all the skill of the orthopædic surgeon to remedy or at
least to lessen the consequent deformity.
It has been ascertained that this form of palsy depends on a state of
congestion, or overfilling of the minute blood-vessels of the spinal
marrow. When the child gets well the congestion has passed away; but it
does this speedily, and recovery is then rapid as well as complete. If
it does not soon pass away, other changes take place in the spinal
marrow, and recovery is then slow, incomplete, or even does not take
place at all.
Remedies are unfortunately of little avail here, but it is evident that
when the palsy is quite recent all movement of the limb must be
mischievous, and that the congestion of the spinal marrow to which it is
due will be most likely to abate under the influence of perfect quiet,
rest in bed, and soothing or fever medicines, or of such as are
calculated to overcome constipation, or to correct any fault of
digestion, while the importance of teething, and the possible expediency
of lancing the gums must not be forgotten.
Afterwards comes the time for exercise of the paralysed limb, for
friction, for shampooing, for galvanism; all continued perhaps for
months or years with unwearied patience, and I must add with reasonable
expectations as to the result. The only additional remark which I have
to make is this, that to gain any real good from galvanism, a battery
must be procured under the direction of some medical man specially
skilled in the use of electricity, and the mode of employing it must be
learned thoroughly from him. It is merely idle to purchase a toy
machine, and, giving it to the nurse to turn the handle for ten minutes
twice a day, to fancy that you are making a serious trial of the effects
of galvanism. As a mere money question, a costly machine, and several
fees paid in order to be thoroughly instructed in the way to use it, is
much cheaper than a cripple child.
A few words may not be out of place with reference to cases in which
paralysis is mistakenly supposed to exist. Much anxiety is sometimes
expressed by parents concerning children who have long passed the usual
age without making any attempt to walk; or who having once walked seem
to have lost that power. Now it often happens that after any weakening
illness a child ceases for some weeks to walk, just as it ceases to
talk. The power in both cases was newly acquired, it called for effort
which, when strength is regained, will be put forth once more. The same
applies to other instances in which children are late in learning to
walk; or who, having once walked, leave off walking when a back tooth,
or when one of the eye teeth is coming near the surface of the gum, and
regaining the power lose it again, or lose at least the desire to exert
it more than once during the active progress of teething. But, holding
the child under its arms, you have but to put its feet to the ground,
and at once it will draw up its legs though it will make no other
movement; or take it on your lap and tickle the soles of its feet, and
laughing or crying, as the mood takes it, it will move its legs about as
freely as you could wish and show that the power is still there, though
for the present the child will not take the trouble to exert it.
Gradual loss of power over one or other leg, especially if attended with
pain either in the back or in the knee or hip, should always call for
attention, and induce you to seek at once for medical advice. Such cases
generally occur later in childhood than the conditions of which I spoke
in the former paragraph, and may depend on disease of the spine or of
the hip-joint, two serious conditions which it needs the medical expert
to discover and to treat.
=Neuralgia and Headache.=--In the grown person neuralgia, as many of us
know to our cost, is by no means infrequent; in the child it is very
rare, and when a child complains of severe pain in the head, or of
severe pain to the knee or hip apart from rheumatism, it is almost
invariably the sign of disease of the brain in the one case, of the
hip-joint in the other. To this rule there are indeed exceptions, but it
will always be well to leave it to the doctor to determine--no easy
matter by the bye--whether any given case is one of the rare exceptions
or not.
There is, however, one form of real _neuralgic headache_ which is by no
means rare in children after the commencement of the second dentition,
and which sometimes goes on into early manhood or womanhood, when it
becomes what is commonly known as sick headache. It is essentially an
ailment of development, incidental to the time when the brain is first
called on for the performance of its higher functions.
It does not by any means always depend on over-study, though I do not
remember meeting with it in children who had not yet gone into the
school-room; and I have frequently found it dependent on too continuous
application, though the number of hours devoted to study in the course
of the day may not have been by any means excessive.
The child's brain soon tires, and the arrangement, so convenient to
parents of morning lessons and afternoon play, works far less well for
it than if the time were more equally divided between the two.
The attacks not infrequently come on on waking in the morning, and
rapidly become worse, the pain, which is almost always referred to the
forehead, being attended with much intolerance of light and sound, with
nausea, and often with actual vomiting. Like the vomiting of
sea-sickness, however, previous stomach disorder has no necessary share
in its production, and I may add, indeed, that it is often difficult to
assign any special exciting cause for the attack. The suffering is more
often relieved by warm or tepid than by cold applications, and not
infrequently pressure or a tight bandage greatly mitigates it. In no
case does the attack last more than twelve hours--usually not more than
half that time; it passes off with sleep, and leaves the patient weak
and with a degree of tenderness of the head to the touch.
Such attacks may occur every fortnight, ten days, or even oftener, but
their very frequent return, instead of increasing apprehension, should
diminish anxiety. A first attack, indeed, may seem as though it
threatened mischief, till it is seen how speedily and completely it
passes off, and when afterwards a second or a third attack comes on with
the same severity of onset, the same rapid worsening, and the same quick
passing away, you will feel convinced that the symptoms have no grave
meaning.
There is a headache of quite a different kind to which I must for a
moment refer, that, namely, which depends entirely on imperfect vision,
and for which spectacles are the remedy, not physic. The infirmity is
not noticed during the first few years of life, but in later childhood,
when a tolerably close attention to study has become necessary. Some of
the minor degrees of short-sightedness, and want of power of adaptation
of the eyes, such as exists in the aged, soon begin to interfere
sensibly with the child's comfort, and the strain to which the eyes are
subject produces a constant pain over the brow, the cause of which is
often unsuspected.[13]
In all cases, therefore, in which a child complains of constant pain
over the brow for which there is no obvious cause, it is well to take
the opinion of an oculist, who can best ascertain the power of _reading
at different distances_ and with each eye separately, and the real cause
of symptoms which had occasioned much anxiety is thus often brought to
light.
=Night Terrors.=--Before taking leave of the disorders of the nervous
system, I must briefly mention the Nightmare, or Night Terrors of
children, which often cause a degree of alarm quite out of proportion to
their real importance.
It happens sometimes that a child who has gone to bed apparently well,
and who has slept soundly for a short time, awakes suddenly with a sharp
and piercing cry. The child will be found sitting up in bed, crying out
as if in an agony of fear, 'Oh dear! Oh dear! take it away! father!
mother!' while terror is depicted on its countenance, and it does not
recognise its parents, who, alarmed by the shrieks, have come into its
room, but seems wholly occupied by the fearful impression that has
roused it from sleep. By degrees consciousness returns; the child now
clings to its mother or its nurse, sometimes wants to be taken up and
carried about the room, and by degrees, sometimes in ten minutes,
sometimes in half-an-hour, it grows quiet and falls asleep; and then
usually the rest of the night is passed undisturbed, though sometimes a
second or even a third attack may occur before daybreak.
Seizures of this kind may come on in a great variety of circumstances,
and may either happen only two or three times, or may continue to recur
at intervals for several weeks. The great point, however, to bear in
mind is that they depend invariably on some disorder of the stomach or
bowels, and are never an evidence of the commencement of real disease of
the brain.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Reports of the Registrar-General, as quoted at p. 30 of my
_Lectures on Diseases of Children_. The actual numbers are 9,350 under
five years old, out of a total of 16,258.
[12] Figures deduced from the 44th Report of the Registrar-General.
[13] Before I called attention to this form of headache in the last
edition of my lectures, it had already been noticed without my
knowledge, by a friend of mine, Dr. Blache, of Paris, in a very valuable
essay on the headaches which occur during the period of growth.
CHAPTER VII.
THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF THE CHEST.
In speaking of the ailments which occur during the first month after
birth, I have already noticed the peculiarities of breathing in early
infancy, and the difficulties that sometimes attend the complete filling
of the air-cells of the lungs, and the readiness with which when once
filled they become emptied of air and collapse.
On this ground it is therefore needless for me again to enter, and I may
pass at once to consider those ailments which rise in increasing
importance from a simple cold or catarrh to inflammation of the
air-tubes or bronchitis, inflammation of the lung substance, as
pneumonia, and inflammation of the membrane which lines the chest and
covers the lungs, or pleurisy.
=Catarrh.=--A common cold or _catarrh_ is not one of the ailments of
very early infancy. The watery eyes, the sneezing, the cough, the slight
feverishness and the heavy head are scarcely met with until after the
age of three months; nor, indeed, are they often seen till the child is
old enough to run about, to go out for a walk, and to encounter in
consequence all the variations of temperature and of damp or dryness
inseparable from the English climate.
This, however, is not entirely due to the greater exposure of the child
to these influences as it grows older, but in part also to the fact that
the lining of the air-tubes is less sensitive in early infancy than it
afterwards becomes. The young babe if it catches cold gets _snuffles_,
or stoppage of the nostrils, which first become dry, and then pour out
an abundant discharge, which sometimes dries and forms crusts, and
causes the child to suck with difficulty, and to breathe uncomfortably
and with open mouth. In a few days, however, at the worst this
discomfort passes away; and the only additional remark I have to make
is, that since obstinate snuffles are sometimes a constitutional
disease, the doctor's advice should always be sought if they last longer
than a week.
It is needless to describe a cold, but it is much more to the purpose to
say how its occurrence is to be prevented, and nine times out of ten the
observance of two simple rules will suffice for this. First, take care
that there is no great difference between the temperature of the day and
of the night nursery. The one should never be above 60°, nor the other
below 50°, and the undressing and the bath should always take place in
the warmer room. Second, never let the child wear the same shoes or
boots in the house as it does out of doors. The change should be as much
a matter of routine as the taking off its hat or its bonnet.
The domestic management of a cold is simple enough. The usual error is
the overdoing precautions, the keeping the room too hot, or overloading
the child with extra garments, or its bed with extra covering, by which
it is kept in a state of feverishness, or of needlessly profuse
perspiration.
If, for the first two days of a bad cold, the child is kept in bed, the
room being at a temperature of 60°, with no extra covering on the bed,
but a flannel jacket for the child to wear when it sits up in bed to
play, a few drops of ipecacuanha wine several times a day, a warm bath,
a linseed poultice to the chest, and a little paregoric at night, with a
light diet of rice, and arrowroot, and milk, and a roasted apple, and
some orange juice; nine times out of ten, or nineteen out of twenty, the
cold will pass away with small discomfort to the child and no anxiety to
the parents.
Often a child objects to stop all day in its little cot, but move it to
its mother's or nurse's big bed; and with a large tray of toys before
it, and a little of the tact which love teaches, the day will pass in
unclouded content and cheerfulness.
It must of course be borne in mind that measles set in with all the
symptoms of a bad cold, followed on the fourth day by the appearance of
the eruption; and, moreover, watchfulness must always be alive to detect
increase of fever, hurry of breathing, hardness or extreme frequency of
cough, the sign of the irritation of the larger air-tubes having
extended and become more severe, the evidence that the case from simple
catarrh has become one of bronchitis.
=Bronchitis and Pneumonia.=--It is impossible to enable persons who have
not received a medical education to distinguish between a case of
bronchitis and one of pneumonia. Neither, indeed, is it of much
importance that they should do so, for in both the dangers are of a
similar kind, and both call equally for the advice of a skilful doctor.
In _bronchitis_ inflammation affects the lining of the air-tubes,
travelling from the larger towards the smaller, and in bad cases
extending even to their termination in the minute air-cells. The
inflammation leads to the pouring out of a secretion, which by degrees
becomes thick like matter, or even very tenacious, almost as tough as
though it were a thin layer of skin. If this is very extensive, and
reaches to the small air-cells, it is evident that air cannot enter,
while that elasticity of the lung which I have already spoken of tends
to drive out from the cells the small quantity of air they contained,
and the child dies suffocated, partly from the difficulty in the
entrance of air, partly from the collapse of air-cells from which the
air has been slowly expelled.
In _pneumonia_ or inflammation of the lung-substance the process is
different. A portion of one or other lung, sometimes of both, becomes
overfilled with blood, or congested, and though the air-tubes themselves
are not the special seat of the congestion, yet the air-cells are
pressed on by the surrounding swollen substance, and the entrance of air
into them is impeded. If the mischief goes further the substance becomes
solid and impervious to air, and lastly it becomes softened, its
structure destroyed, and infiltrated with matter; the affected part
becomes really an abscess, though not bounded by the distinct limits
which would shut in an abscess of the hand or the foot. Inflammation,
and the formation of an abscess anywhere is, as we know, attended by
fever and much general illness, and inflammation of the lung is of
course attended by fever and general illness in proportion to the
importance of the organ affected. To these, too, must be added all the
disturbance inseparable from any ailment which gravely interferes with
breathing.
In the great majority of instances inflammation of the lung-substance
does not go on to the last stage, and recovery is not only possible, but
probable, from congestion and solidification of the organ. Pneumonia,
too, usually attacks only a portion of one lung, while in bronchitis the
air-tubes of both are always involved. Hence of the two, serious
bronchitis is more to be dreaded than serious pneumonia.
Bronchitis is always developed out of previous catarrh, though there is
a wide difference between the duration of the preliminary stage and the
occurrence of serious symptoms in different cases; while it may be laid
down as a general rule that the severity and danger of an attack are in
proportion to the rapidity of its onset. An attack of pneumonia, or
inflammation of the lung-substance sets in, as a rule, more suddenly,
with fever, a temperature of 103° to 105°, general distress, headache,
not unfrequently delirium; the urgency of which symptoms, the hurried
breathing and the short, dry, hacking cough, and the tearless eyes are
too often misinterpreted, and the state of the chest not examined.
The doctor, of course, skilled in auscultation, will listen to the
chest and give to all these symptoms their true signification. The
lesson for the parent to bear in mind is never to neglect in a child the
symptoms of what may seem to be but a common cold, but to seek for
advice the moment the cough shows any disposition to become hard, or the
breathing hurried. Next, when any sudden illness sets in with very high
temperature and much general ailing, not to let the disorder of the
head, or the delirium, make you shut your eyes to the import of the
short cough, the dry eyes, the hurried breathing; and lastly, to
remember that, grave though the symptoms may be, the tendency in
pneumonia is to eventual recovery, and that in early life bronchitis is
the graver of the two diseases.
A caution may not be out of place with reference to cases which may
occur during the epidemic prevalence of _influenza_. A child is
sometimes struck down by it, just as grown persons are sometimes, with
great depression, extreme rapidity of breathing, and very high fever,
which, passing off in a couple of days, leave a state of great
exhaustion behind. It is well to bear in mind that such symptoms have no
such grave meaning when influenza is prevalent as they would have at
another time; and the knowledge of this fact may serve in some degree to
control your anxiety.
=Pleurisy.=--It is not possible for anyone, without medical experience,
to discriminate between pneumonia, or inflammation of the substance of
the lung, and pleurisy, or inflammation of its covering. Some degree of
the latter, indeed, very often accompanies the former, and this accounts
for the pain which interferes with every attempt of the child to draw a
deep breath. When pleurisy comes on independent of affection of the
lung-substance, it generally sets in suddenly with severe pain in the
chest, and a short hacking cough which causes so much pain that the
child tries as much as possible to suppress it. After a few hours the
severity of the pain usually subsides, but fever, hurried breathing, and
cough continue, and the child, though usually it looks heavy and seems
drowsy, yet becomes extremely restless at intervals--cries and struggles
as if in pain, and violently resists any attempt to alter its position,
since every movement brings on an increase of its sufferings. The
posture which it selects varies much; sometimes its breathing seems
disturbed in any other position than sitting straight up in bed; at
other times it lies on its back, or one side; but whatever be the
posture, any alteration of it causes much distress, and is sure to be
resisted by the child.
The variations of posture depend on the seat of the inflammation; the
pain depends on the two inflamed surfaces of the membrane rubbing
against each other, and accordingly is relieved not merely by the
abatement of the inflammation, but also when either the two surfaces
become, as they often do, adherent to each other, or when fluid is
poured out into the cavity of the chest, and thus keeps them asunder.
I dwell on this, because when fluid is poured out, the most distressing
symptoms greatly abate, or even disappear, and parents sometimes put off
in consequence sending for the doctor, while yet, if unattended to, the
fluid may increase to so large a quantity as to press upon the lung, and
so interfere with the entrance of air, or it may, if the mischief is not
checked, change into matter, and then have to be let out by tapping the
chest, for just the same reason as it may be necessary to open an
abscess in any other situation.
Whenever, then, symptoms, such as I have described, come on, send at
once for medical advice, and do not let some diminution of suffering, or
slight general improvement, lead you to delay.
=Croup.=--I endeavoured to explain, a few pages back, the cause of that
peculiar sound which is heard in spasmodic croup. The contraction of the
opening of the windpipe changes the sound which passes through it, just
as the opening or closing the keys of a wind instrument modifies the
sound which it gives forth. But the windpipe is not simply a wind
instrument, it is a stringed instrument too, and the strings or vocal
cords, as they are termed, give forth, as they vibrate, tones now
deeper, now more shrill. The action of this delicate apparatus is
readily disturbed, if the nerve-supply to it is disordered by irritation
in some distant organ, and then the breathing is accompanied by the
peculiar sound of spasmodic croup, or in older children this may show
itself in a different way, as in the loud, barking cough heard in some
cases of constipation, or of disordered digestion; or another
illustration of it is furnished by the loud, long breath--the 'hoop,'
which gives its name to hooping-cough. But there is one sound that
sometimes attends the breathing of children, which more than any other
causes, and justly causes, the greatest anxiety to a mother; and that is
the sound which is characteristic of croup.
The word croup, which comes from the Lowland Scotch, signifies merely
hoarseness in breathing or coughing, and is therefore, strictly
speaking, the name of a sign of disease, rather than that of the disease
itself. The peculiar sound is heard in two different conditions--the one
in which a child having caught cold, instead of the air-tubes alone
being affected, the windpipe, and especially its upper part, becomes
congested, and the lining membrane swollen. Partly owing to this, partly
owing to its nerve-supply being disturbed, the child breathes noisily
and hoarsely, and the cough has a peculiar metallic clangor. In the
other case there is not merely the congestion of the windpipe, the
disturbed nerve-supply, and the swollen state of the membrane; but in
connection with the influence of the special poison of diphtheria, a
deposit takes place at the back of the throat, whence it extends to the
windpipe, and in many instances even far beyond it, blocking up its
canal, and mechanically excluding the entrance of air.
To determine at once to which class a case of croup belongs is so far
from easy, that I should advise that on the first sound of voice, or
cough, or breathing resembling that of croup, medical advice should at
once be sought. I dwell on the difference between the two: the first
which has been called false croup, or better catarrhal croup, and the
second called true croup, or diphtheritic croup, in order to save much
needless apprehension to parents, in whose mind the croupy sound is
invariably associated with nothing short of that most dangerous
disease--diphtheria.
As a general rule catarrhal croup is rarely met with after the age of
six. Children in whom it occurs have either seemed quite well, or at
most have been a little ailing for a day or two with cold, and cough,
and perhaps slight hoarseness. They go to bed and fall asleep as usual,
but the cough, which does not wake them, becomes suddenly noisy,
ringing, croupy, and the breathing is speedily attended with a
long-drawn sound, half-hissing, half-ringing, and the child soon wakes
alarmed, and fighting for breath, the skin bathed in perspiration, the
face flushed and anxious. The cough, the difficult breathing, and the
struggle for air last for an hour or two, or sometimes all night long,
though they gradually subside, at any rate towards the approach of
morning, when the child falls asleep, and, but for a somewhat hoarse
sounding cough, and a look of fatigue, there are but few signs of all
that it has endured.
The attack may not return, or it may recur for two or three successive
nights, though in general with lessened severity, the child during the
daytime seeming to suffer only from a slight cold, or now and then, and
so rarely that I have not known it to occur above once or twice in all
my experience, it may end in real inflammation of the windpipe; but not
in diphtheria.
Attacks of this kind may recur three, four, or more times even in
childhood, while diphtheria has no tendency to recur, but like measles
or scarlatina seldom appears more than once, though the rule is subject
to more numerous exceptions than are found in the case of the eruptive
fevers. Still the fact of an attack of this sort returning should of
itself lessen apprehension and make the parents look forward to its
issue with less anxiety than that with which they regarded its first
occurrence.
A fact which shows how large a part is played by disturbance of the
nervous system in these cases is the liability of children who have
suffered from it to attacks of asthma, often of great severity as they
grow older, while very often after the transition from childhood to
youth has passed these attacks too lessen in frequency and severity, and
often altogether cease.
There are two measures which, while waiting for the doctor's arrival,
may at once be taken, and which sometimes remove the symptoms almost as
if by magic, while even were the case one of diphtheria they would still
be of some service, and could not possibly do any harm. They are the hot
bath, and a full dose of ipecacuanha wine. The former should be as hot
as it can be borne, 93° or 94°, and the child should be kept in it for
five minutes, and the latter should be given in a full dose, as a
teaspoonful in warm water every quarter of an hour till free vomiting
takes place. How much better soever the child may seem after the use of
these remedies, it should still be kept for two or three days under
careful medical observation.
=Diphtheria.=--In _diphtheria_ croup is only one, though the most
frequent, and one of the most serious, of the many dangerous symptoms
which attend it. The croupal symptoms hardly ever come on quite
suddenly, but are almost always preceded for some days by slight
feverishness, languor, and restlessness, in spite of which the child
still amuses itself; and if too young to express its sensations, the
slight degree of sore-throat it experiences is manifested rather by a
disinclination to take food than by any obvious difficulty in
swallowing. There is no cough, nor any change of voice when the child is
awake, but when asleep--and the sleep is generally uneasy--it often
breathes with its mouth open, it snores slightly, or there is a little
hoarse sound accompanying the breathing owing to a trivial swelling of
the throat; while, if sought for, there will generally be found a very
little enlargement, and a very little tenderness of the glands at the
corner of the lower jaw. The eyes are sometimes tearful, there may be
slight running at the nose, and the child is said to have a bad cold
with slight sore-throat--the most remarkable feature of the case being
generally that the depression of the patient is out of proportion to the
severity of the local ailment. If now the throat is examined--and
examination of the throat should never be omitted in any case where
there is the slightest difficulty of swallowing--nothing may at first be
seen but a very little swelling, and some redness of one or other
tonsil. In a few hours more, white specks like little bits of curd will
be seen first on one tonsil, then on the other, and next these specks
will have united to form one continuous layer of a sort of
yellowish-white membrane over the palate and tonsils. The examination of
the throat, often so difficult when children are ill, is attended with
almost none, if while they are well they have been taught the little
trick of opening their mouths to show their throat, and of allowing the
introduction of a spoon to keep down the tongue, a proceeding which
though certainly unpleasant they will almost always readily agree to,
like Martha Trapbois, in the 'Fortunes of Nigel,' 'for a consideration.'
The deposit on the throat may disappear of its own accord, and not be
reproduced, and this even though no treatment has been adopted, and in
two or three days the child may be pretty well again, though strength is
in general regained less rapidly than might have been expected from the
comparative mildness of the attack.
In cases so slight it is no easy matter to recognise the features of a
highly dangerous disease; still, out of forerunners so trivial as these,
croupal symptoms may be developed, and their advances may be most
insidious, and unless both parents and doctor have been closely on the
watch they may be surprised all at once by the breathing suddenly
becoming very laboured, by that and the cough becoming attended by the
sounds characteristic of croup, and by the child's life being in extreme
jeopardy, or in danger even beyond the hope of recovery.
It is not that here, as in cases of catarrhal croup, the ailment has
really come on suddenly, but that the disease has been silently making
unsuspected progress. Whenever then a child, after a few days of slight
causeless ailing, accompanied with some little discomfort in swallowing,
is seen to have white patches at the back of its throat, do not allow
yourselves to be lulled even by their disappearance into a feeling of
absolute security. Watch the child, and beg the doctor to watch it
carefully, until it is perfectly well again, for though the deposit may
have disappeared from the back of the throat it may continue to be
formed in the windpipe, and in the somewhat depressed state of the
nervous system which attends diphtheria it may not excite that
irritation which any such cause would produce in a child in perfect
health, and consequently not announce its presence until its amount has
become so considerable as to offer an almost insurmountable obstacle to
the entrance of air. Any, even the slightest, hurry of breathing, a
hissing sound when the child draws its breath, hoarseness of voice, or a
ringing cough, should quicken your apprehension of danger, and make you
seek for immediate help.
It may be as well, however, to mention here, that not every white speck
seen at the back of the throat is of necessity due to diphtheria, but
that in some cases of ordinary sore-throat white spots may form on the
surface of the tonsils. These white spots are due to the collection at
their openings of the secretion formed in the minute glands which beset
the surface of the tonsils, and which at these seasons is poured out in
greater abundance than usual. They are distinct from each other, and do
not coalesce into a membrane; the surface beneath is not the uniform red
shining surface on which the membrane in diphtheria has formed, but the
separate tiny openings from which the white matter has exuded may be
distinctly seen if the surface is wiped with a camel's-hair brush. It
is, of course, wise in every case to leave to the doctor the decision as
to the nature of the deposit, but it may sometimes relieve needless
anxiety to know beforehand that there is another cause besides
diphtheria to which white spots at the back of the throat may be due.
There are other dangers, indeed, besides those arising from croup, which
accompany diphtheria, though those just mentioned are of all the most
frequent. There are cases in which death takes place not from the
severity of any local ailment, but from the intense depression of the
nervous system. There are other instances too, in which the case assumes
what is termed a malignant character; profuse discharge taking place
from the nostrils, swallowing being from the first exceedingly
difficult, membrane being deposited on the lips, behind the ears, or at
the edge of the bowel; death taking place in twenty-four or thirty-six
hours from the outset of the first serious symptoms, either in
convulsions, or from utter exhaustion.
But the very urgency of such cases must of necessity call for the
immediate assistance of the doctor; and my business throughout this book
is rather with those points which it is important for a mother to
notice, and those things which it behoves her to do.
What does diphtheria depend on? is a question more easily asked than
answered. The disease is contagious, as scarlatina is contagious, though
not to the same degree. I may add, it is not identical with scarlatina,
nor does the one disease protect from the other. It would, perhaps, be
too much to say that it is dependent on an unsanitary condition of a
town, a village, or a house, but there is no doubt but that, as is the
case with cholera, scarlet-fever, or typhus, unsanitary conditions
favour its spread, and increase its severity.
Being contagious, it is most important to keep cups, glasses, spoons,
towels, and bed-linen separate from those of other inmates of the house,
and to remove the patient from any room occupied by other children.
Great care too is to be observed, if anyone is standing over the child
during a fit of coughing, that none of the membrane which it spits up
enters the mouth; and, that if the child's breath is caught, the
attendant gargle immediately with a teaspoonful of Condy's fluid in a
tumbler of water.
In the next place, as the depression of the nervous system in some cases
of diphtheria is quite out of proportion to the local disease, and as
children who have not seemed very suffering, have yet been known to die
suddenly in an unexpected faint, it is of moment that the child remain
constantly in bed from the commencement of the attack till complete
convalescence. Nor, indeed, in serious cases is even this precaution
sufficient; but in such circumstances not only must the child not be
taken out of bed for any purpose, but it must even not be suddenly
raised in bed, from a recumbent to a sitting posture. I have, on several
occasions, known the neglect of these precautions followed immediately
by what cannot but be regarded as the needless death of the patient.
During the illness, there is little for the mother to do, except to try
to carry out the doctor's directions, and to give the child constantly
little bits of ice to suck, which lessen the swelling of the throat, and
relieve the pain and inflammation. If the child knows how to gargle, it
should be induced to do so constantly, and finding the relief which this
affords, will do so very readily. This is not the time, however, when
the lesson 'how to gargle' can be learnt. A thoughtful mother teaches it
while the child is well, and if the gargle is composed of raspberry
vinegar and water, the lesson is learnt without tears. There comes a
time, however, if the disease is at all severe, when gargling is no
longer possible, for the muscles of the back of the throat lose their
power; but now some medicated solution, employed by means of the
spray-producer, may most efficiently take its place.
When croupal symptoms have gone on growing worse and worse, and the
child is in the agonies of suffocation, the doctor may propose to open
the windpipe, in the hope of giving the child another chance of
recovery, and even though the operation fail, of at least lessening its
sufferings.
The operation is sometimes objected to by the parents, on the ground of
the uncertainty of the result, and the torture of the operation to the
child. Now the anguish of a child dying of croup is due to two causes;
first, the actual mechanical impediment to the entrance of air produced
by the deposit in the windpipe, and secondly, to the spasm of the
muscles in the upper part of the windpipe which that deposit produces.
How large an amount of distress the latter may produce, anyone can judge
for himself, to whom it has ever happened to swallow the wrong way, as
it is called. The opening made below the seat of the muscles which close
the windpipe, leaves them in perfect rest, and does away with all the
suffering produced by spasm, while there is always a fair prospect if
the operation is not put off too long, of the deposit being limited to
the part above the artificial opening, and of the good being permanent.
It is true that we have no certain means of knowing the extent of the
deposit beforehand; it is true also that the operation is not in itself
a cure of the disease, but at any rate, it is a reprieve which gives
time for remedies to take effect, and at the worst, it substitutes a
comparatively painless death for one of intolerable anguish. It can,
too, be performed under the influence of chloroform, so that the idea
that it adds in any way to the child's distress is unfounded. Who that
has seen the calm, happy face, and watched the tranquil sleep of the
child after the operation, who before was struggling, with distorted
features and agonised countenance, to get a breath of air, but would
feel as I do, that I would have it done in a child of mine for the sake
of a painless death, even though I knew for certain that it would not
prolong life even for an hour?
One additional remark I have to make with reference to the loss of
power, or palsy of various muscles, which frequently follows diphtheria.
Almost always there is some impairment of power in the muscles of the
throat on which the deposit had taken place, and there is, in
consequence, a little difficulty in swallowing for a few days. If this
should get worse, food and especially drink sometimes return by the
nose, and next there may be a slight squint, and the sight may become
weakened, and an uncertain tottering gait; and sometimes for a week or
two the child may be unable even to stand. In bad cases there is with
these symptoms a general loss of nervous as well as of muscular power,
though the child may still be fairly cheerful, and ready to amuse itself
as well as it can. This condition may last for many weeks before it
passes quite away, and if under the mistaken impression that the limbs
will gain strength by exercise, the child is allowed to sit up and
encouraged to exert itself, recovery will be delayed much longer; and
dangerous weakness or fatal exhaustion may suddenly come on.
The inference is too obvious for me to need dwell on it, that repose is
the great resource, and quiet waiting the true wisdom.
=Hooping-Cough.=--I need not say much about _hooping-cough_, for there
is scarcely a nursery in which, to everyone's great discomfort, it is
not known as a familiar and most unwelcome visitant. It varies
remarkably in its importance, being sometimes so slight as scarcely to
amount to an illness, but in other instances one of the most deadly of
diseases. It causes the death of a fourth of all children who die under
the age of five, and three out of four of these deaths take place in
infants of less than two years old.
It occurs, however, comparatively seldom during the first three or four
months of life, probably because very young children are kept more at
home than others, and are thus less exposed to catch it. Though
hooping-cough is undoubtedly very contagious, it seems to be
communicated only by the breath, and there is absolutely no evidence to
show that the clothes of a child suffering from hooping-cough can carry
the infection as they might were the child suffering from measles, or
smallpox, or scarlet-fever; still less that a person who has visited a
room where children are suffering from hooping-cough can convey the
disease to another house, or to other children.
The disease derives its name, as everyone knows, from the peculiar sound
which attends the cough, and which is due, as is the sound of croup, to
spasm of the upper part of the windpipe. It is equally characterised by
the cough returning in fits or paroxysms, which end in a long-drawn
breath, attended by the hoop. An occasional sound like a hoop, in a
young child who has a cold, is not so conclusive of a case being one of
hooping-cough as is the recurrence of the cough in fits; for until
teething is completed, slight and temporary irritation will suffice to
produce a passing spasm of the upper part of the windpipe.
An ordinary attack of hooping-cough begins like a common cold, but as
the little ailment passes off, the cough still continues, the fits of
coughing become more frequent, last longer, grow severer and more
suffocative, and end with the loud long breath, the hoop; while
sometimes no sooner is one fit over than another follows it almost
immediately, and quiet breathing does not return until the child is
tired out by its efforts. Nevertheless, the child's health continues
fairly good, and little or nothing ails it during the intervals of the
cough. For about a fortnight the cough usually goes on to increase; and
during this time the night attacks especially become more frequent. It
then for a week or ten days continues stationary, and then declines, a
diminution in the frequency and severity of the night attacks being in
general the first sign of amendment, and at the end of six weeks from
the beginning of the attack the child is in general quite convalescent.
Even then, however, a trifling cause will reproduce the characteristic
cough for a few days, and not seldom for many months afterwards any cold
which the child may catch will be attended by a paroxysmal cough
undistinguishable save by its milder character and shorter duration from
the previous hooping-cough, though I believe incapable of communicating
that disease.
In mild hooping-cough there is little or nothing to be done, save to
follow the dictates of common sense, and not to neglect them in quest of
some imaginary specific--some vaunted medicine which is said to be a
certain cure; or such as shutting up the child in a room the atmosphere
of which is charged with the vapour of tar, or of carbolic acid, or of
sulphur.
It cannot be too strongly impressed on the minds of parents that there
is no specific whatever for hooping-cough; no remedy which will cut it
short, as quinine cuts short a fit of ague. The domestic treatment of
mild hooping-cough is the domestic treatment of a common cold, implying
the same precautions as to the equal temperature of the day and night
nursery, the little doses of ipecacuanha at night, but as seldom as
possible during the day, in order not to interfere with the appetite and
digestion, together with special care to insure the regular action of
the bowels. It sometimes happens that after a week or two the severer
fits of coughing are followed by vomiting; and the child may lose flesh
and strength from inability to retain its food. In these circumstances
food must be given, little in quantity, at short intervals, and of a
kind that need not remain long in the stomach in order to be digested.
Good soup, beef-tea, milk, rice milk, or a raw egg beaten up in milk,
and biscuit rather than bread, must take the place of the ordinary
meals, and be given twice as often.
The different liniments, and the favourite Roche's Embrocation, are of
use when the disease is on the decline, and may also be of service if
bronchitis should occur to complicate the hooping-cough, but not
otherwise.
Change of air when hooping-cough is on the decline is often of great
service, and change even from good air to one less good appears to be
sometimes of use; but change in the early stages, or when hooping-cough
has become really severe, is but adding another to the already existing
dangers.
The danger in hooping-cough arises through the medium either of the
head or of the lungs, and through each of them with about equal
frequency. The head becomes affected in consequence of the often
recurring congestion of the brain, produced, as in spasmodic croup, by
the constantly returning interruption to the breathing. In these cases
the cough is frequent, and so violent that the child becomes livid
during each paroxysm, and that instead of ending in a loud hoop it
finishes by a fit of convulsions or by the child sinking into a state of
semi-insensibility. Increased violence of the cough, with suppression of
the hoop, is always a bad omen in hooping-cough.
On the other hand, when the cough becomes complicated with bronchitis,
it ceases to recur in distinct fits which leave behind them intervals of
comparative, or of absolute ease. The hurried breathing which precedes
and follows a fit of coughing never entirely subsides, while each
returning cough aggravates the irritation and inflammation of the
air-tubes, and the child's condition becomes the very dangerous one of
hooping-cough complicated with bronchitis.
So long as a child seems pretty well in the intervals between the fits
of coughing, as the hurried breathing subsides after each to a natural
frequency, as a long loud hoop follows each cough, as vomiting takes
place only after a fit of coughing and never in the intervals, as the
child becomes flushed only and not livid during a cough, and recovers
itself perfectly afterwards, as it does not complain of constant
headache, nor spits blood, nor has nose-bleeding, nor is feverish, nor
depressed, nor drowsy, you may feel happy about it. When any of the
symptoms just enumerated show themselves you have reason for grave
solicitude, and the child requires daily medical watching.
One word in conclusion. A child who has recently had hooping-cough is
more liable than another to be attacked by chicken-pox or measles; and,
moreover, imperfect recovery from hooping-cough is apt, especially if
there is any tendency to consumption in the family, to be followed by
consumptive disease.
=Asthma.=--_Asthma_, attended by distress of breathing quite as
considerable as in the grown person, is by no means unusual in the
child. Recovery from it is far more likely to take place in the latter,
since it is almost always independent of those diseases of the heart or
lungs, which in the former occasion or aggravate it. It belongs to the
class of what has been termed nervous asthma and is observed with
special frequency in children who, when younger, had been liable to
catarrhal croup; spasm of the air-tubes having taken the place of the
previous spasm of the windpipe. Independently of that antecedent it
comes on sometimes about the time of the second teething in nervous and
impressionable children, in whom an attack may be produced by
indigestion, constipation, or over-fatigue. It is also by no means rare
in children in whom that skin affection, eczema, of which I have already
spoken, outlasts the time of infancy, and becomes general and severe.
The improper performance of the functions of the skin seems to cause a
peculiar sensitiveness of the air-tubes, and to render them liable to
the occasional occurrence of that spasm which produces asthma. These
cases are less hopeful than others, and the liability to the attacks
ceases only when the skin-affection has been completely cured; a reason
this for not neglecting eczema in infancy and early childhood.
Sometimes, too, it follows frequently-recurring attacks of bronchitis,
and, though less often than might be expected, it succeeds severe
hooping-cough, and in these two conditions the prospects of recovery are
less hopeful than in the others.
When asthma occurs in childhood, the first point is to ascertain the
cause on which the attack depends; and it is worth any amount of care to
discover and remove it; for if what may be called the asthmatic habit is
not formed, the attacks will, in the majority of instances, cease
between the ages of twelve and fifteen. Bad habits of the body are,
however, as difficult to get rid of as bad habits of the mind, and the
boy who grows up an asthmatic youth is very unlikely to get rid of the
disorder in later life.
It is in that form of asthma which succeeds to frequent attacks of
catching cold, and in which bronchitis precedes or accompanies each
seizure, that change of climate is most useful. In the majority of
instances a moderately sheltered seaside place, with a sandy soil such
as Bournemouth, is the best, and a few years' residence there not
infrequently overcomes every disposition to asthma through the whole
remainder of the patient's life. To this, however, there are exceptions,
and I have seen instances in which residence at Bournemouth and in the
Riviera have failed, but where a perfect cure has been wrought by the
cold, still air of Davos.
=Diseases of the Heart.=--=Malformed Heart.=--Every now and then one
sees a little babe, carefully wrapped up in its nurse's arms to shield
it, even on a warm day, from the air; and, on removing the shawl which
covered it, one is struck by the sight of a little pale pinched face,
with a livid ring around the mouth, and a blue instead of a rosy tint of
lips and fingertips, as though perished with cold. The babe wakes on
being disturbed, and gives a faint short cry of distress; the livid hue
of its surface deepens, it struggles feebly, its mouth twitches as
though convulsions might be coming on. Soon, however, these symptoms
subside, the babe smiles again, is cheerful, and save for the tints of
its face and lips, it looks like other infants, but frailer.
This condition has a name in medical writings, from a Greek word
expressive of the blue tint which characterises it, and is called
_cyanosis_. It depends on the blood not having undergone completely
those changes in the lungs which take place in the healthy state. The
blood, as it returns through the veins to the right side of the heart,
is of a deep purple hue. The right side of the heart contracting sends
it to the lungs, where, in the minute vessels of the air-cells, it is
purified, and returns vivified by the oxygen a bright scarlet stream, to
be distributed by the arteries over the whole body; and thence to return
once more for fresh purification to the right side of the heart. Before
birth, the blood does not run the same course, but is purified within
the mother's body, the blood running through channels which close with
the first breath the infant draws. The previously existing communication
between the two sides of the heart ceases at the same time as the new
channels are opened, by the shutting of a thin valve which had hitherto
allowed the blood to pass from one side to the other.
Sometimes this closure fails to take place, or takes place but
imperfectly; sometimes, in addition, the channels which should be
disused after birth remain open still; and sometimes also the heart is
otherwise imperfectly formed, and a large communication exists between
the two sides of the heart, which long before birth ought to have been
firmly partitioned off from each other.
According to the freedom of communication between the two sides of the
heart, there is more or less ready intermingling of the impure blood
with that which is already purified; and this is betokened by the
greater or less severity of the symptoms which I have described. When
the heart is very malformed, and the blood consequently is very impure,
life is but a short agony which ends in a few weeks; some slight
movement, some little accidental cold deranging altogether the imperfect
machinery, and bringing it to a sudden standstill. Between this and the
slightest cases there are all shades of difference, till, in the latter,
a smaller power to maintain warmth, a less rapid growth, a smaller
muscular development, a feebler power, a hurry of breathing on exertion,
or in ascending a hill, or in going up a staircase, are all, except the
sounds which the educated ear detects of the blood passing through its
devious course, that tell of nature having, in this instance, ill done
her handiwork.
The one most natural question to which, in every instance, the doctor
has to reply is this: 'Will he or she outgrow it?' To this the answer
is, '_Yes_,' and '_No_.' In the worst cases the answer is obviously
_no_; and in none does _yes_ imply a recovery so complete as to leave no
trace behind, and to make the child heartwhole. But short of this, in
many instances much may be hoped for. There is, as I shall have occasion
again to repeat, a power in the growing heart to adapt itself in large
measure to conditions other than those of perfect health. The channels,
through which the blood ought not to flow, may shrink though they may
not entirely close; the valve may shut more completely than at first the
opening between the two sides of the heart; all inconveniences may
lessen, and the child may at last become scarcely aware of the
difference between himself and others. But for any such result, or for
anything approaching it to be attained, certain conditions are
absolutely essential which it is seldom easy to induce parents to
observe. Whatever can hurry the circulation is most carefully to be
avoided. The child must be kept strictly out of the way of
hooping-cough, measles, or any other fever; must be shielded from every
risk of catching cold, and having smaller power of maintaining its
warmth than others have, must be specially warmly clad, and must live in
rooms at a temperature of 60 deg. Fahr., all the year round. Great
attention must be paid to the state of the bowels, so that constipation
may not necessitate violent efforts to relieve them.
Moreover, for years the child must be carried upstairs; when old enough
to take part in games, it must not be allowed to join in any which call
for violent exertion, such as cricket, or lawn tennis, nor ride any
other than a quiet pony at a gentle pace.
It depends entirely on the parents whether, for the sake of a very great
but far-off good, they will strictly observe these rules. The difficulty
will not arise on the child's part, for it is not hard for those who
have had charge of it from babyhood to bring it up to quiet pursuits and
quiet amusements, till it seeks no others, and, like the little
cage-bred bird, does not care to emulate the flight of others stronger
on the wing.
=Inflammation of the Heart.=--The above remarks do not comprise all
that is to be said about heart-affection in early life. _Inflammation_
may attack the investing or the lining membrane of the heart at all
ages, may produce in the child the same suffering as in the grown
person, and may tend to destroy life in a similar manner. The causes,
indeed, which produce heart disease, are far more frequent in the grown
person than in the child, and advancing age brings with it changes
which, wholly apart from active inflammation, produce grave forms of
disease unknown in early life. There is, however, one cause of heart
disease which is far more frequent in childhood and early youth than in
later life, namely, rheumatism. Eight out of ten of all cases of heart
disease under the age of fifteen are of rheumatic origin, and in
eighteen out of twenty cases of acute rheumatism under that age, whether
slight or severe, the heart becomes more or less involved. Now and then,
though rarely, the heart becomes affected in the course of scarlatina,
and still more seldom in the course of the other fevers, and every now
and then affection of the heart is associated with some other form of
inflammation of the chest.
Pain is by no means a constant attendant on it, but fever, more or less
considerable, a quickened pulse, and hurried breathing are all but
invariable, and one great reason for seeking the immediate help of the
doctor is, that his skilled ear may at once detect by the altered sounds
the heart-affection at its very outset, and employ the measures
calculated to arrest its progress.
Death in the acute stage of a first attack of inflammation of the heart
is of extreme rarity, but the damaged heart is liable to returns of
acute mischief, any one of which may prove fatal. Independently of this,
life with diseased heart is one of suffering, attended as it is by
symptoms similar in kind, though not identical with those which I have
already mentioned as attendant on malformation of the organ.
The hopeful element, however, to which I have already referred as
present in cases of malformed heart, exists here in even a greater
degree; since repair of injury is possible, while the reconstitution of
an organ faulty from birth is obviously beyond nature's power.
I can but repeat the directions already given as to the importance of
allowing the heart as much rest, and giving it as little work, as is
possible with a never-resting organ; and this with the added motive for
perseverance furnished by the happy issue which may be hoped for as its
reward.
One word I must add about the occasional occurrence of _irregular
action of the heart_ during the years of growth, especially from the age
of ten to fourteen. This is often quite independent of any disease, and
ceases when with added strength the nervous system becomes less
impressionable.
CHAPTER VIII.
DISEASES OF THE ORGANS OF DIGESTION.
=Manner of Performance of Digestion.=--The organs situated in what is
called in medical language the abdomen, have in the child no other duty
to perform than such as subserve the processes of digestion and
nutrition. The saliva secreted by the appropriate glands in the mouth,
mixing with the food, facilitates the further changes which take place
in the stomach. In the stomach the food is acted on and dissolved by the
gastric juice or pepsin, which is poured out by an almost infinity of
minute tubes, or follicles as they are termed. When the stomach has done
its work, its contents in a semi-fluid state pass into the small
intestine, and mix there with the bile, the secretions from the
intestines themselves, and with those of the large gland, the pancreas
(in culinary language known as the sweetbread), which seems to have the
special power of dissolving fatty matters. As the food, thus acted on,
travels along the intestines, whose constant movement facilitates the
passage of their contents from above downwards, its elements are taken
up, partly by the blood-vessels, partly by innumerable small vessels,
called absorbents from their power of imbibing fluids, and lacteals,
from the milky hue of the fluid within them when first absorbed. The
fluid taken up by the blood-vessels is conveyed to the liver; that taken
up by the absorbents to the mesenteric glands, and in these organs
further changes take place in it, which fit it to be received into the
mass of the circulating fluid. With this it is carried to the right side
of the heart, and thence to the lungs and, lastly, from them to the left
side of the heart, whence it is distributed, the great life and health
giver, to the rest of the body. The useless inconvertible material,
leaving every available element behind, is got rid of, either in a solid
form by the bowels, or in a fluid form by the kidneys; and thus as long
as life lasts there goes on more or less perfectly the wonderful process
of constant change, of constant renewal, and during childhood and youth,
of constant increase of size and stature.
Incomplete as this sketch is, it may yet suggest how readily one part
of this complex machinery may be thrown out of gear, and further how not
one part can suffer without all being disordered. Solid food given to
the child before it has cut its teeth, enters the stomach unreduced to
pulp by the grinders, and unmixed with the saliva, which should help its
solution, and which the undeveloped salivary glands do not yet furnish.
Too large a quantity of food, or food of an unsuitable character, on
which the gastric juice cannot act readily, may pass into a state of
fermentation; vomiting, flatulence, sour and offensive breath will be
the result, and the food will pass into the intestine unprepared to be
acted on by the bile. Exposure to cold, or the opposite condition of
excessive heat, may disturb the action of the liver, and interfere with
the secretion of bile; and the food will then pass along the intestine
in a state unsuitable for absorption. Or, again, the mesenteric glands
may be irritated by long-continued imperfect performance of the earlier
stages of digestion, or their structure may be altered, and mesenteric
disease, or consumption of the bowels, as it has been termed, may
result. From want of muscular power, or from want of care on their part
who have charge of the child, the bowels may become habitually
constipated. Health will then suffer, if the child carries about with it
for days together matters which can serve no useful purpose, but which
are to the body what an ill-kept dustbin is to the rest of the house.
Lastly, if the kidneys perform their duties imperfectly in consequence
of exposure to cold, or of the changes which some diseases, such as
scarlatina, sometimes bring about in their structure, the blood will be
imperfectly purified; dropsy and various forms of inflammation may
result; or the brain and nervous system may be disordered, and death in
convulsions may attest the dangerous nature of this blood-poisoning.
It would take too long to go in detail through all the phases of
disordered digestion in early life. Much has been already anticipated in
a former part of this book, especially with reference to the troubles of
digestion in infancy and early childhood. There is, indeed, but one form
of indigestion whose characters are so special as to require that I
should enter into any detail with reference to it.
=Dyspepsia of Weakly Children.=--Children from the age of about three to
ten years, whose health has been impaired by an attack of typhoid, or,
as it is commonly called, infantile remittent fever, or who belong to a
weakly family, or to one, some of whose members have shown a disposition
to consumptive disease, are sometimes martyrs to indigestion. It does
not need with them any special error of diet, or any casual exposure to
cold to disorder their digestion; but every two or three weeks, even
under the most scrupulous care, they lose their appetite, their tongue
becomes thickly coated with yellow fur, their breath offensive, their
bowels constipated, the evacuations being either very white or very
dark, and frequently lumpy, and coated with a thin layer of mucus from
the bowel, which also appears in shreds at the bottom of the utensil.
With this condition, too, there is some, though not considerable,
feverishness, and the urine becomes turbid on cooling, and throws down a
reddish-white deposit, which disappears if heated. At the end of two or
three days of rest in bed, of a diet of beef-tea and milk, with no solid
food, with simple saline medicines, mild aperients, and perhaps a single
small dose of calomel, the symptoms pass off; but return again and again
at uncertain intervals, and without any obvious cause.
In these cases, the children almost always, when in their ordinary
health, have a peculiar patchy condition of the tongue, one part of it
being covered with a thin white coating, through which little red points
project, while another part is of a vivid red, and looks raw and
shining, as though it had been scalded, while the red points, or the
papillæ, as they are termed, project above its surface like so many
pins' heads. Children in whom this condition exists, require much
watching and much care. I have dwelt upon it in order to impress on
parents the conviction that it is not a state to be cured, once for all,
even by the most skilful doctor, but that years are needed to eradicate
a bad habit of the body, as much as to cure a bad habit of the mind.
=Jaundice.=--I have already spoken of the jaundice of new-born infants;
but a sluggish condition of the liver, accompanied by very white or pale
evacuations, constipation, and loss of appetite, with a sallow tint of
the skin, and sometimes even with actual _jaundice_, are by no means
uncommon during the first ten years of childhood. Neither condition is
serious; that of actual jaundice occurs mostly in the summer, and is
then connected with the sudden onset of hot weather. When severe, it may
be associated with some degree of feverishness, with dizziness, and
complaint of headache, and occasionally with vomiting, while the child
rests ill at night, or awakes in a state of alarm, and these symptoms
sometimes give rise to the fear that the child is about to be attacked
by water on the brain. But the following consideration may serve to calm
anxiety on that score. The attack is not preceded, as water on the brain
is almost invariably, by several days or even weeks of failing health.
It is not attended by heat of head, nor by intolerance of light, nor by
constant nausea; and the belly is full rather than shrunken. When to
these symptoms are added tenderness on the right side, high-coloured
urine and white evacuations, you may set your mind at rest, even before
the yellow colour of the skin, which appears in a day or two, stamps the
case unmistakably as one of jaundice.
My business is, as I have said more than once, the endeavour to describe
the symptoms of disease, to explain their nature, to indicate the
principles to be observed in attempting their cure, and not to lay down
definite rules for their treatment, with the idle expectation that I
could thus enable every mother to be her children's doctor.
=Diarrh[oe]a.=--I have, therefore, comparatively little to say about
_diarrh[oe]a_ in children, important though it is, for its symptoms
force themselves on the notice even of the least observant. There are,
however, a few points concerning it worth bearing in mind. Before the
commencement of teething, diarrh[oe]a is almost always the result of
premature weaning, or of a diet in some respect or other unsuitable. As
soon as teething begins, the liability to diarrh[oe]a increases greatly,
and cases of it are more than twice as frequent, and twice as fatal,
between the ages of six and eighteen months as they were in the first
six months of life; while, as soon as teething is over, their number
immediately declines again to the half of what it was during the
continuance of that process. The practical conclusions to be drawn from
these facts are that looseness of the bowels during teething is not a
desirable occurrence to be promoted, as some mistakenly imagine, but a
risk to be by all means avoided, and I may add, when it does take place,
far less easy to control than constipation is to remedy. And next, that
in order to prevent its occurrence, care should be taken to make changes
in the diet of a child, not during the time when a fresh eruption of
teeth is taking place, but during one of the pauses in that process.
There are certain seasons of the year when diarrh[oe]a is specially
prevalent, independent of any change in diet, or alteration, in any
respect, of the circumstances in which the child is placed. Thus, in
May, June, and July, diarrh[oe]a is twice as prevalent among children at
all ages as in November, December, and January; and in August,
September, and October, its prevalence is three times as great as during
the winter months. The high mortality of children in the summer months
is due almost entirely to diarrh[oe]a, and even the bitter Northern
winter of a city like Berlin is a third less fatal to infants and young
children than the heat of its short summer.
The next point to remember is that mere looseness of the bowels is
never to be regarded during the first three years of life as of no
importance; for I have seen infants die exhausted from its continuance,
even though the examination of the body after death showed almost no
sign of disease. Doctors distinguish two forms of diarrh[oe]a: the
simple, or, as it is technically called, catarrhal diarrh[oe]a; and
inflammatory diarrh[oe]a, or dysentery. The one may pass into the other,
just as a common cold, or catarrh, may pass, if unattended to, into a
dangerous bronchitis.
_Simple diarrh[oe]a_ usually comes on gradually, and is some days
before it grows severe, or passes into the more dangerous dysentery.
Simple precautions will often arrest its progress, and, among them, rest
in bed is one of the most important. Over and over again I have known a
diarrh[oe]a which had continued in spite of all sorts of medicines so
long as the child was running about, cease at once when the child was
kept for a couple of days in bed. The reason of this is obvious;
constant movement of the intestines themselves, which serves so
important a part in maintaining due action of the bowels, is increased
by the upright position and by movement, and is reduced to a minimum by
the horizontal position. A second precaution concerns the diet; solid
food and animal broths should for a time be discontinued, and arrowroot,
milk and water, and rice substituted for it, for a day or two, with
isinglass jelly, and the white decoction of which I have already spoken.
It is not always that astringents are suitable at the beginning of an
attack, and the sending to the neighbouring chemist for diarrh[oe]a
medicine, which often contains an unknown quantity of opium, is always
risky, frequently mischievous. In a first attack of diarrh[oe]a, the
doctor should always be consulted, for when it is associated with
disorder of the liver a mercurial may in the first instance be needed,
or possibly very small doses of a saline medicine, such as Epsom salts,
with the addition of a few drops of the tincture of rhubarb; or, again,
if the diarrh[oe]a sets in with profuse watery discharges, sulphuric
acid for the first few hours is often of extreme service. It is at a
later time that direct astringents commonly have their use; and the
mother, who in her child's first attack of diarrh[oe]a has had the
advice of a judicious doctor, will often be helped by him to manage for
herself slight returns of the ailment.
_Inflammatory diarrh[oe]a_, or dysentery, not only follows the
continuance of the simpler forms of the disease, but sometimes in the
hot months of summer or autumn sets in suddenly with violence. It then
frequently commences with vomiting, and the stomach may continue so
irritable for twenty-four hours as not to retain even a teaspoonful of
cold water. At the same time the over-action of the bowels sets in, and
twenty or thirty evacuations may be passed in twenty-four hours. The
motions soon lose their natural character, and become watery, slimy, and
mixed with blood. They are at first expelled with violence, afterwards
with much pain, effort, and often fruitless straining. With these local
symptoms, the child, as might be expected, is very ill, feverish, and
stupid, though without sound sleep, much exhausted, and its nervous
system so disturbed as to occasion frequent twitchings of the fingers
and of the corners of the mouth, while sometimes actual convulsions take
place. The thirst is intense, the child calling constantly for cold
water, and crying out for more the moment the cup is taken away from its
lips; while the loss of flesh and the exhaustion are more rapid than in
any other disease with which I am acquainted. The fat happy babe of four
and twenty hours before is scarcely to be recognised in the miserable
little being, with sunken lustreless eyes, and wizened features, and
miserable countenance, lying in a state of half-stupor, sensible only to
pain, which yet rouses it but to utter a moan, and then sinks again into
silent suffering. I can well believe what we are told, that in some
countries this, the so-called Summer Complaint of many of the American
cities, sometimes carries off children in a few hours.
If a fatal termination does not take place speedily, the disease passes
into the chronic stage, the diarrh[oe]a diminishing in frequency, but
the pain and straining, and the unhealthy character of the evacuations
persisting. Ulceration of the bowels has taken place, emaciation becomes
extreme, and the child often sinks at the end of several weeks, worn out
by suffering; while recovery, doubtful at the best, is always very slow.
But I need not pursue this subject further: enough has already been said
to show how little infantile diarrh[oe]a is a disorder for domestic
management.
=Peritonitis=, or inflammation of the membrane covering the bowels and
lining the cavity of the belly, is of excessive rarity in its acute
form; and is attended by such general illness and such severe local
suffering, that it is impossible to overlook it or to misapprehend its
gravity. Severe pain in the belly is sometimes complained of by
children, and is due to what is termed colic, a spasm of the bowels
which is generally associated with constipation. The great test of the
cause of the pain is furnished by the presence or absence of tenderness
on pressure. The pain of colic is relieved by gentle pressure and gentle
rubbing. The pain of inflammation in any degree and of any kind is
aggravated by them. This applies also to cases, not indeed very common,
in which inflammation is set up by some small body, such as a
cherry-stone getting fixed in a little offshoot or appendage of about
the size and length of the little finger, connected with the
commencement of the large bowel, and producing ulceration. In these
circumstances the bowels are confined, there are nausea and sickness,
together with pain and tenderness of the belly, especially on the right
side. The disease is a very dangerous one, and often proves fatal in the
course of a few days. I refer to it because I have often seen it
overlooked both by parents and doctors at its outset, since the pain
then is often not severe nor the tenderness intense, and because I have
seen the patient's condition rendered hopeless by strong aperients being
given to overcome the constipation which was supposed to be all that
ailed the child. I repeat then the caution, never to overlook the
existence of tenderness, never to attempt to treat a case in which it is
present; but always to call in medical advice, and above all always to
abstain, unless ordered by a medical man, in every such case from the
use of aperients.
=Large Abdomen.=--I must not leave the subject of disorder of the
digestive organs without some reference to a condition which often
excites much needless anxiety among mothers, namely, the large size of a
child's belly. This is sometimes supposed to be a certain evidence of
the presence of worms, at other times to be a positive proof of the
existence of grave disease, especially of disease of the mesenteric
glands, or glands of the bowels as they are popularly termed. It is
evidence of neither the one nor the other.
If you go into a gallery of the old masters, and look at any of the
pictures of angels which are generally to be seen there in such
abundance, you will probably be struck in the case of all the child
angels by what will seem to you the undue size of their abdomen. You
will notice this even in the works of painters who, like Raphael, most
idealise their subjects, while in those of others who, like Rubens,
interpret nature more literally, the apparent disproportion becomes
grotesque; or, in the coarser hands of Jordaens, even repulsive.
These painters were, after all, true interpreters of nature. In infancy
and early childhood the abdomen is much larger comparatively than in the
grown person. For this there is a twofold cause; the larger size of the
liver on the one hand, and the smaller development of the hips on the
other. In a weakly child this appearance is exaggerated by its want of
muscular power, which allows the intestines to become much distended
with air. If the child is not merely weakly but also ricketty, the
contracted chest will leave less room than natural for the lungs, while
at the same time the ordinary development of the hips being arrested by
the rickets, the disproportion is further increased both by that and by
the flatulence due to the imperfect digestion with which the condition
is almost always associated.
In no case need the mere size of the abdomen occasion grave anxiety, so
long as when the child lies upon its back the abdomen is uniformly soft,
nor so long as even if tense it is not tender, and as it everywhere
gives out a hollow sound like a drum when tapped with the finger.
It is not for a moment meant that no notice is to be taken, nor opinion
asked, as to the cause of excessive size of the abdomen, for its
distension may be due to real disease; but it is yet worth while to
remember that its mere size is not of itself evidence of disease, nor
cause of grave anxiety.
=Worms.=--There is no mistaking or overlooking the existence of _worms_
when they are really present. Their presence, however, is often
suspected without any sufficient reason. Ravenous or uncertain appetite,
indigestion, flatulence, undue size of the abdomen, a dark circle round
the eyes, itching of the nose and of the entrance of the bowel, a coated
tongue, and offensive breath are no real proof of the presence of worms,
and do not justify the frequent repetition of violent purgatives or of
so-called worm medicines. The only real proof of the presence of worms
is their being seen in the evacuations.
The worms commonly found in children are either the round-worm, which
resembles the earth-worm, the thread-worm, or the tape-worm; the
appearance of each of which is clearly indicated by its name. None of
them are spontaneously generated in the body, but they are all
introduced from without; their eggs, or, as they are technically called,
their ova, being swallowed unperceived in some article of food, or
drink. A proof of this is afforded by the fact that an infant, so long
as it is nourished exclusively at the breast, never has worms.
The _round-worm_ occasions the fewest symptoms, and is rather an object
of disgust than of grave importance, at least in this country, where it
seldom happens that more than two or three are present. In other
countries, as some parts of Italy, for instance, where the drinking
water is bad and stagnant, they are sometimes found in great numbers, as
thirty or forty, and it is then not easy to determine whether the
symptoms which accompany them are produced by the worms, or by the
unwholesome character of the water in other respects.
They appear to live on the contents of the intestines, and do not adhere
to them, as the tape-worm does, and hence their comparative
harmlessness, and they have no power, as has sometimes been mistakenly
imagined, of perforating the bowels, and of thus producing grave
mischief.
The _thread-worm_ is the commonest variety of these creatures, and has
the peculiarity of inhabiting the lowest twelve inches of the bowel,
where it produces much irritation and causes very distressing itching.
It is often present in great numbers, and is so rapidly reproduced, that
in a week or two after it has been apparently got rid of, it may again
be found as numerous as before. Certain articles of food seem to favour
its development, such as pastry, sugar, sweets, beer, fruit, and
anything which is apt to undergo fermentation, and thereby to impart to
the evacuations a specially acid character. These worms are often
accompanied with more or less marked symptoms of indigestion, but
otherwise the local irritation is usually the only indication of their
presence. They produce, indeed, such disturbance of the nervous system
as may attend indigestion in any of its forms, but I have never but once
known convulsions occur apparently due to their presence in great
numbers, and ceasing on their expulsion; and this was in a child between
eighteen months and two years old.
The _tape-worm_ is developed in the human body from a minute germ or
ovum; one form of which exists in the flesh of the bullock, the other in
that of the pig; and which seems to require for its growth the favouring
conditions of warmth and moisture which are found in the intestines. It
fixes itself to the lining of the bowels by means of its mouth, which is
furnished with minute tentacles, and it thus derives its support from
the juices which it imbibes. The head is so small as not to be seen
distinctly without a magnifying glass; and immediately beyond it the
jointed body begins; at first, scarcely bigger than a thread of worsted,
but gradually enlarging, till at the distance of three inches it is an
eighth of an inch wide, and thence rapidly widens till each joint is
half an inch wide, and from a third to half an inch apart. It does not
exceed these dimensions, even though it may grow to the length of four
or six yards. Portions of it, sometimes a yard or two in length, are
thrown off from its lower end occasionally, and this occurrence often
gives the first indication of its presence, the worm continuing to grow
as before, and fresh portions being detached from time to time. It does
not appear that the worm has the power of reproducing itself; hence its
French name of _ver solitaire_, and the occasional presence of two or
three would seem to be due to the development of two or three distinct
ova within the intestine.
Deriving as it does its support from the system of the child, and not as
the other worms do from the contents of the bowel, the tape-worm often
produces graver inconveniences. It sometimes causes uncomfortable
colicky sensations, which may even be very distressing, and the
disorders of digestion which accompany it are often very considerable;
certainly more so than in the case of the other varieties of worms; but
I have seen no instance of convulsions which could be attributed to
them, notwithstanding the generally received opinion to the contrary.
When the existence of worms is suspected, one or two doses of a simple
aperient, such as castor oil, repeated two days successively, seldom
fail to produce evidence of their presence; which in the case of
tape-worm is also furnished by the spontaneous detachment of some of the
joints. It must be remembered, however, that until the head has been
detached from its connection with the bowel, nothing has been gained,
and the tape-worm will in a short time grow again. To obtain the
detachment of the head it is necessary that any worm medicine should be
given when the intestines are empty. I am, therefore, always accustomed
to give a dose of castor oil about two hours after the child's mid-day
meal; and to send the child to bed as soon as the aperient begins to
act, and to give it no more food except a biscuit and a little milk and
water during the rest of the day. In the early morning, the special worm
medicine is given, and over and over again I have known the worm to be
brought away completely after many previous failures. When the smallness
of the joints shows that the greater part of the worm has been thrown
off, and that little more than the head remains, it is necessary to have
recourse to the unpleasant proceeding of mixing the evacuations with
water, and then straining them through muslin, in order that the doctor
may by means of the microscope make out whether or no the head has been
really detached. This is no question of mere curiosity, but a matter of
the gravest moment, since nothing has been really gained so long as the
head of the worm remains adherent to the bowel.
Precautions such as these are not needed in the case of the other kinds
of worms. Thread-worms, however, are best attacked in their habitation;
that is to say, in the lower bowel, by means of lavements. It is,
therefore, desirable before they are administered that the bowels should
be emptied by a dose of castor oil.
The only other caution which remains for me to give refers to the
peculiar effect which salicine, a very valuable medicine, especially in
the case of thread-worms, has upon the urine. It sometimes turns the
urine of a greenish-yellow, often of a red colour, as though it were
mixed with blood. The appearance, however, has no grave meaning, but is
due simply to a chemical action of the medicine on the colouring matter
and salts of the urine.
There still remain some local ailments of parts connected with the
process of digestion, concerning which a few words must be said.
=Ulcerated Mouth.=--First, with reference to the _sore-mouth_ of
children. I have already noticed a form of inflammation and ulceration
of the gums sometimes met with during teething, but the sore-mouth of
which I am now about to speak is often quite independent of that
process; though it may sometimes be found associated with it, and is
indeed rarely met with after five years of age. In almost all instances
it is preceded and attended with symptoms of indigestion, during the
course of which the mouth becomes inflamed, hot and red, and small very
painful shallow ulcers with sharp-cut edges, and a little yellowish
deposit on their surface, appear at the edge of the tongue, on the
inside of the mouth, and especially on the inside of the lower lip, and
the adjacent surface of the gum. Successive crops of these little
ulcerations not unfrequently appear, so that for many weeks the child
may be kept by them in a state of extreme discomfort; swallowing, and
even speaking being the occasions of considerable suffering.
It is seldom that nursery remedies, and the so-called cooling
medicines, though often of some service, suffice to get rid of the
ailment, which for the most part needs judicious medical treatment, and
local as well as constitutional measures. Now and then this condition
comes on in the course of measles, and is then sometimes of serious
importance.
In the other form, the disease is usually limited to the gums, and
affects especially those of the front of the lower jaw, which become
swollen, ulcerated at their edges, where a very ill-smelling deposit
takes place of a dirty white or greyish colour, the surface beneath
being spongy, swollen, raw, and bleeding. The ulceration sometimes
extends so as to lay bare a large part of the sockets of the teeth; but
though loosened they seldom drop out. Coupled with this, the glands at
the angle of the jaw are swollen, and the child dribbles constantly a
large quantity of horribly offensive saliva. In the children of the
well-to-do classes the condition is seldom seen except in a slight
degree; but even when severe it is rarely accompanied by any grave
disorder of the general health. It seems to tend, whether treated or
left to itself, slowly to get well; but its progress to a natural cure
is extremely tedious, and the gums are left by it for a long time
spongy, bleeding easily, and only very imperfectly covering the teeth.
Anxiety is sometimes excited by this condition; it being supposed that
the white deposit on the edge of the gum implies some relation between
it and diphtheria. This is not so, for though this peculiar ulceration
of the gums has now and then been found associated with diphtheria, the
nature of the two diseases is essentially different. It is, however,
always wise to call in medical advice in order to settle this important
question, and the more so, since there is one remedy, the chlorate of
potass, which, in appropriate doses, acts upon the condition almost as a
charm.
I say nothing about a dreadful form of inflammation of the mouth which
ends in mortification, because it is of infinite rarity except among the
destitute poor, and even among them it is very seldom seen except as a
consequence of measles, or of some kind of fever. It is only among the
very poor that I have seen it, and even among them it has come under my
notice only ten times in the whole course of my life.
There is a very common but inaccurate opinion that sore-mouth in
childhood is often produced by the employment of mercury. I never yet
saw a sore mouth due to the administration of mercury in any child
before the first set of teeth were entirely cut; and never but once out
of 70,000 cases which have come under my notice in hospital or
dispensary practice, have I seen in children of any age under twelve any
affection of the mouth from mercury sufficiently severe to cause me a
moment's anxiety.
=Quinsey=, or inflammatory sore-throat, has in it nothing specially
peculiar to the child, but occurs at all ages with the same symptoms. It
is, however, comparatively rare under twelve years of age, and is almost
always less severe in childhood than at or after puberty, while I
scarcely remember to have met with it under five years of age. This
circumstance attaches special importance to sore-throat in young
children, since it will usually be found to betoken the approach of
scarlet fever, or of diphtheria, rather than the existence of simple
inflammation, or quinsey.
While this fact affords a reason for most scrupulous attention to every
case of sore-throat in children, and this in proportion to the tender
age of the child, needless alarm is sometimes caused by the appearance
on the inflamed tonsils of numerous white specks, which are at once
supposed to be diphtheritic. I have already pointed out the distinction
between the two conditions when speaking of diphtheria, but the matter
is so important that I will repeat what I then said. These spots are not
in the form of a uniform white patch or membrane, which, on being
removed, leaves the surface beneath red, raw, and often slightly
bleeding; but they are rather distinct circular spots, firmly adherent
to the tonsil, wiped off with difficulty, and evidently exuding from the
openings of little pits, blind pouches, or glands, with which the
surface of the tonsil is beset. I do not advise any parent to rest
satisfied with his or her judgment on this matter the first time that
they notice this appearance; but there are children with whom slight
sore-throat is always attended by this condition, and others in whom the
tonsils are habitually enlarged, and seldom free from these white spots
flecking their surface.
=Enlarged Tonsils.=--I have said that quinsey or acute inflammation of
the tonsils is unusual in early childhood; but a sort of chronic
inflammation of those glands which leads to their very considerable
enlargement is far from uncommon; and is sometimes the cause of very
serious discomfort. It is seldom traceable to any acute attack of
sore-throat, but usually comes on imperceptibly in children who are
feeble or out of health, or takes place slowly during the cutting of the
first set of grinding teeth; the irritation which that produces being in
some cases its only apparent exciting cause. Not seldom the enlargement
has become considerable before it attracts attention; one of the first
symptoms that indicate it being the loud snoring of the child during
sleep, who is compelled by the obstruction at the back of the nostrils
to breathe with its mouth open. The voice at the same time becomes
thick, and this and the snoring breathing are both greatly aggravated
when the child catches cold.
A greater degree of enlargement of the tonsils occasions deafness from
pressure on the passage leading to the internal ear, and is also apt to
give rise to a troublesome hacking cough which sometimes excites
apprehension lest the child's lungs should be diseased. When still more
considerable the enlarged tonsils block up the passage through the
nostrils, and air consequently enters the lungs but very imperfectly.
The nostrils thus disused become extremely small, narrow, and
compressed, the upper jaw does not undergo its proper development, the
teeth are crowded and overlap each other, the palate remains narrow and
unusually high-arched, and the face assumes something of a bird-like
character. Besides this the child grows pigeon-breasted, owing to the
lungs not being filled sufficiently at each inspiration to overcome the
pressure of the external air on the yielding sides of the chest.
When any considerable enlargement of the tonsils exists, each cold that
the child may catch aggravates it, and if diphtheria, scarlatina, or
severe sore-throat should occur, the temporary increase of the swelling
may become the occasion of serious danger. The question arises, what are
the chances that a child whose tonsils are enlarged will outgrow the
condition, or when is it necessary to have the enlarged tonsils removed?
It scarcely ever happens that any such enlargement of the tonsils exists
in children under six years of age as to call for their removal. There
is almost always ground for the hope that after the irritation caused by
cutting the first four permanent grinding teeth has completely ceased,
the tonsils may return by degrees to their former size. A similar
shrinking of the enlarged tonsil sometimes takes place, especially in
the boy, at the time of approach to manhood, when the vocal organs
undergo full development. This can be counted on, however, only in cases
where the tonsils are not of extreme size, and have not undergone
frequent attacks of inflammation. Whenever the hearing is habitually
dull, and the voice always thick, when cough is frequent, the nostrils
narrow, the chest pigeon-breasted, and the child feeble and ill-thriven,
removal of the tonsils is absolutely necessary. In cases where the
question is doubtful, its decision must turn on whether the tonsils have
often been inflamed. So long as their surface is smooth, and their
substance soft and elastic, delay is permissible. When their substance
is hard, like gristle, and their surface uneven and corrugated, they
have undergone such changes that absorption is impossible, and their
removal absolutely necessary.
I dwell thus particularly on the question of removal of the tonsils,
because there is among many persons an unreasoning dread of the
operation, which is entirely devoid of danger, requiring only a few
seconds for its performance, and which may even be done under
chloroform. The painting tincture of iodine behind the angle of the jaw,
or the touching the tonsils with caustic, iodine, alum, tannin, or sweet
spirits of nitre are utterly futile proceedings. They diminish the
unhealthy and often offensive secretion from the glands which beset the
tonsils, and restore the surface to a more healthy condition, but they
are absolutely without influence in lessening their size.
Now and then all the symptoms of enlarged tonsils are present, but yet
most careful examination fails to discover any increase of their size.
When this is the case the symptoms are due to a thickening of the
membrane at the back part of the nostrils, often attended with spongy
outgrowths from their surface, which obstruct just as completely as
enlarged tonsils would do the free entrance of air. It will, in any case
where this condition is suspected, be absolutely necessary to seek the
advice of some of those gentlemen who make a specialty of diseases of
the throat, and who will have the necessary technical dexterity to
discover the condition, and to treat it skilfully.
=Abscess at back of the Throat.=--I should pass unnoticed, on account of
its rarity, the occasional formation of an abscess at the back of the
throat, behind the gullet, interfering both with breathing and with
swallowing, but that the description of it in my Lectures once enabled a
lady in the wilds of Russia to detect it, to point out the nature of the
case to her puzzled doctor, to urge him to open the abscess, and thus to
save her child's life.
This abscess may form at any age, sometimes after fever, sometimes
without any obvious cause. It shows itself by difficulty in swallowing
and breathing, unattended by cough, but accompanied by a sound similar
to that of croup, but not so harsh or ringing. The neck is stiff, the
head thrown back, and often there is a distinct swelling on one or other
side of the neck. The finger introduced into the mouth, and carried over
the tongue to the back of the throat, feels there a swelling which
projects over the top of the windpipe, and causes the difficulty both in
swallowing and breathing. This swelling is the abscess; a prick with the
surgeon's lancet lets out the matter, and saves the child.
=Diseases of the Kidneys.=--The _kidneys_ perform very important duties
in carrying off from the system a large amount of useless material, and
thus supplement in many respects the action of the skin, and the
purifying influence which is exercised by the air on the blood, as it
passes through the lungs.
It is evident, therefore, that their disorder in any way must be a
matter of serious moment, though at the same time the knowledge of the
skilled doctor is needed to determine the nature and degree of the
ailment from which they are suffering, since that requires an
examination of the urine, both chemically and by means of the
microscope. My remarks on these diseases must consequently be few and
fragmentary.
In the grown person, what is known as _Bright's disease_ is of frequent
occurrence, assumes different forms, and depends on various causes. In
the child it is comparatively rare, and is scarcely ever met with except
as a consequence of a chill, or as a result of scarlatina. In these
conditions the kidneys become overfilled with blood or congested, and
the congestion may pass into inflammation, by which their structure may
be irreparably damaged. Dropsy is the great outward sign of the
affection--either slight swelling of the face, eyelids, and ankles, or
very great swelling of all the limbs, and even the abundant pouring out
of fluid into the belly. The degree of dropsy is, however, by no means
an absolute measure of the amount of kidney mischief. It therefore
behoves every parent to follow out all directions most scrupulously even
in cases of very slight dropsy, in order to guard against the risk of
permanent injury to the kidneys being left behind; and especially to
remember the liability to the occurrence of dropsy and disease of the
kidneys after scarlatina. Any check to the action of the skin while it
is peeling or desquamating, as it is termed, is especially liable to be
followed by these accidents. To avoid all risks as far as possible, I
have been accustomed for many years to insist on a child remaining in
bed for one-and-twenty days after the first appearance of the rash in
even the mildest case of scarlatina, and I am absolutely sure that it is
the height of imprudence ever to neglect this precaution.
It will suffice to mention the fact that _diabetes_, though very rare,
may yet occur in childhood, and that as a rule it is more dangerous in
childhood than in the grown person. Whenever a child loses flesh without
obvious cause, suffers much from thirst, and at the same time passes
urine in greater abundance than in health, the possibility that it may
suffer from diabetes must be borne in mind.
Of far greater frequency than any other affection of the kidney is that
in which the child passes _gravel_ with the urine, either in the form of
a reddish-white sediment, which collects at the bottom of the vessel as
the urine cools, or of minute glistening red particles, which resemble
grains of cayenne pepper.
These deposits, when abundant in the male child, have a tendency to
collect in the bladder, and there to form a stone. This painful disease,
too, is so much more frequent in childhood than at a later age, that
more than a third--indeed, nearly half--of all the operations for stone
performed in English hospitals are done on boys under ten years old.
Even when this grave consequence does not follow the presence of gravel
in the kidneys, and its passage into the bladder, it is often
accompanied with much suffering. The pain is like that of stomach-ache
or colic, the child crying and drawing up its legs on every attempt to
pass water, which sometimes is voided only in a few drops at a time, and
now and then is completely suppressed for some hours. The very acute
form of the ailment seldom occurs, except in infants who inherit from
their parents a disposition to gouty or rheumatic affections. In them,
however, a trifling cold, slight disorder of the digestion, a state of
constipation, or the feverishness and general irritation which sometimes
attend on teething, not infrequently produce these deposits and give
rise to all these painful symptoms, the deposit disappearing and the
pain ceasing so soon as the brief constitutional disturbance subsides.
The very acute attacks seldom occur after the first two years of life,
but similar symptoms, though less severe, are by no means unusual in
older children, and continue to recur from very trifling causes,
especially from errors in diet and disorders of digestion.
In spite of the suffering which for the time attends it, there is no
cause for anxiety with reference to the issue of each attack. The warm
bath, a castor oil aperient, and soothing medicine soon relieve the
pain, and the children return to their former state of health. It is the
frequent return of the attack, even in a comparatively mild form, the
persistent disposition to the formation of gravel, the remote risk in
the case of male children of stone in the bladder, and the habitually
imperfect performance of the digestive functions which call for special
care. The avoidance of sugar, sweets, and whatever tends to impart
acidity to the urine, the maintaining the due action of the skin by
wearing flannel, and the judicious use of alkaline remedies, sometimes
combined with iron, are the measures on which the doctor is sure to
insist.
The difficulty usually encountered in the treatment of these cases
arises from the reluctance of the parents to continue for months and
years the observance of the necessary rules. It seems so hard to deny
their little one the small gratifications in which other children may
indulge with impunity; and they fail to realise the heavy penalty, in
the shape of gout, rheumatism, gravel, and stone, which in after-life
their darling may have to pay for their over-indulgence in his early
years.
I will just mention that symptoms similar to those above described, less
severe, though more abiding, yet unattended by gravel in the urine, are
sometimes produced in little boys by an unnatural narrowness of the end
of the passage for the urine. It is well to bear in mind this possible
cause of the child's sufferings, and to consult a doctor with reference
to it, since he will be able to relieve it by a trivial operation.
=Incontinence of Urine.=--The irritation which this mechanical
inconvenience produces sometimes has to do with that troublesome
infirmity of some children, who wet the bed at night. This may also be
induced by a very acid, and consequently irritating, state of urine,
either with or without the appearance in it of gravel. Often, however,
it is a result of want of care on the part of the nurse, who neglects to
cultivate regular habits in a child; and does not pay attention to the
quantity of liquid taken at its last meal. Something, too, is due to the
fact that the sleep of a child is deeper than that of the grown person,
so that the sensation of want, which would arouse the latter to full
consciousness, does not have the same effect on the former. It sometimes
happens undoubtedly from mere indolence; and this may always be
suspected when a child, otherwise healthy, wets itself not at night
only, but also in the daytime. Lastly, it does sometimes occur from
muscular feebleness in weakly children, the bladder being unable to bear
more than a limited degree of distension.
The accident usually happens either soon after going to bed, when the
warmth stimulates the action of the bladder, or towards morning, when
the bladder has become full. The posture on the back favours its
occurrence very much, and it is therefore of importance that the child
should lie on its side when in bed. The good effect of a blister on the
lower part of the back as a means of cure was largely due to its forcing
the child to lie on its side. This object can be attained, however, in a
much kindlier way, by tying half a dozen cotton reels together, and
fastening them at the child's back. The habit may also often be broken
through by arousing the child in the night, and compelling it to empty
its bladder, the hour being first ascertained at which the accident
usually happens. For this, however, to be of any real use, the child
must be awakened thoroughly; since otherwise it will mechanically, and
quite unconsciously, empty its bladder while still asleep. The habit in
this case is not in the least overcome; only for the time the bed
escapes the wetting. The utensil must therefore be placed on different
nights at different parts of the room, so that the child, in order to
find it, must have been roused to thorough consciousness.
Lastly, I will add that the cases in which the accident is the result of
mere indolence are very rare, and though in such cases strictness may be
necessary, yet actual punishment is out of place. As a rule, reward
answers much better. A penny, or a threepenny-piece every night that the
accident does not happen, and a forfeit of a halfpenny or two pence for
every night of misfortune, is a very efficacious help to a cure.
When all these domestic means, persevered in for months, fail to
produce any result, medical aid must be called in.
CHAPTER IX.
CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES.
There remains for consideration a large class of what may be termed
_constitutional diseases_, in which the local ailment is the outcome of
a previous disorder of the whole system. These diseases are either acute
or chronic. The acute constitutional diseases belong to the class of
fevers. These are marked by certain local characteristics, as the
swelling of the joints in acute rheumatism, the sore-throat in
scarlatina, or the eruption on the skin in smallpox, and their course is
more or less strictly limited by distinct periods of increase, acme, and
decline. No such rule obtains in the case of consumption, scrofula, and
rickets, which are instances of chronic constitutional diseases. In them
too the local manifestations of the general disease vary also: the lungs
being affected in one case of consumption, the bowels in another; while
scrofula may show itself by affection of the glands in one case, by the
formation of abscesses in a second, or by disease of the bones in a
third.
=Chronic Constitutional Diseases.=--It may perhaps be convenient to
study first the chronic constitutional diseases; and afterwards to make
a few, and they will be but few, remarks on fevers.
=Consumption= and Scrofula, though similar, are not the same disease.
Both, however, depend on some defect in the blood, as the result of
which certain materials, incapable of being converted into the natural
constituents of the body, are deposited in the substance of different
external parts or internal organs. If deposited in small quantities,
these materials may be absorbed, as it is termed, that is to say, got
rid of, by natural processes, which even now we understand but
imperfectly.
If deposited more abundantly, they press upon and gradually spoil the
healthy parts in which they are seated, and thereby interfere with the
proper performance of their duties. Thus, the deposit of consumption
encroaches on the proper substance of the lungs, and so lessens the area
in which the blood is exposed to the air and purified: the deposit of
scrofula around and in a joint interferes with its powers of movement.
Nor is this all; but wherever any deposit has once taken place, it tends
especially to increase in that very spot, guided as it were by a certain
affinity; and the substance of the previously healthy part is removed as
fresh deposit comes to occupy its place. Further, the matter deposited
has no power of being changed into healthy substance of lung, or of
bone, or of any other part.
A fractured limb may be completely mended; a fluid is poured out around
and between the edges of the broken bone; by degrees this hardens, it
undergoes changes which convert it into solid bone, and the limb is once
more as serviceable as before, though some indications of the fracture
may still be perceptible in the texture of the bone itself. Or, a person
receives a severe blow on his arm or leg; in course of time the blood
which had flowed from the ruptured vessels, and had formed a big bruise,
is absorbed, and all is as before the injury was inflicted. If more
serious damage has been done, the fibres of some muscles may have been
torn, even though the skin remains unbroken. Inflammation is set up, the
injured parts die, and are melted down into the matter of an abscess.
The abscess discharges itself, its walls contract, the opposite surfaces
come into contact, and are welded together again, so that there is no
loss of substance, nor anything save a scar on the surface to indicate
what has happened.
In the case of the deposits of consumption or scrofula these changes
cannot take place. In technical language the matter is said to be
incapable of organisation; that is to say, it cannot be transformed by
nature's alchemy into anything good or useful. It is rubbish to be got
rid of; and the patient's recovery depends on the possibility of getting
rid of it. If there is much of it, so as to be removed from the
vivifying influence which adjacent living structures still maintain
about it, the deposit softens at its centre. This softening gradually
extends to the circumference; the mass irritates more and more the parts
around it, and where the irritation is greatest the structures yield,
and are removed to make a way for its escape, and the patient spits up
the contents of the abscess.
But the abscess of the lungs is not like an abscess which follows an
injury. It has not formed in the midst of previously healthy parts which
are capable of reproducing the original structure; its walls are
themselves involved in the disease, and, in accordance with the rule I
have already mentioned, 'much will have more,' and the patient goes on
spitting up the perpetually renewed contents of the abscess for months
or years; until by its gradually increasing size, and the more and more
abundant discharge of matter, and further and further destruction of
lung-substance, death takes place.
This fatal issue, however, is not invariable. In favourable
circumstances, and especially in childhood, the radical constitutional
defect may be amended, and with a healthier condition of the blood the
unhealthy deposit may cease to take place. The lung-substance, however,
with all its curious structure of air-cells and their network of minute
vessels where, as in nature's laboratory, the blood receives its due
supply of oxygen, is not reproduced. The lung shrinks, the sides of the
abscess come together, and by slow degrees a dense material cuts it off
from the adjacent healthy structure, but the most complete recovery
leaves the patient with his breathing power lessened, and with his
vigour consequently more or less impaired.
When the deposit is less considerable, a different change takes place.
The material dries by degrees, and is at last converted by a purely
chemical change into a hard chalky substance, which in the course of
time becomes of more than stony hardness.
Last of all; when the deposit is smallest in quantity, it may be
completely got rid of; and a lung in which consumptive disease once
existed, may eventually regain perfect soundness.
I have dwelt on these processes as they take place in the lungs; but,
allowing for differences of locality, they resemble such as take place
elsewhere.
Three important conclusions follow from what has been said.
First. It is only in quite the early stage of consumptive disease that
absolutely perfect recovery can be hoped for. There is a euphemism, more
amiable than honest, which doctors not seldom make use of, saying that a
child's lungs are not diseased, but only tender. They mean by this, that
on listening to the chest, they detect such changes in the sounds of
breathing as their experience tells them are usually produced in the
early stage of consumptive disease of the lungs. If the opinion is
confirmed by a second competent medical man, _then, and not later_, is
the time for precautions, for removing the child from school, and for
selecting, as far as may be, a suitable winter climate. When the signs
of disease are well marked, a reprieve, perhaps a long one, is all that
can be confidently reckoned on.
Second. When softening of the consumptive deposit has taken place, of
which certain sounds attending breathing are all but conclusive,
recovery, even the most complete, always implies loss of a certain
amount of lung-substance, and consequently loss of a certain amount of
breathing power.
Third, and this is most important, as well as most cheering;
consumption, which is at no age the absolutely hopeless disease that it
was once supposed to be, admits of far more cheerful anticipations in
children than in grown persons, or, for that matter, than in the youth
or maiden.
The principal _causes_ of consumptive disease are, hereditary
predisposition, and improper feeding in infancy. There are besides two
diseases incidental to childhood, and one of them almost peculiar to it,
namely typhoid fever and measles, which are more apt than any others to
develop a tendency to consumption. During convalescence from either of
them, therefore, special care is needed.
In the grown person, consumption almost always attacks the lungs, and
this often to the exclusion of other organs. In the child, however, this
is not so, and though the lungs are indeed oftener affected than other
parts, yet in nearly half of the cases some one or other of the
digestive organs is likewise involved, and in about one in seven
instances the lungs are free and the digestive organs alone are
attacked.
Fever, cough, and wasting are the three sets of symptoms which in some
degree or other are always present in consumptive disease of the lungs.
The fever in the early stages of consumption is not in general severe;
but so long as the evening temperature of a child never exceeds 99°,
there is no cause for anxiety. On the other hand, if the evening
temperature for a week or ten days together always amounts to 100°,
there is grave presumption that consumptive disease is present. In
advanced consumption the evening temperature is constantly 103° to 105°,
while in the morning it may fall to 101° or 100°.
Cough is but rarely absent even in cases where the lungs are but
slightly involved, for the irritation of the digestive organs often
excites a sympathetic cough, and in these circumstances observation of
the evening temperature will often furnish a clue to the right
interpretation of the symptoms.
There is a form of cough which is oftenest observed in children between
the ages of two and five years, which comes in fits closely resembling
those of hooping-cough, and each fit ends in a sort of imperfect 'hoop.'
This may depend on a particular form of consumption in which the _glands
connected with the lungs_ (the bronchial glands as they are called) _are
diseased_, and not the lung-substance itself. The enlarged glands press
on some of the nerves connected with the upper part of the windpipe, and
thus occasion the spasmodic cough. Always suspect this when a cough
persists for weeks together, not getting rapidly worse as hooping-cough
would do, but at the same time not growing better, as would be the case
with mild hooping-cough. The doctor on listening to the chest will solve
your doubts; the thermometer will help you to decide whether his visit
is necessary. I may add that this form of consumptive disease is less
serious than that in which the lung-substance is involved.
Consumption sometimes follows bronchitis, especially when a child has
been subject to frequent attacks of it. A very slow and imperfect
recovery from an attack of bronchitis which had not been specially
severe is always a reason for solicitude.
Now and then infants are born with consumptive disease. In that case the
lungs are always affected; and the symptoms of fever, cough, and wasting
usually show themselves within the first three or four months, and the
infants almost invariably die within the year. Now and then, however, an
infant thus affected may continue apparently in good health for a few
months, and then be suddenly attacked by symptoms of acute inflammation
or of severe bronchitis which prove rapidly fatal; and it may be found
after death that the acute attack destroyed life because the lungs were
already the seat of extensive consumptive disease.
No infant in whose mother's family a predisposition to consumption
exists ought to be nursed by its mother, but by a healthy wet nurse; or,
if that is impossible, it should be brought up on a milk diet, with but
a small admixture of farinaceous food.
There is a form of very rapid, or so-called galloping consumption, which
is seldom observed before the age of seven years; generally two or three
years later. Its symptoms so closely resemble those of typhoid fever,
that it may readily be mistaken for it. I refer to it in order to say
that the doctor who mistakes the one for the other can scarcely be
regarded as blameworthy; and the mistake is of the less importance since
the treatment applicable to the one case would do no harm in the other.
I have already noticed the connection between water on the brain and
consumption. It is indeed nothing else than inflammation excited by the
presence of the deposit of consumptive matter in the brain or its
membranes.
Little has been said hitherto about the wasting which was referred to as
one of the characteristics of consumption. When the disease is limited,
or nearly so, to the lungs, the wasting is not considerable until the
mischief in the chest is far advanced. It must be remembered, however,
in order to judge of this, that while in the full-grown man the best
sign of health is the persistence for years together of the same weight,
the case of the child is different. The child ought to grow in height,
and increase in weight, and during these changes the plump infant grows
thinner, not by real wasting but by conversion of its fat into bone and
muscle. The child is thinner, but is taller and weighs heavier. The only
real test therefore of the condition of the child is afforded by its
increase in height and in weight. One need not be solicitous about the
child who increases in height, and maintains his previous weight, nor
about him who while he does not grow yet becomes heavier; but the child
who neither gains in weight, nor in height, or who loses weight out of
proportion to his increased height, is in a condition that warrants
anxiety. I have long been accustomed, in the case of children whose
parents were resident in India, to instruct those who have charge of
them to send every three months a statement of the height and weight of
the children, as the best evidence of their state of health.
=Consumptive Disease of the Bowels.=--Consumptive disease sometimes
invades the whole system from the very first, while in other instances
it attacks from the outset the organs of digestion, and continues
throughout to affect them chiefly, and loss of flesh is then one of its
earliest symptoms. In instances where there is a strong family
predisposition to the disease, consumption of the bowels or mesenteric
disease, or disease of the glands of the bowels, all three popular names
for the affection, sometimes shows itself at the time of weaning. In the
majority of cases, however, it comes on later, after the completion of
teething, and between the age of three and ten years. Indigestion such
as I have already spoken of sometimes precedes it, with the irregular
condition of bowels, and the patchy state of the tongue. But this is by
no means constant, scarcely I think general; and not infrequently
momentary, causeless, colicky pains precede for a short time any other
symptom. In a few weeks after their occurrence, sometimes indeed
independently of them, the appetite fails, or becomes capricious; the
bowels begin to act irregularly, being alternately constipated and
relaxed; and the motions are unnatural in character, being, for the most
part, dark, loose, and slimy. Sometimes indeed, they are solid, and then
often white, as if from complete inactivity of the liver, and sometimes
half-liquid, frothy, and like yeast. One peculiarity which they always
present, be their other characters what they may, is their extreme
abundance, quite out of proportion to the quantity of food taken, and
due to their admixture with the unhealthy secretions from the bowels.
The child next becomes restless and feverish at night, its thirst is
considerable, and the colicky pains become both more severe and more
frequent. Sometimes the stomach grows very irritable, and the food taken
is occasionally vomited, while the tongue, in the early stages of the
affection, continues for the most part clean and moist, and except that
it is often unnaturally red deviates but little from its appearance in
health. Next comes a change in the condition of the belly, the date of
which varies considerably. It becomes larger than natural, owing to the
filling of the bowels with wind, but at the same time it is tense and
tender on pressure--two points of great importance to be noticed, and
the glands in the groin, which in a healthy child cannot be felt, become
enlarged, and are felt and perhaps even seen like tiny beans under the
skin.
As in other forms of consumptive disease, so here the progress from bad
to worse seldom goes on uninterruptedly. Pauses take place in its
course, though each time they become shorter; and signs of amendment now
and then appear, but they too promise less and less with each return.
The child wastes rapidly; is always more or less feverish; the abdomen
is constantly tender, but does not in general go on increasing in size;
the pains become more frequent and more severe, and the bowels are
almost always habitually relaxed. Life is sometimes cut short by the
lungs becoming affected, but when this is not the case the patient may
linger on for weeks, or months, or even for two or three years, until,
worn to a skeleton, death at last takes place from exhaustion.
Much apprehension is often needlessly excited in the minds of parents,
with reference to any child whose digestion is imperfect, who loses
flesh, and has a large abdomen; and the words mesenteric disease,
sometimes uttered thoughtlessly by the doctors, seem to them to seal
their little one's doom. Now, first of all, it must be remembered that
mesenteric disease, due to consumption, plays but a very small part in
the production of the symptoms just described, but that the covering and
the lining of the bowels are chiefly involved. Next, enlargement of the
mesenteric glands and disorder of their functions take place from many
causes other than consumption. They are always more or less enlarged in
typhoid fever; they become enlarged when irritated by unwholesome food
in infancy, or they may swell in the course of chronic indigestion. In
all these cases too, the glands in the groin may be enlarged by
sympathy, and this without the existence of any actual abiding disease.
A big abdomen is, of itself, no evidence of it, nor even when associated
with indigestion and frequent stomach-ache; but when to these you add
abiding tenderness, and an evening temperature always at least one
degree above that in the morning, there is every reason to fear that
consumptive disease has attacked the organs of digestion.
Even then, however, there is no ground for despair; for, while
consumptive disease in any form is less seldom recovered from in
childhood than in after-life, such recovery oftener takes place in cases
of affection of the digestive organs than when the disease is seated
elsewhere.
=Scrofula.=--With this word of comfort I leave the subject of
consumption, and pass to that of the allied disease _scrofula_. Briefly
stated, two of the great differences between it and consumption are that
scrofula is almost entirely limited to childhood and youth, while
consumption may occur at any age; and next, that while scrofula attacks
the bones and the glands, the skin and the membranes adjacent to it,
consumption has its seat in the lungs, the brain, and the internal
organs.
Scrofulous diseases of the bones come so exclusively under the
observation of the surgeon, that I do not feel myself competent to say
anything about them. I would however warn all parents to be very much
alive to the importance of noticing the early symptoms of any such
diseases, as shown by slight lameness, complaint of pain in the back, or
difficulty in moving the hand or arm, or in turning the head or bending
the neck. They may be but temporary accidents, due to cold, or to slight
muscular rheumatism, or to some sprain not noticed at the time; but they
may also be signs of the commencement of scrofulous disease of some
bone; and in no disease whatever is early judicious treatment of greater
value, or the result of neglect less remediable.
Besides these graver ailments which seldom appear until after the time
of infancy has passed, there are others of a less serious nature which
often show themselves within the first year of life. One of these
consists in the formation beneath the skin of numerous small lumps of a
rounded form, and of the size of a kidney-bean, slightly movable, and
not tender. By degrees such lumps become adherent to the skin, the
surface of which above them grows red, they project slightly above it,
and at last open by a small circular aperture, discharge a little
matter, and then subside. They collapse and disappear; a slight
depression and a degree of lividity of the skin mark for a considerable
time the situation they had occupied. I refer to them, because while
they are a sign of a scrofulous constitution, which may require special
care in diet and preparations of iron and cod-liver oil, they are best
left absolutely alone--neither poulticed nor lanced. The same principle
of non-intervention applies equally to the swellings which sometimes
form on two or three of the fingers in infancy, not involving the joints
but producing great thickening and a hard swelling around the bone.
These swellings disappear by degrees as the constitutional vigour
improves, and this is especially promoted by a long stay at the seaside;
but they tend, if the health fails, to affect the bones themselves, and
thus to occasion deformities of the hand.
Glandular swelling, discharges from the ear, offensive secretion from
the nose, and in female children, even of very tender age, a discharge
of whites, are all common signs of a scrofulous constitution, and all
tedious and troublesome. They all, however, are very much under the
influence of judicious medical treatment. It must at the same time be
borne in mind that none of these ailments admit of what may be called
active treatment. There are no royal means of dispersing scrofulous
glands, or of curing discharges from the ear, or of doing away with the
offensive smell which in some cases proceeds from the nostrils. Fresh
air, suitable diet, preparations of iron, residence at the seaside, and
sea-bathing, measures directed to improve the general health, are of
chief value, and without them local treatment is of small avail.
A few words, however, may with propriety be added with reference to the
local treatment of the minor ailments to which I have just referred.
No local application is of use in the _scrofulous swellings of the
fingers_. Tincture of iodine, indeed, may be painted over them when
quite small, while at the same time the joints are kept quiet by a small
gutta-percha splint. When they become considerable, iodine is useless;
and even if matter forms in the swelling it is much better to let it
make its way out by a small opening spontaneously than to make a
puncture with a lancet, since the edges of the wound would not heal, and
the risk of the disease affecting the bone would be increased.
The _glandular swellings_ of the neck or about the lower jaw are
likewise best let alone, or merely covered with a layer of cotton wool,
stitched inside a piece of oiled silk to maintain a uniform temperature.
If they become suddenly painful and more swollen, a cooling lotion of
Goulard water and spirits of wine, constantly applied, will reduce the
swelling and lessen the discomfort. When stationary, a mild iodine
ointment may be smeared over the gland at bedtime, and covered with
oiled silk. Applications of iodine, however, need careful watching, for
sometimes they over-irritate the gland, and cause an abscess. If the
gland were out of sight there would be no objection to this, which
would probably be a rapid mode of getting rid of the swelling; but the
scar left behind, if the abscess burst or were opened, is an objection
when the swelling is situated in the neck or at the jaw.
If the skin over the top of the swelling becomes red, and its substance
begins to feel soft, then, but not till then, it is desirable to apply a
warm poultice constantly. At the same time the progress must be daily
watched by the doctor, in order that he may seize the proper moment to
make a small puncture and let out the matter. The small cut leaves a
less puckered scar than the natural opening. The subsequent management
of the case must be superintended by the doctor.
_Offensive discharge from the nostrils_ does not depend, in by far the
majority of cases, on disease of the bones, but on an unhealthy
condition of their lining membrane. It is exceedingly obstinate and
difficult of cure, is four times more frequent in girls than in boys,
and unfortunately often lasts into womanhood, and continues even when
the general health is perfect.
Much may be done to abate the annoyance by diligent sniffing up the
nostrils some weak disinfectant; or by regularly irrigating the nostrils
by means of a simple apparatus, to be obtained from any
instrument-maker. In spite of this, however, it is often necessary to
introduce a little plug of cotton wool dipped in the fluid some distance
up the nostrils, with a thread attached by which it can be withdrawn,
and a fresh one substituted twice a day.
The discharge of _whites_ is sometimes very troublesome, and apt to
return from the commencement of teething up even to womanhood. It is a
mere sign of debility, usually also connected with a scrofulous habit,
but has no further or graver meaning. Locally, constant cold ablution by
means of a sponge held above the child, not touching it, is the great
remedy, and this may have to be repeated every hour or two if the case
is severe. Astringent lotions of different kinds may be used in the same
manner; while care must be taken that the child's drawers are large and
loose, so as not to irritate her when sitting. General treatment,
however, sea air and sea bathing are especially in these cases the great
remedy.
It must not be forgotten that all these ailments have a special tendency
to recur; and that when people say 'Dr. A. or Dr. B. did the child good
for the time, but this or that symptom returned as soon as the treatment
was discontinued,' as though this were the doctor's fault, they are
unjust; for the tendency to return of every form of scrofulous disease
is one of the great characteristics of the malady. Patience and
perseverance on the parents' part, even for months and years, are often
as much needed as skill on the part of the doctor.
One more remark may not be out of place. Some persons have an impression
that there is something specially shameful in scrofulous disease, and
while they will readily admit the existence of a consumptive tendency in
their family, they almost resent the suggestion that their child's
ailment is scrofulous. For this prejudice there is absolutely no
foundation. There is no more reason for connecting scrofula in a child
with any antecedent wrong-doing on the part of its progenitors, than
there is for attaching that idea to the red hair or black eyes which a
child may have in common with the rest of its family.
=Rickets.=--We sometimes see, especially in the poorer quarters of a
great city, persons dwarfed in stature, with large hands, bowed legs,
bent arms, swollen wrists and ankles, walking with an awkward gait,
though usually holding themselves remarkably upright, with the face of a
grown person on the body of a child, and we know that they suffered from
_rickets_ when young.
Rickets is essentially a disease of childhood, and of early childhood,
in which proper bone-formation does not take place, the soft material,
or gristle, which should turn to bone, remaining long in the soft state.
When, therefore, the child begins to walk, or to use its limbs, they
bend under the weight of the body, or under their own weight, and with
every slight movement which its feeble muscular power enables it to
make. It does more, however, than interfere with the hardening of the
limbs: it arrests growth to a great degree, interferes with
development, retards teething, postpones the closure of the open part of
the head, or fontanelle, weakens constitutional vigour, and impairs
muscular power. To this feeble muscular power it is due that the child
cannot make the effort to fill its lungs completely, and hence the
pressure of the external air forces the soft ribs inwards, and gives to
the chest the peculiar form of pigeon-breast. In the course of time the
delayed bone-formation takes place, and the bones themselves become as
hard as ivory, but the limbs do not straighten, and the deformity
produced in infancy is but confirmed in after-life.
The greater degrees of rickets are scarcely ever seen among the children
of the wealthier classes, but over-crowded and ill-ventilated nurseries,
cots from which the air is well-nigh shut out by closed sides and
overhanging curtains; injudicious feeding, with undue preponderance of
farinaceous food, often produce its slighter forms. I never yet saw
rickets in a child while brought up exclusively at its mother's breast.
The slighter forms of rickets show themselves in a tardy closure of the
infant's head, which sweats profusely when the child is laid down to
sleep; in big wrists, which contrast with the attenuated arms; in a
general limpness of the whole body, and a bowing of the back under the
weight of the head, which bends as a green stick would bend if a weight
were placed upon it. They are further marked by backwardness in
teething, and by the irregular order in which the teeth appear, and,
further, by the peculiar narrowness of the chest, and by what has been
termed the beading of the ends of the ribs: little round prominences due
to a heaping up of gristle just where the ribs join on to the
breastbone, marking the spots at which the tardy bone-making has come to
a standstill.
Children who bear these stamps of rickets are far more apt than others
to suffer from spasmodic croup, and in them it is also specially likely
to be severe and to be accompanied by convulsions. They will also be
more liable than others to attacks of bronchitis, they will suffer more
during teething, they will be often constipated, and will be troubled by
various forms of indigestion. Now and then, too, they will have
causeless attacks of feverishness lasting for a few days, or for two or
three weeks, attended with general tenderness of the surface, and a
disposition to perspiration, which brings no relief but serves only to
weaken.
It is true that these symptoms do not often become immediately dangerous
to life, though spasmodic croup and bronchitis both have their perils;
but they interfere with health, and growth, and good looks, and
cheerfulness, and quick intelligence.
If mothers would but ask themselves the real signification of these
symptoms, and change the conditions which surround the child, and alter
their mode of feeding it, they would many and many a time be spared the
heart-ache of seeing their little ones grow up weakly, ugly,
ill-thriven.
Unfortunately, it is so much easier to give cod-liver oil and iron than
to turn the best spare room into a night nursery, and to uglify the cot
by taking away the curtains which made it so pretty, and to give up some
of the pleasures of society in order to superintend the preparation of
the baby's food; that the doctor is called in to correct by drugs the
evil which drugs cannot reach. Iron and cod-liver oil are very useful in
the second place; fresh air, good ventilation, and a wise diet must
always occupy the first.
=Acute Constitutional Diseases.=--It still remains for us to glance
rapidly at the characters of the _acute constitutional diseases_, all of
which belong, as has already been stated, to the class of fevers. Of
them all but two are contagious--that is to say, are capable of being
communicated directly from person to person. They are likewise
infectious, or, in other words, articles of bedding or clothes which
have been worn by the sick, retain a something--an exhalation from the
breath, an emanation from the skin, or a secretion from the
bowels--which may reproduce the same disease in a person previously
healthy.
To this contagious and infectious property there are two exceptions; the
one is furnished by acute rheumatism, or rheumatic fever, the other by
intermittent fever, or ague.
=Rheumatic Fever.=--The main features of _rheumatic fever_ are the same
at all ages. Fever, pain in the limbs, swelling of the joints, sweats
unattended by that relief which usually accompanies abundant action of
the skin in fevers, are its characteristics. In the child all these
symptoms are usually less even than in the adult. The swelling of the
joints in particular is less considerable, and both the pain and the
swelling are apt to wander from one to another joint, or to a different
limb, instead of remaining fixed as they do in the grown person for
several days in the same joint, even though fresh joints may be
implicated in the course of the disease.
These circumstances tend to make people look on rheumatic fever in the
child too often as a comparatively trivial ailment; and this not only
because the suffering which attends the disease is slighter, but because
its duration is also shorter. But there is one fact which forbids this
low estimate of its importance, and that is the great tendency to
affection of the heart even in cases of comparatively mild rheumatism in
the child; while in the grown person there is a direct relation between
the general severity of the rheumatic symptoms and the liability of the
heart to be involved. I have already stated that nine out of ten of all
cases of heart disease in early life, not due to original malformation,
are of rheumatic origin, and further that heart disease comes on in the
course of four out of five cases of rheumatic fever in the child, slight
as well as severe. It seldom occurs before the third or fourth day of
the illness, so that if parents take the alarm at the very outset, it is
usually though not invariably possible for the doctor by judicious
treatment to anticipate and to prevent its occurrence, or at any rate
greatly to control its progress.
Every threatening of rheumatism, therefore, is to be watched with the
most anxious care, since so serious a complication as disease of the
heart may accompany extremely slight general symptoms. It is wise too,
to place any child in whom general feverish symptoms come on at once
under medical observation, for though it does not usually happen, yet it
does sometimes occur, that rheumatic inflammation attacks the heart
before any other local signs of the malady have manifested themselves.
It is scarcely necessary to add that tenfold precautions are needed when
rheumatism has once occurred, since the liability to its return is very
great, and the heart which escaped in the first attack may suffer in the
second; or the comparatively small mischief done the first time may
become an incurable disorder.
=Ague.=--_Intermittent fever_ or _ague_ is very rare in childhood in
London; or at any rate it is very rare among children of the wealthier
classes. I believe it is everywhere rarer among children than among
grown persons, probably because they are as a rule less exposed to those
malarious influences which produce it. In the child it generally takes
the form of tertian ague, that is to say the attack recurs every second
day; one day of freedom intervening between two attacks.
The three stages of shivering, heat, and sweating are less marked in the
child than in the grown person, and this indistinctness of its symptoms
is greater in proportion to the tenderer age of the child. Shivering is
scarcely ever well-marked, a condition of unaccountable depression
usually taking its place, while once or twice I have known convulsions
occur which gave rise to the apprehension that disease of the brain
existed. The hot stage is long, and passes off gradually without the
profuse perspiration that occurs in the grown person, and the child even
between the attacks is almost always more or less ailing.
A first and even a second attack may puzzle not the parents only, but
also the doctor; but after the symptoms have returned a few times, the
child being neither better nor worse in the intervals, it becomes
evident that no serious disease is impending. The risk of an overhasty
conclusion is that the depression and disturbance of the nervous system
may be supposed to imply the existence of brain disease; and lead to
unsuitable treatment, instead of the administration of quinine, which
nine times out of ten proves a specific for ague. The rapid increase of
temperature in the attack, and its equally rapid subsidence afterwards,
will, if carefully noted, preserve from error.
There is much that is obscure with reference to the nature both of
rheumatic and intermittent fever. They differ from other fevers not only
by being neither contagious nor infectious but also by their readiness
to return, while a single attack of any of the others furnishes a
guarantee, and often a complete guarantee, against its recurrence. In
addition to these peculiarities, the fevers of which I have now to speak
are characterised by running a certain definite course, being
accompanied by certain peculiar appearances on the surface (generally
rashes on the skin, whence their name of eruptive fevers); being
attended each with its own peculiar dangers, and all having a tendency
to what is termed epidemic prevalence; that is to say to occur one year,
and without obvious cause with vastly greater frequency than in other
years.
=Mumps.=--It has been questioned whether that painful but not dangerous
ailment the _mumps_, ought or ought not to be classed with these fevers.
I think it should, for it is contagious, infectious, runs a fairly
definite course, is attended with invariable external appearances, often
prevails epidemically, and one attack preserves in most instances from a
second.
It very seldom befalls children under seven years of age, and is more
frequent in early youth than in childhood. It sets in with the ordinary
symptoms of a cold, which are followed in about twenty-four hours by
stiffness of the neck, and pain about the lower jaw, which is increased
by speaking or swallowing. At the same time a swelling appears,
sometimes on one side sometimes on both of the lower jaw, and increases
very rapidly so as to occasion great disfigurement of the face. The
swelling goes on to increase, and to become more tense, attended with
more head-ache, fever, and discomfort for some forty-eight hours, but
then it begins to lessen, and the general illness subsides rapidly,
though the enlarged gland, for that is the cause of the swelling,
sometimes does not return to its natural size for a week, ten days, or
more; and now and then, though very rarely, an abscess forms, which is
both tedious and troublesome.
The treatment suitable for a severe common cold, together with the
constant application of a warm poultice to the swollen gland, is all
that is usually required, though the doctor's help is often needed to
relieve the suffering which for the first day or two in many instances
attends the ailment.
=Typhoid Fever.=--There is no question as to the place which should be
occupied by typhoid fever, smallpox, measles, and scarlatina, for all
belong to the class of eruptive fevers. They are all specific diseases,
each due to its own peculiar poison, and not capable of being produced
by any mere unsanitary conditions, though such may aggravate their
severity and facilitate their spread.
The belief in the special character of each of these diseases has
received strong confirmation from the researches of the eminent
Frenchman, M. Pasteur, and others who have followed in his track. They
have discovered in the blood and other secretions, and in some of the
tissues both of men and animals, minute microscopic organisms which
differ in their characters in different diseases. Experiment has further
shown that in some mysterious way these organisms are the cause of these
diseases, for on inoculating animals with them the peculiar disease of
which each was the accompaniment, and no other, was reproduced in the
inoculated animal.
As far as our knowledge goes at present then, we are forced to regard
each of these as a separate disease, measles never passing into
scarlatina, nor that into smallpox, but each, whether slight or severe,
retaining throughout its distinct character.
We have already seen how, in the course of various diseases, the pulse
is quickened, and the temperature raised, constituting that state which
we commonly call fever, but as the local ailment subsides the fever
disappears. There is, apart from smallpox, measles, and the other
so-called eruptive fevers, only one real essential fever commonly met
with in childhood, and that is what the doctors call _typhoid fever_.
The name, from the similarity of sound to _typhus_, from which, however,
it is essentially different, has long been a name of terror in the
nursery, and all sorts of epithets have been substituted for it, as
gastric fever, and infantile remittent fever, and so on. Name it as you
may, the fever is one and the same with the typhoid fever, which one
hears of as prevailing constantly in many continental cities, and
proving dangerous and fatal in any district almost in direct relation to
the neglect of drainage and of proper sanitary precautions.
It is extremely rare in infancy, though I saw it once in a babe eight
months old, and is comparatively seldom met with before the age of five
years. From five to ten years old it is more frequent than from ten to
fifteen, but it is consolatory to know that it is less fatal in early
childhood than at any subsequent time of life, and that cases of such
exceedingly mild character that the child's condition can be more
properly described as ailing rather than ill, are then far from
uncommon. The symptoms, however, are in all instances similar in kind,
though widely varying in degree, and the duration of the fever is, as
nearly as may be, three weeks. By this it is not meant that at three
weeks' end the child who has had typhoid fever is well again, but only
that the temperature, which had hitherto been high, and always higher at
night than in the morning, has subsided, that the skin has become less
dry, the tongue slightly moist, the intelligence more clear, that the
fever has run its course. For the first week or ten days, the symptoms
have probably become every day more grave; and for the next ten the
doctor could find no better consolation than the assurance--happy if he
could give it--that the condition was not worse, but that you must have
patience, for the time for improvement had not yet arrived. If the
attack has been severe, the child will be left greatly exhausted, sadly
emaciated, and suffering from the effects of that ulceration of the
bowels which accompanies the fever, and from which life may still be in
imminent danger. But the fire is quenched; the question is no longer how
to put out the conflagration, but how to repair the mischief it has
caused.
When mild, the disease usually comes on very gradually, the child loses
its cheerfulness, the appearance of health leaves it, the appetite
fails, and the thirst becomes troublesome; in the daytime it is listless
and fretful, and drowsy towards evening, but the nights are often
restless, and the slumber broken and unrefreshing. The skin is hotter,
and almost always drier than natural, or if there is any perspiration,
it comes on at irregular times, lasts but an hour or two and brings no
refreshing. The thermometer will quite, in the early days, solve all
doubt as to the nature of the case. In the morning the thermometer will
be natural, or nearly so, but at seven o'clock in the evening it will
have risen to 101° or 102°, and will continue so during the early part
of the unquiet night. After midnight it will begin to fall, and by six
o'clock in the morning, or even earlier, will have regained its natural
standard. There is no other disease but typhoid fever, and now and then
some forms of galloping consumption, in which these oscillations of
temperature take place regularly. Other symptoms attend typhoid fever
besides these, and serve to stamp upon it its distinctive character. The
bowels are usually loose, or if not, a moderate aperient acts on them
excessively, the evacuations being loose, often watery, of a light
yellow-ochrey colour. The abdomen is full, the bowels being more or less
distended with wind, sometimes tender, especially at the right side, and
both tender and painful in all cases where the disease is severe.
Towards the end of the first, or at the latest by the middle of the
second week, small rose-red spots or pimples appear on the abdomen,
sometimes also on the chest and back. They disappear for the moment if
pressure is made on them, but reappear the moment the pressure is
withdrawn. Now and then they are numerous, and sometimes two or three
successive crops appear, the old ones fading as the others show
themselves; but in childhood they are often scanty, though whether few
or many, they are the external characteristic of the disease just as the
rash is in scarlatina or measles.
Whenever a child of whatever age begins without obvious cause to lose
appetite and health, to become feverish, with marked increase of
temperature towards evening for several days together, and more or less
disposition to diarrh[oe]a, it is all but absolutely certain that the
child has contracted typhoid fever.
When the disease comes on gradually, it seldom becomes dangerous, though
until the end of the first week there is always considerable uncertainty
on this point. The amount of diarrh[oe]a and the degree of disorder of
the brain, as shown by restlessness, delirium, and stupor are the
measure of the gravity of any case. There is, however, scarcely any
disease from which even when most severe recovery so often takes place
in childhood, and this not as persons so often imagine from some
critical occurrence but by a process of gradual amendment. The first
signs of amendment, too, may be taken as giving almost certain promise
of complete recovery; but it is well to bear in mind that there is no
disease of early life in which the mental faculties, though time brings
them back at length uninjured, remain so long in a state of feebleness
and torpor as in typhoid fever. Though the first signs of improvement,
too, are very seldom deceptive, yet the patient's convalescence is
almost always slow, and interrupted by many fluctuations.
Though contagious, still typhoid fever is far less directly contagious
than measles or scarlatina. It seems as if with this disease, just as
with cholera, the contagious element were present in its most active
form in the discharges from the bowels. These should therefore be
disinfected by carbolic acid or some other disinfectant immediately; and
should never be emptied in a closet used by other members of the family,
and more particularly by children. Special precautions also should be
taken with the bed-linen, and night-dresses of the patient; and it must
be remembered that wise precautions have nothing in common with
exaggerated alarm. One more hint will not be out of place. In typhoid
fever, and still more in the highly contagious measles and scarlatina,
the person who sleeps in the patient's room is much more likely to
contract the disease than she who sits up and watches at night keeping
wide awake. Whoever takes charge of a fever patient during the night
should therefore sit up and watch, not lie down and doze, and this not
for the patient's sake only, but for her own.
It can scarcely be necessary to say that in every, even the mildest,
attack of typhoid fever the attendance of the doctor is needed from
first to last. He may come every day, and may daily do nothing but
merely watch. The disease will run its course, the greatest skill cannot
cut it short, though now and then instead of lasting for three or even
four weeks it comes to an end spontaneously in fourteen days. Skilled
watching is what the competent doctor gives. You would not despise or
underestimate the pilot's skill, who steered your barque through a
dangerous sea in smoothest water, because he knew each hidden rock or
unseen quicksand on which but for his guidance you might have made
shipwreck.
=Small-pox.=--At the present day, thanks to vaccination, and to
re-vaccination, _small-pox_ is rarely met with in the well-to-do classes
of society, though it is not yet a century ago since it found its
victims not only among the poor, but among the highest in the land. It
does, however, occur sometimes after vaccination, and sometimes, though
very rarely, an attack of small-pox fails to furnish an absolute
guarantee against the occurrence of a second.
Small-pox, unmodified by previous vaccination, sets in in the child with
violent sickness; vomiting, sometimes recurring frequently for
forty-eight hours, with much depression, or even stupor; in some
instances even actual convulsions, and fever; but neither with the
sore-throat of scarlatina, nor with the sneezing, cough, and running at
the nose of measles. At the end of from forty-eight to sixty hours, an
eruption of pimples appears on the face, forehead, forearms and wrists,
whence it extends to the body and the lower limbs. They are reddish in
colour, rather pointed in form, and at first scarcely raised above the
surface; so that the eruption looks at first like the very early
eruption of measles; though the tiny pimples felt as if beneath the skin
serve even then to distinguish the one disease from the other. In
another forty-eight hours the character of the pimples has changed into
that of little vesicles or pocks, depressed instead of pointed at their
centre, and containing a little watery milky fluid. They next enlarge,
and become once more prominent at their centre as they fill more and
more with fluid, which becomes thicker, yellowish-white--looks like, and
indeed is, matter. Four or five days are occupied with this process;
the matter in the pocks then begins to dry, and scabs to form, which
gradually by the end of another week drop off, and leave the skin
spotted with red or even scarred if the pocks went deep enough to
destroy the skin, and to leave the indelible marks, the so-called
pitting of small-pox.
The danger of the disease is in childhood the nervous disorder at the
outset, and then the exhaustion produced by the so-called maturation of
the pocks when the thin watery fluid changes to the thicker matter, and
depresses the patient in the same way as he would be depressed by an
enormous abscess.
The first outbreak of the eruption is followed always by a most
remarkable abatement in the disturbance of the constitution, and for
three or four days, even though the eruption is abundant, the patient
may seem so well that it is almost impossible to realise the imminent
peril to which he will be exposed in a few days' time.
=Inoculation and Vaccination.=--The danger of small-pox is in direct
proportion to the abundance of the eruption; and the great advantage of
inoculation for the small-pox consisted in the much scantier eruption
which followed it, as compared with that which commonly took place in
the natural small-pox.
The same advantage in a greater degree is obtained by vaccination, even
in the exceptional instances in which it fails to render the person
altogether insusceptible to the disease.
The great advantage which inoculation secured was counterbalanced in
great measure by the fact that it always maintained small-pox rife
throughout the whole country, and that consequently all who either had
neglected inoculation, or young children on whom, on account of their
tender age, it had not yet been practised, were more than ever exposed
to constant risk of infection.
This very real danger led to the almost unanimous welcome which the
practice of vaccination received towards the end of the last century,
since it was hoped that by it not only would the risk attending
small-pox be lessened, and the disease when it did occur be even milder
in character than inoculated small-pox, but that small-pox itself would
eventually be extirpated.
These anticipations have not hitherto been fully realised; but the good
effected by vaccination has been such as to render it, in the opinion of
nearly everyone qualified to form an opinion on the subject, one of the
greatest boons ever conferred on the human race.
Small-pox, like other eruptive fevers, has the peculiarity of occurring
for the most part only once in a person's life. We do not know in the
least on what this protecting influence depends. We know the fact, but
are the less able to offer an explanation, since there are other
constitutional diseases, such as gout and rheumatism, in which the local
symptoms are equally the outcome of previous constitutional disorder,
where exactly the opposite rule obtains, and in which their occurrence
does but increase the liability to their return.
The protective power is apparently possessed by the mild form of the
disease communicated by inoculation as much as by the severer form of
small-pox which is contracted by direct contagion or infection. This
knowledge has been applied in the treatment of some of the diseases of
animals, and it has been found in the case of the so-called small-pox in
sheep (a disease which, however, is quite distinct from human small-pox)
that while one in two of the animals who contracted it in the ordinary
way died, death took place in only three per cent, or not one in thirty,
of those in whom it was produced by inoculation; and the inoculated
sheep were thereby safeguarded from subsequent attacks as completely as
the others.
This knowledge was more recently applied by the distinguished Frenchman
whom I have already mentioned, M. Pasteur, in the case of a fatal
pestilence among sheep in many parts of France, known by the name of
_charbon_. The inoculated sheep died, however, in such large numbers,
though in a somewhat smaller proportion than those who had been directly
infected, that he found it necessary to weaken the matter which he
employed by admixture with other innocuous materials. This experiment,
however, again yielded unsatisfactory results; slight symptoms of the
disease were produced, but the protection thus afforded was inadequate
and uncertain. Some few resisted the disease, but others contracted it
and died. With that clear insight which constitutes genius, M. Pasteur
next tried the experiment of inoculating the sheep first with a weak
matter which produced but slight symptoms, but at the same time enabled
the animal to support a second inoculation with a stronger matter; and
this second inoculation enabled them to bear, unharmed, subsequent
exposure to the disease. A grateful country has given a pension, and
conferred well-merited honours on the man who has preserved their flocks
from pestilence, but whom the silly sentimentality of the
anti-vivisectionists in England would have mulcted in a fine, and, if
possible, have sent to prison.
That weakening of the poisonous element which Pasteur strove to attain
by art, is already provided by nature in the cow-pox. The cow-pox is
nothing else than small-pox modified in character, diminished in
severity by passing through the system of the animal; but giving, when
introduced into the system, a safeguard against natural small-pox at
least as complete as that furnished by the inoculated disease.
More than 70,000 children have come under my observation, either in
hospital or in private practice; and I need not say that a physician
having much consulting practice sees far more than the average of
unusual and severe cases. Twice, and only twice, I have seen infants die
from vaccination, and in both instances death took place from erysipelas
beginning at the puncture. The one case I saw twice in consultation with
the family practitioner. The other which I watched throughout was that
of a little boy, the fifth child of a nobleman of high rank, both his
parents being perfectly healthy. He was vaccinated by the family doctor
in the country, direct from the arm of another perfectly healthy infant,
from whom ten other infants were vaccinated immediately afterwards. The
little boy was seized with convulsions within twenty-four hours, and
almost at the same time erysipelas appeared on the punctured arm. The
erysipelas extended rapidly, convulsions returned more than once, and on
the fourth day from the vaccination the child died. One of the other
children vaccinated at the same time died in the country in the same
manner; all the others passed through vaccination regularly, and without
a single bad symptom. I have no explanation to offer; this case stands
by itself just as do those of death from the sting of a bee or death
from cutting a corn.
That some people die of other diseases since the introduction of
vaccination, is undoubtedly true, for many of those who would have died
in early infancy of small-pox are cut off later by measles or
bronchitis, or die during teething; since it is obvious that vaccination
does not protect against any other disease than small-pox.
That protection, indeed, is not absolute, nor was the protection
afforded by inoculation absolute; but small-pox after vaccination, even
when it does occur, is very rarely severe, and still more seldom fatal.
There seems good reason for believing that the protecting power of
vaccination tends to diminish with the lapse of time; though apparently
this is not always the case, nor can any direct statement be made as to
the conditions which favour this in one case, or prevent it in another.
As a matter of fact, however, we do know that such a tendency does
exist, and that this tendency calls for the repetition of vaccination
from time to time; such re-vaccination carefully performed being as
nearly as possible an absolute guarantee against small-pox. All persons
engaged as nurses or attendants at the Small-Pox Hospital during the
past thirty-two years, have been vaccinated or re-vaccinated before
entering on their duties, and during this period not a single case of
the disease has occurred among the whole staff. The experience of other
small-pox hospitals for a shorter period is identical. As far as we
know, every seventh year is a reasonable interval at which
re-vaccination should be performed.
One great cause of the failure of the protective power of vaccination
is the unintelligent and careless manner in which it is too often
performed, especially among the poor. To this same cause it is also due
that in some cases of almost infinite rarity one special constitutional
disease has been known to be communicated. I have never seen such a
case, but I know there are such. They are, however, no more a reason
against vaccination than the occasional death from an overdose of opium
is a reason against the use of that drug.
To avoid any risk of this kind, and also with the idea that the power of
the vaccine matter may have become weakened by transmission through many
thousands of persons, vaccination direct from the calf has been
introduced of late years, especially in America and on the Continent.
The time, however, that has as yet elapsed is scarcely sufficient to
test the comparative preservative power of this as compared with
vaccination from the human subject. Its immediate local effects are
somewhat more severe; I do not know any reason why its influence should
not be equally abiding.
There is absolutely no foundation for the idea that scrofula,
consumption, or any similar disease can be transmitted by vaccination.
In some infants, whose skin is very delicate, and especially in those,
some members of whose family have been liable to eruptions on the skin,
vaccination has seemed to act as an irritant, and to give occasion to an
eruption, or aggravate an eruption already existing. Such cases,
however, are not frequent, and the eruption is not more troublesome than
those which often appear in teething children. The occurrence of actual
erysipelas around the puncture, while very dangerous, is, as I have
already stated, of excessive rarity.
A thoroughly dispassionate review of the whole subject appears to me to
warrant the following conclusions:--
1st. That vaccination, though not a perfect guarantee against small-pox,
diminishes immensely the risk of its occurrence; and that by periodical
revaccination, this guarantee is rendered all but absolute.
2nd. That a very large proportion of the failures of vaccination are due
to its careless and imperfect performance.
3rd. That to such careless performance and to the introduction of the
blood and not of the vaccine matter alone, from one child to another are
due the extremely rare instances in which one special disease has been
transmitted by vaccination.
4th. That there is absolutely no evidence of the transmission of
scrofula, consumption, or any similar disease by vaccination.
5th. That vaccination direct from the calf appears to present some
decided advantages; but it has not yet been practised for a sufficient
time to admit of a comparison between its preservative power and that of
vaccination from one child to another.
6th. That in either case it is expedient that vaccination be performed
within the first three months after birth, so as to avoid the irritation
of teething which is unfavourable to successful vaccination, and also
because the disposition to those skin diseases which vaccination tends
to aggravate is never so considerable before the age of three months as
it becomes subsequently.
Even when vaccination fails to protect against small-pox it tends to
produce a modified and so much milder form of the disease, that while
one patient died out of every two in the Homerton Small Pox Hospital who
had the disease naturally, the deaths were only one in four of those who
had been imperfectly vaccinated, and one in forty-three of those whose
arms bore evidence of perfectly good and successful vaccination.
The influence of previous vaccination often scarcely shows itself in the
stage which precedes the appearance of the eruption of small-pox, the
fever being often just as intense, and the general symptoms just as
severe as in the unmodified disease. The difference, however, becomes at
once obvious with the appearance of the rash. The pocks are always much
fewer than even in mild small-pox, sometimes even not more than twenty.
They never attain above half the size of the ordinary small-pox
pustules; they run their course and dry off in half the time, and
consequently the dangerous fever which accompanies their development in
the natural disease is almost or altogether absent in the vast majority
of instances.
If vaccination did no more than this it would be hard to overestimate
its value, or to praise as it deserves the merit of its discoverer.
=Chicken-Pox= is an ailment of such slight importance that it would
scarcely call for notice if it were not that the resemblance of the
eruption to that of small-pox sometimes leads to its being mistaken for
that disease.
It is highly contagious, and for this reason perhaps it is usually met
with in infancy and early childhood. Sometimes, though by no means
constantly, the eruption is preceded for twenty-four or thirty-six hours
by slight feverishness; but oftener the appearance of the rash is the
first indication of anything being the matter. It shows itself in the
form of small pimples, which in a few hours change into small circular
pocks containing a little slightly turbid fluid. They appear on the
forehead, face, and body, but very rarely on the limbs; they enlarge for
some two or at most three days, then shrivel and dry up; and at the end
of a week the crusts or scabs fall off, scarcely ever causing any
permanent pitting of the skin. They are usually not above twenty or
thirty in number, though every now and then they are much more numerous
without any obvious reason. Their distinction from the small-pox
eruption consists not only in the smaller size of the pocks, and in the
entirely different course which they run, but also in the fact that two
or three successive crops of the eruption appear in the course of five
or six days, so that new ones, those at maturity, and those on which the
crusts have already formed, or from which they have already fallen, may
be seen on the child at the same time. This is sufficient of itself to
establish the difference between the two diseases, and also to
distinguish between chicken-pox and the milder variety of small-pox
which is sometimes observed in children who have been already
vaccinated.
=Measles= is a disease with which almost everyone is familiar, and one
which with proper care is not generally attended with danger. Its great
risks are twofold; first, that of its being complicated with bronchitis,
or inflammation of the lungs during its progress, and next of its being
followed by an imperfect recovery, and by the awakening into activity
any tendency to scrofulous or consumptive disease. On these two accounts
the disease is not to be made light of, and special watchfulness is to
be exercised during the whole time of convalescence. It is also unwise
when one child in a family is attacked by measles to expose the others,
as is often done, to its contagion, in order, as people say, 'to get it
over;' for its mildness in one case furnishes no guarantee of its
mildness in another, and the danger of the disease is almost in exact
proportion to the tender age of those who are attacked by it.
The early symptoms of measles are those of a bad feverish cold; the eyes
grow red, weak, and watery, and are unable to bear the light, the child
sneezes very frequently, sometimes almost every five minutes, and is
troubled by a constant short dry cough. About the fourth day, a rash
makes its appearance on the face, forehead, and behind the ears, and in
the course of the next forty-eight hours travels downwards over the body
and limbs, and then in another forty-eight hours it fades in the same
way, being at its height on the body when it has already begun to
disappear from the face. It first shows itself in the form of small red
circular spots, not unlike fleabites, but very slightly raised above the
somewhat reddened skin, and looking for a few hours not unlike the very
early stages of small-pox, before the eruption has lost the character of
minute pimples. On the face the spots sometimes run together, and then
form irregular blotches about a third of an inch long by half that
breadth; while elsewhere they present an irregular crescentic
arrangement. As the rash fades it puts on a dirty yellowish red
appearance; the surface of the skin often becomes slightly scurfy, and
it continues somewhat stained of a reddish hue for some days after the
eruption has disappeared.
The only other point on which it is necessary to dwell is this, that the
symptoms do not, as in small-pox, become less severe immediately on the
appearance of the eruption, but continue just as troublesome as before
for twenty-four hours or more, the voice being hoarse, the cough even
more incessant, and the throat often slightly sore and red. Soon,
however, improvement becomes apparent, the fever lessens, the cough
grows looser; and in less than a fortnight the patient is usually
convalescent.
The above is pretty nearly the ordinary course of measles, for we do not
meet with that extreme variation in its severity which is observed in
scarlatina, where one child will seem scarcely to ail at all, while its
brother or sister may be in a state of extreme peril. It is not wise,
however, to trust a case even of apparently mild measles to domestic
management, for while the cough is troublesome in almost every case, the
ear of the experienced doctor is needed to ascertain whether it is
merely the cough of irritation which attends the measles, or the graver
cough due to bronchitis.
One other caution will not be out of place. The danger of exposure to
cold is very real, but that does not necessitate the loading the child
with excessive covering, or the abstaining from washing its hands and
face. The child should be kept moderately cool; and sponging its hands
and face frequently with tepid water soothes it and relieves the painful
irritation and itching.
=German Measles.=--There is a disorder which seems to hold a middle
place between measles and scarlatina, akin to both, identical with
neither, and furnishing no sort of protection from their occurrence.
It is known in this country by the name of _German measles_, or
sometimes by its German name of _Rötheln_; the first clear description
of its character having been given by German writers.
It is unfortunate that a very slight resemblance of some of its symptoms
to those of scarlet fever has led to its being sometimes mistaken for
it, and as the ailment is almost always very trivial, doctors anxious to
avoid alarming their patients' friends, too often allow the error to go
unrectified, and the disease to pass as one of mild scarlet fever.
The resemblance of German measles to scarlet fever is, however,
extremely slight, and is almost entirely limited to the existence of a
slight sore-throat, unaccompanied with glandular swelling. The rash in
no respect resembles the uniform redness of the scarlatinal eruption,
and there is no peeling of the skin, nor even any roughness of the
surface left behind.
Slight feverishness sometimes precedes the appearance of the rash for
twenty-four hours; but the cough, and sneezing, and running at the eyes
and nose, which usher in measles are entirely absent. The rash usually
appears in the course of twenty-four hours, is never postponed beyond
the second day; it begins, like that of measles, on the face, and, like
it, travels downwards, but always disappears on the third day, while
that of measles is not entirely gone before the eighth or ninth. The
rash itself also has a different character. It consists of small,
slightly elevated, round red spots which now and then coalesce into
small patches, but never have the somewhat crescentic arrangement
observed in the rash of measles. The colour of the spots is somewhat
darker than that of the eruption of measles, while the _skin between
them remains pale_, and does not assume the flush of measles. As it
disappears it simply fades, and does not at all change its tint as that
of measles does, and it leaves the skin unroughened.
Now and then German measles are severe, and are attended with a good
deal of fever for a day or two, and even with symptoms of bronchitis.
These cases are, however, very unusual, are seen only at times when the
disease prevails epidemically; and even then the symptoms of the
affection are sufficiently marked to preserve from error all but those
who wish to be deceived, and to flatter themselves that their child is
henceforth protected from scarlatina.
=Scarlatina=, or =Scarlet Fever=, for the two names mean the same thing,
the former being only the Latin term, and not implying any greater
mildness of the disease, is one of the most formidable ailments of
childhood, and especially of early childhood, since the highest
mortality from it takes place during the third year of life.
It is more dreaded in a household, and justly so, than any other
disease of childhood, though, indeed, it is not limited in its
occurrence to early life, and instances are familiar to us all in which
the mother, devoting herself to the care of her little ones, has herself
fallen a victim to the poison.
I do not think it so directly contagious, from person to person, as
small-pox, chicken-pox, or measles, but its infection appears to be
specially abiding in its character, and to cling longer to the clothes,
the bedding, and even the room of a scarlet fever patient, than that of
the other eruptive fevers, except perhaps small-pox.
It is an object of special dread also for two other reasons. One of
these reasons is the extreme and causeless variations in its severity;
so that I have known more than one or two children in the same family to
have it so slightly as scarcely to be ill, two to have their lives
placed in jeopardy, and two to die. The other reason for special dread
is that the mildness of the disease at its outset affords but a slight
guarantee against the occurrence of serious complications in its course,
and still slighter against secondary diseases which may follow in its
train, and either destroy life directly, or leave behind some
irremediable mischief.
Scarlatina has been divided by medical men into three classes, according
to its different degrees of severity; the mild--that accompanied with
bad sore-throat--and the malignant variety.
We have specially to do with the first of the three; for it is in it
only that there is danger of the disease being overlooked, or mistaken.
The symptoms of scarlatina usually appear within three days after
exposure to its contagion, and there is very good authority for
believing that the interval never exceeds six days. I should not,
however, feel quite secure until after the lapse of ten days, and during
this time the child ought to be isolated from his brothers and sisters.
In the mildest form of the disease the appearance of the rash upon the
surface, usually with, but sometimes even without slight sore-throat and
feverishness, may be the first indication of an affection which is
sometimes so deadly. In the majority of cases, however, it is ushered
in by vomiting once or oftener, accompanied by headache, heaviness, of
head, great heat of skin, and some measure of sore-throat. The brain is
easily disturbed in children, as has already been said, and delirium at
night during the first twenty-four hours of an attack of scarlet fever
need not excite anxiety, for it then often passes away, and the disease
runs a perfectly favourable course. The continuance of delirium later is
an attendant only on the graver forms of scarlet fever.
The rash often makes its appearance within twenty-four hours after the
commencement of the illness, at latest in the course of the second day.
It usually shows itself first on the neck, breast, and face, whence it
extends in twenty-four hours to the body and limbs, and is then not
seldom specially vivid on the inside of the thighs. Its colour is a very
bright red, due in part to a general flush of the skin, in part to the
presence of innumerable red dots or spots, which do not communicate any
sense of roughness to the hand, though now and then extremely minute red
pimples are interspersed. For three days the rash usually continues to
become of a deeper colour, and more generally diffused over the whole
surface; it then slowly declines, but does not wholly disappear until
the seventh or eighth day of the disease. As the rash subsides the skin
is left rough, and by degrees scales off, often in large flakes from the
hands and feet, but elsewhere in a sort of branny scales. Sometimes this
process is over in five or six days, while in other cases the skin peels
and is reproduced several times in succession, so that it is protracted
for three or four weeks or even longer. The degree of this peeling also
varies as well as its duration. It is usually most considerable where
the rash has been most abundant, while where the rash has been scanty,
it is sometimes scarcely apparent except at the tips of the fingers and
toes and just around the insertion of the nails.
Besides the rash there are commonly other symptoms not less
characteristic of scarlatina, and among them the sore-throat is one of
the most invariable. Even in mild cases, it is very rarely absent, and
if not present at the beginning, it comes on on the second or third day.
The palate and tonsils, in these circumstances are red, and the latter
are usually more or less swollen, while swallowing is attended with
pain, or at any rate with discomfort. The redness of the palate, which
extends also to the back of the throat, is a finely spotted redness
closely resembling the rash on the surface. The tongue is coated with a
thick white or yellowish coating, through which project numerous bright
red points, papillæ as they are called, and this appearance of the
tongue is as distinctive of scarlatina as the rash itself. Later, as the
rash begins to fade, the coating separates from the tongue, which is
left of a bright red colour, looking raw and shining, with the little
raised red points projecting beyond its surface, and constituting what
has been called in medical language, the strawberry tongue.
When all these symptoms are present, no one can doubt but that the case
is one of scarlatina. But the decision is far less easy in mild cases,
for in them the rash is sometimes extremely evanescent, the general
disturbance of health very slight, and the fever and accompanying rise
of temperature small. The risk in such circumstances of the disease
being altogether overlooked is even greater than that of its being
confounded with some other eruptive fever. The rash of measles cannot be
confounded with that of scarlatina, and the distinctly spotty character
of the rash of German measles ought, apart even from other differences,
to render mistake impossible.
Perhaps the best rule that can be laid down is that every diffused red
rash, not obviously formed by distinct spots, even though it be not
uniform but appears in patches on the neck, breast, back, or inside of
the thighs, and persists for more than twelve hours, is scarlatinal.
Further, that in any instance in which even very slight feverishness, or
very slight sore-throat, have preceded or accompanied the rash, the
nature of the ailment is stamped beyond the possibility of doubt.
Mistakes are made from want of careful observation, much more than from
any insuperable difficulty in distinguishing one disease from the other.
When the least hesitation is felt as to the nature of any rash which
may appear on a child, with, or without previous illness, the question
should be at once referred to a medical man. People are too apt in these
circumstances to wait for a few days, and then to appeal to the doctor
when all traces of rash have disappeared, and when the grounds no longer
exist on which he could base a positive opinion.
I need not describe the symptoms of severe and dangerous scarlatina, for
long before symptoms become really formidable, the patients will have
been placed under medical care. It may suffice to say that the danger is
almost always in proportion to the severity of the throat-affection and
swelling of the glands, and not at all in proportion to the abundance of
the rash. Though severe cases usually set in with severe symptoms, yet
this is not invariably the case, and medical watching is all the more
necessary from the very commencement, since until the end of the first
week it is impossible to calculate on the subsequent course of the
disease. In malignant scarlatina happily of infrequent occurrence, the
child is struck down, as though its blood were poisoned, from the very
first; and death takes place often within forty-eight hours, the rash
appearing just sufficiently to stamp the nature of the pestilence which
has proved so deadly.
It may form a useful conclusion to all that has been said in this little
book about the diseases of children, if I endeavour to point out in what
consist the duties of parents in cases of scarlatina, or of any disease
which resembles it.
1. To watch carefully the commencement of every slight feverish attack
in which a diffused red rash appears, even though this should be only in
patches, and to bear in mind the possibility of its being due to
scarlatina.
2. To remove the child immediately from the others, so long as there is
any doubt concerning the nature of the case, and to remove with him his
bed, bedding, and all clothes worn by him at the time when the illness
began, or the rash appeared.
3. To place the child if possible in a room at the top of the house, so
that the other children may not pass by his door.
4. Inasmuch as scarlatina often proves fatal to grown persons who have
not already had the disease, to obtain at once the attendance of a
skilled nurse, in order to avoid the risk of the disease spreading
through the household.
The wife belongs to her husband, the husband to his wife; their mutual
duties are paramount over even those of the parent; and neither has the
right to jeopardise that life which belongs to the other. To say, 'I
shall not catch the disease, because I have no fear,' is as idle as it
would be for the soldier to say, 'Because I am brave, therefore I am
invulnerable.'
I have been accustomed to insist on the absence from the room of father
or mother, supposing either of them not to have had scarlatina, so long
as I could give the assurance that every thing was going on well; but on
the slightest anxiety I have referred to both parents for their mutual
decision as to the course which they would choose to adopt.
From a refusal to be guided by this counsel, it has more than once
happened to me, to see the child recover from mild scarlatina without a
bad symptom, and the mother who had insisted on nursing the little one
die of the disease to which she had needlessly exposed herself.
5. So soon as the disease has declared itself as scarlatina, to take up
the carpets and remove the curtains from the sick child's room, to empty
the drawers of any clothes which may be in them, and to hang up outside
the door a sheet moistened with a solution of carbolic acid.
6. To arrange for all food and necessaries to be placed in an adjoining
room, or at the head of the stairs, so that there may be no direct
communication between the attendants on the sick and the other inmates
of the house.
7. To insist on the attendants not wearing either silk or stuff dresses,
but dresses of some washable material; and on their changing their
garments as well as scrupulously washing themselves before mixing with
other inmates of the house, and especially with the children.
8. While in all respects obeying the directions of the doctor, to grease
the child all over twice in twenty-four hours with suet or lard, to
which a small quantity of carbolic acid has been added. This proceeding
both lessens the amount of peeling of the skin in a later stage of the
disease; lessens the contagiousness of the scales which are detached;
and, by promoting the healthy action of the skin, diminishes the risk of
subsequent disorder of the kidneys and consequent dropsy.
9. Even when the case has been of the slightest possible kind, to keep
the child always in bed for one-and-twenty days. This was a standing
rule at the Children's Hospital, and I am certain that its
non-observance will be followed three times out of four by dropsy and
kidney-disease.
10. When the disease is over, to destroy, if the parents' means at all
permit it, the clothes and bedding of the child. When this is not
practicable, to have everything exposed to the heat of superheated steam
in a Washington Lyons or other similar disinfector, and to have all
linen boiled as well as washed. Lastly, to have the ceiling whitewashed,
the paint cleaned, the paper stripped, and the room repapered, as well
as the floor washed and rewashed with strong carbolic soap.
These precautions are troublesome and costly, but disease is costlier
still; and who shall estimate the cost of death!
APPENDIX
_ON THE MENTAL AND MORAL FACULTIES IN CHILDHOOD, AND ON THE DISORDERS TO
WHICH THEY ARE LIABLE._
Any remarks on the ailments of children would be incomplete if no notice
were taken of the mental and moral peculiarities of early life.
For want of giving heed to them, not only are grave mistakes made in the
education of children, but in the management of their ailments, both by
doctors and by parents: much needless trouble is given to the doctors,
much needless distress to the child, much needless anxiety to the
parents.
The common mistake committed by those parents who do not make their
child an idol to fall down and worship, and thus turn him, to his own
misery and theirs, into the most arbitrary of domestic tyrants, is to
treat him as though he were in mind, as well as in body, a miniature
man; feebler in intellect as he is inferior in strength, but differing
in degree only, not in kind.
Now the child differs essentially from the adult in the three respects;
that
1. He lives in the present, not in the future.
2. His perceptions are more vivid, and his sensibilities more acute;
while the world, on which he has just entered, surrounds him with daily
novelties.
3. He has less self-consciousness, less self-dependence, lives as a
part of the world by which he is surrounded--a real practical pantheist.
The child lives in the present, not in the future, nor much even in the
past, till the world has been some time with him, and he by degrees
shares the common heritage of retrospect and anticipation. This is the
great secret of the quiet happiness which strikes almost all visitors to
a children's hospital.
No one can have watched the sick bed of the child without remarking the
almost unvarying patience with which its illness is borne, and the
extremity of peril from which apparently, in consequence of that
patience, a complete recovery takes place. Much, indeed, is no doubt due
to the activity of the reparative powers in early life, but much also to
the unruffled quiet of the mind. No sorrow for the past, no gloomy
foreboding of the future, no remorse, disappointment, nor anxiety
depresses the spirits and enfeebles the vital powers. The prospect of
death, even when its approach is realised--and this is not so rare as
some may imagine--brings in general but small alarm. This may be from
the vagueness of the child's ideas; it may be, as the poet says, that in
his short life's journey, 'the heaven that lies about us in our infancy'
has been so much with him, that he recognises more clearly than we can
do
'The glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.'
I dwell on this truth, because it is of great practical moment that we
should bear in mind to how very large an extent the child lives only in
the present; because it follows from it that to keep the sick child
happy; to remove from it all avoidable causes of alarm, of suffering, of
discomfort; to avoid, as far as may be, any direct struggle with its
waywardness; and even if death seems likely to occur, to look at it from
a child's point of view--not from that which our larger understanding of
good and evil suggests to our minds--are duties of the gravest kind
which weigh on the parent and the nurse, no less than on the physician.
But not only does the child live in the present far more than it is
possible for the adult, but there are, besides, other important mental
differences between the two. Not only is the mind of the child feebler
in all respects than that of the adult, but, in proportion to the
feebleness of his reasoning power, there is an exaggerated activity of
his perceptive faculties, a vividness of his imagination. The child
lives at first in the external world, as if it were a part of himself,
or he a part of it, and the gladheartedness which it rejoices us to see
is as much a result of the vividness with which he realises the things
around him, as of that absence of care to which it is often attributed.
This peculiarity shows itself in the dreams of childhood, which exceed
in the distinctness of their images those which come in later life. It
shows itself, too, in the frequency with which, even when awake, the
active organs perceive unreal sounds, or in the dark, at night, conjure
up ocular spectra; and then not merely colours, but distinct shapes,
which pass in long procession before the eyes. This power fades away
with advancing life; except under some conditions of disease, the
occasional appearance of luminous objects in the dark is the only relic
with most of us of the gift of seeing visions with which, at least in
some degree, we were endowed in our early years. The child who dreads to
be alone, and asserts that he hears sounds, or perceives objects, is not
expressing merely a vague apprehension of some unknown danger, but often
asserts a literal truth. The sounds have been heard; in the stillness of
its nursery the little one has listened to what seemed a voice calling
it; or, in the dark, phantasms have risen before its eyes, and the agony
of terror with which it calls for a light, or begs for its mother's
presence, betrays an impression far too real to be explained away, or to
be met by hard words or by unkind treatment.
Impressions such as these are not uncommon in childhood, even during
health. Disorder, direct or indirect, of the functions of the brain,
more commonly the latter, greatly exaggerates them, and I have known
them to outlast for many weeks all other signs of failing health after
convalescence from fevers. The unreal sights are far more common than
the sounds. The sounds are usually of the simplest kind--as the tinkling
of a bell, of which we all remember the exquisite use made by Hans
Andersen in one of his nursery tales; or the child's own name, at
intervals repeated, just as the little watchful boy heard it in far off
Judæa, when it was the prelude to a wondrous communication from the
unseen world. It came to him as he woke from sleep, before the morning
dawned, while the lamp, lighted overnight, was burning still; and still
it is so far the same that these occurrences which suggest to us
problems that we cannot attempt to solve, mostly take place at times of
transition from the sleeping to the waking state.
The ocular spectra are usually far more vivid and detailed. Those which
occur in the waking state are by no means always painful, though their
strangeness not infrequently alarms the child, and his horror at the
dark arises, not from his seeing nothing, but from his seeing too much.
Some imaginative children amuse themselves with these phantasms, and
then, if encouraged to relate them, will constantly transgress the
boundary line between truth and falsehood, and weave their little
romance. When they happen on waking they are usually preceded by
frightful dreams, but the image which the child sees then is not the
mere recollection of the dream, but a new, distinct, though painful
impression; generally of some animal to which the child points, as now
here, now there. These night terrors from the very circumstantial
character of the impressions which attend them, often, as I have already
said, occasion needless anxiety as to the importance of the cause on
which they depend.
Sleep-walking in its smaller degrees of getting out of bed at night, is
by no means unusual in childhood; but the greater degrees of
somnambulism are certainly rare; and I have always found them dependent
on undue mental work; not always, indeed, on the tasks being excessive,
but sometimes on the over-anxiety of the child to make progress. I have
not yet known a poor person's child a somnambulist.
But not only are the perceptions more acute in childhood than in adult
life, the sensibilities are more intense. The child's emotions, indeed,
are often transitory--generally very transitory; but while they last
they produce results far greater than in the grown person. In the case
of the latter, recollection of the past, anticipation of the future, or
even the duties of the present, control the overwhelming sorrow, or call
forth the energies needed to bear it. The child lives in the present,
and this present is but the reflection of the world around, its
impressions uncontrolled by experience, ungoverned by reason.
The broken-heartedness of a child on leaving home is not the expression
only of intense affection for its friends or relations, it is the shock
of separation from the familiar objects which have surrounded it; and I
have not infrequently seen children inconsolable when removed from homes
that were most wretched, or from relations who were most unkind. Every
now and then, indeed, I have been compelled to send children home from
the hospital because no love nor care could reconcile them to the change
from home; and they have refused to eat, and spent their nights in
weeping. The feeling is an unreasoning one, like the home-sickness of
the mountaineer.
But, moreover, sudden shocks may sometimes overthrow the whole moral
equilibrium, and disarrange the balance of the nervous system so
seriously as to cause the death of a child previously free from any
important ailment. Thus, I remember a little boy five years of age who
died sixteen days after his father's funeral. The strange sad scene
overcame him, though there had been no special tie between him and his
father. He shivered violently, became very sick, complained by signs of
pain in the head, for he had lost his speech, which he regained by slow
degrees in the course of four or five days. Improvement in other
respects did not take place, he lay in a drowsy state save when he
called for his mother, and at length the drowsiness deepened into
stupor, and so he died. I suppose his mother was right; she said his
heart was broken.
It behoves us to bear in mind that the heart may break, or the reason
fail, under causes that seem to us quite insufficient; that the griefs
of childhood may be, in proportion to the child's powers of bearing
them, as overwhelming as those which break the strong man down. Every
now and then we are shocked by the tale that some young child has
committed suicide, and for reasons which to our judgment seem most
trivial--from fear of punishment, or even from mere dread of reproof.
These facts deserve special attention, they show how much more the
susceptibility and sensitiveness of children need to be taken into
consideration than is commonly done.
This keenness of the emotions in children displays itself in other ways,
and has constantly to be borne in mind in our management of them. The
child loves intensely, or dislikes strongly; craves most earnestly for
sympathy, clings most tenaciously to the stronger, better, higher around
it, or to what it fancies so; or shrinks, in often causeless but
unconquerable dread, from things or persons that have made on it an
unpleasant impression. Reason as yet does not govern its caprices, nor
the more intelligent selfishness of later years hinder their
manifestation. The waywardness of the most wilful child is determined by
some cause near at hand; and those who love children, and can read their
thoughts, will not in general be long in discovering their motives and
seeing through their conduct.
One word more must be said with reference to that intense craving for
sympathy so characteristic of the child. It is this which often
underlies the disposition to exaggerate its ailments, or even to feign
such as do not exist, and in such attempts at deception it often
perseveres with almost incredible resolution. Over and over again I have
met with instances where the motives to such deception were neither the
increase of comfort nor the gratification of mere indolence; but the
monopolising the love and sympathy which during some bygone illness had
been extended to it, and which it could not bear to share again with its
brothers and sisters. This feeling, too, sometimes becomes quite
uncontrollable, and the child then needs as much care and as judicious
management, both bodily and mental, to bring it back to health, as
would be called for in the case of some adult hypochondriac or
monomaniac.
A caution may not be out of place as to the importance of not
ministering to this tendency to exaggerated self-consciousness by
talking of children's ailments in their hearing, or by seeming to notice
the complaints they make as though they were something out of the common
way.
It will be observed that throughout I have dwelt more on disorders of
the moral faculties than of the intellectual powers in childhood, and I
have done so because I believe them to be the more common and the more
important. In the feeble-minded the moral sense almost invariably
participates in the weakness of the intellect; but it is by no means
unusual for the former to be grievously perverted, while the
intelligence is in no respect deficient. The moral element in the child
seems to me to assert its superiority in this, that it is the most
keenly sensitive, the soonest disordered--
'Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh,'
and the discord is first perceived in the finest notes.
To a very great extent, a mixture of vanity and of a morbid craving for
sympathy lie at the root of many of those perversions of character
which excite a parent's anxiety. One of these consists in an
over-scrupulousness with reference to the right or wrong of actions in
themselves quite indifferent; in doubts as to whether the morning or
evening prayer has been properly said, whether something was or was not
absolutely true, whether this or that peccadillo was a grievous offence
against God, and so on; and all these little cases of conscience are
brought by the child several times a day to his mother or to his nurse
for solution. If listened to readily the child's truthfulness becomes
inevitably destroyed, and he grows up with a morbid frame of mind, which
after-life will aggravate almost infinitely.
One knows indeed the history of child saints; but it must be remembered
that one great characteristic of pre-eminent sanctity at all ages of
life is reticence, while these little people are perpetually seeking to
interest others in themselves, their doubts, and feelings. If wisely
dealt with, not by direct ridicule, but by a wholesome neglect of the
child's revelations, treating them as of no special interest or
importance, and discouraging that minute introspection which, of
doubtful good at any age, is absolutely destructive of the simplicity of
childhood, this unnatural condition will soon pass away. It will help
this object very much, if the child is sent on a visit to judicious
friends, and change of scene, of pursuits, of playmates, and amusements
will be of all the more service since these morbid states of mind seldom
come on in children whose bodily health is robust.
Another mode in which the same perverted feelings display themselves is
in the disposition occasionally noticed to exaggerate some real ailment,
or to complain of some ailment which is altogether imaginary. So far is
this from being rare that my experience coincides entirely with that of
the French physician M. Roger, who has had larger opportunities than
anyone else in France for observing the diseases of children, and who
says, 'It must be borne in mind that simulated ailments are much more
common in the children's hospital than in a hospital for adults.'
It is difficult to assign any sufficient reason for this conduct. Mere
indolence seems sometimes to be the chief reason for it, oftener vanity;
the sense of importance in finding everything in the household arranged
with exclusive reference to itself appears to be the motive for it; and
this may sometimes be observed to be very powerful even at an
exceedingly early age. In many instances a morbid craving for sympathy
is mingled with the love of importance, and both these sentiments are
not infrequently exaggerated by the conduct of a foolishly fond mother.
Real illness, however, in almost all these cases exists at the
commencement, though the child persists in complaining of its old
symptoms long after their cause has disappeared.
The great difficulty which the doctor meets with in the management of
these cases arises from the incredulity with which his opinion is
received. Candour is looked upon as so eminently characteristic of
childhood, that deceit seems impossible; the case is thought by the
parents to be an obscure one which the doctor does not understand; and
therefore it is said, he, with want of straightforwardness and of
kindness, throws doubts on the existence of disease, and on the
truthfulness of a most loving, most suffering child. The vagaries of a
hysterical girl, the fits, the palsy, the half-unconsciousness have all
been assumed within my own observation by children from ten to fifteen
years old, and I have more than once had to give place to the ignorant
and impudent pretender who traded successfully on the feelings of the
parents. Sometimes, one knows not why, except that the child has got
tired of the part he was playing, the symptoms that had caused so much
anxiety suddenly disappear, but even then the habit of mind left behind
is anything but healthy. Indeed in all cases of this kind it is much
less the state of the body than that of the mind which excites my
apprehension. The constant watching its own sensations, the habit of
constantly gratifying every wayward wish and temper under the plea of
illness, and the constant indulgence which it too often meets with in
this from the over-kindness of its parents, exert a most injurious
influence on its character, and it grows up a juvenile hypochondriac.
A doctor is very unlikely to throw doubt recklessly on the reality of a
child's illness. His hesitation should certainly not be attributed to
unworthy motives; the parents should co-operate with him heartily in any
course of observation which he desires to follow, and if necessary
another medical man of experience should be associated with the first,
and allowed to visit the child two or three times. One does not
associate the idea of moral delinquency with hysteria; the child who
shams belongs to the same class with the hysterical patient. It is only
the strangeness of the occurrence in the eyes of non-medical people,
that makes them fancy it something worse.
If now the suspicion is justified that the child is either greatly
exaggerating or altogether feigning illness, it does not by any means
always follow that he should at once be charged with it, since it is
often of much importance that his self-respect should not be destroyed.
It must be remembered that there is in all these cases a measure of real
ailment underlying all the half-unconscious exaggeration, and that if
spoiling and over-indulgence do much to foster it, sternness and
punishment interfere with recovery. To turn the thoughts away from self,
to occupy the mind with new scenes, new amusements, new pursuits, to
call forth by degrees self-control, and to let the child perceive rather
by your manner than by what is actually said that the parents have not
been duped by all his past vagaries; such are the simple means by which
the little one will be brought round again to health of mind and health
of body. Unhappily, in the minds of too many people the idea of the
doctor is associated with the administration of drugs and with nothing
else; the treatment of disease is of much wider scope; and many of our
best remedies are those which do not admit of being weighed or measured,
and whose names are not inscribed on the drawers or bottles in
Apothecaries' Hall.
Another phase of mental disorder in childhood sometimes presents itself
as the result of overtasking the intellectual powers. This over-work too
is by no means due in all cases to the parents' unwisely urging the
child forward, but it is often quite voluntary on his part. The
precaution too of limiting the hours of work is often inadequate from
the want of some provision for turning the thoughts and energies during
play hours into some perfectly different channel.
In many of these cases Nature happily takes matters into her own
management. For a year or two, or more, the mind has grown apparently at
the expense of the body; the parents take a fearful joy in their
darling's acquirements; and if it should live, think they, of what
remarkable talents will it not be the possessor! By degrees, the extreme
quickness of intellect becomes less remarkable; but the body begins to
increase in robustness; and a year will sometimes suffice to transmute
the little fairy, so quick, so clever, but so fragile, into a very
commonplace, merry, rosy, romping child. I may add that it is well to
bear in mind the converse of this; to remember that body and mind
rarely grow in equal proportion at one time; that the incorrigible
little dunce, though not likely to prove a genius as he grows older,
will yet very probably be found at twelve or fourteen to know as much as
his playmates. A dull mind, and a sickly or ill-developed frame may make
us anxious: but if the physical development is good, the mind will not
be likely to remain long below the average standard.
But sometimes, the over-tasked mind leads to mischief which Nature
cannot rectify; an attack of water on the brain destroys the child, or
if not it sinks under almost any accidental disease. In other instances
neither of these results takes place, but the whole nervous system seems
profoundly shaken, and the moral character of the child seriously, and
even permanently injured. I remember a quick and clever little girl aged
five and a half years who was urged on by her governess to work which
she delighted in, till at length the signs of over-taxed brain showed
themselves in frequent extreme irritability, and occasional attacks of
causeless fury amounting almost to madness. It was fully a year during
which almost all mental work was suspended, while the child was sent to
have complete change under most judicious management in the country,
before her mind quite recovered its balance and she became able to
resume her studies in a very moderate degree.
Cases such as this are instances of the slightest degree of a condition
which if not remedied may pass into confirmed insanity. I believe the
gradations to be almost imperceptible by which the one state passes into
the other; and I have known instances in which the ungovernable temper
and occasional fury of the child have passed in youth into abiding
insanity which rendered the patient the inmate, and I fear the permanent
inmate, of a lunatic asylum.
In whatever circumstances insanity comes on in childhood, and it does
sometimes, though very seldom, come on independently of any obvious
exciting cause, it always assumes the character of what has been termed
moral insanity, or of that condition in which the moral system rather
than the mental power is chiefly disordered.
Idiocy is unquestionably of much more frequent occurrence in childhood,
than any of those forms of mental or moral disorder of which I have been
speaking hitherto. The term idiocy, however, is a very wide one,
including conditions differing remarkably from each other both in kind
and degree, while not seldom it is misapplied to cases in which there is
mere backwardness of intellectual power.
=Backward Children.=--_Enfants arriérés_--as the French call
them--constitute a class by no means seldom met with. They generally
attain their bodily development slowly, and the development of their
mind is equally tardy. They cut their teeth late, walk late, talk late,
are slow in learning to wash and dress themselves, are generally dull in
their perceptions, and do not lay aside the habits of infancy till far
advanced in childhood. When the time comes for positive instruction,
their slowness almost wears out everyone's patience; and among the poor
indeed the attempt at teaching such children is at length given up in
despair, and growing up in absolute ignorance, it is no wonder that they
should be regarded as idiots. Still, dull as such children are, there is
between them and the idiot an essential difference. The backward child,
unlike the idiot, does not remain stationary; his development goes on,
but more slowly than that of other children, he is behind them in the
whole course of their progress, and his delay increasing every day,
places at length an enormous distance between him and them--a distance
which in fact becomes insurmountable.
In some of its minor degrees even, this backwardness not infrequently
excites the solicitude of parents. It is sometimes observed in children
who had been ill-nourished in infancy or who had been weakened by some
serious or protracted illness, even though unattended by any special
affection of the brain; but it is also met with independent of any
special cause. The distinction, however, between such a case and one of
idiocy is this, that though at four years old the child may not seem to
be intellectually superior to most children at two, yet in manners,
habits, and intelligence it does agree with what might be expected from
the child at two; less bright perhaps, less joyous, but still
presenting nothing which if it were but younger would awaken
apprehension.
It is well in all cases of unusual backwardness to ascertain the
condition of the sense of hearing, and of the power of speech, for I
have known the existence of deafness long overlooked, and the child's
dulness and inability to speak referred to intellectual deficiency; and
have also observed mere difficulty of articulation, dependent partly on
malformation of the mouth, lead to a similar misapprehension. In both
instances I have seen this inability to keep up ready intercourse with
other children cast a shadow over the mind, and the little ones in
consequence be dull, suspicious, unchild-like. I have already referred
to a similar result as sometimes following serious illnesses. The child
will for months cease to walk, or forget to talk, if these had been but
comparatively recent acquirements; or will continue dull and unequal to
any mental effort for weeks or months together, and then the mind will
begin to develop itself once more, though slowly, possibly so slowly as
never altogether to make up for lost ground.
=Idiocy.=--In _idiocy_, however, there is much more than the mere arrest
of the intellect at any period. The idiot of eight years old does not
correspond in his mental development to the child at six, or four, or
two; his mind is not only dwarfed but deformed; while feebleness of will
is often as remarkable as mere deficiency of power of apprehension. Even
in earliest infancy there is usually a something in the child idiotic
from birth which marks him as different from babies of his own age. He
is unable to support his head, which rolls about from side to side,
almost without an effort on his part to prevent it. Next it is perceived
that the child, though he can see, does not notice; that his eye does
not meet his mother's with the fond look of recognition, accompanied
with the dimpling smile, with which the infant, even of three months
old, greets his mother. Then it is found to have no notion of grasping
anything, though that is usually almost the first accomplishment of
babyhood; if tossed in its nurse's arms there seems to be no spring in
its limbs; and though a strange vacant smile sometimes passes over its
face, yet the merry ringing laugh of infancy or joyous chuckle of
irrepressible glee is not heard. As time passes on, the child shows no
pleasure at being put down 'to feel its feet,' as nurses term it; if
laid on the floor it probably cries, but does not attempt to turn round,
nor try to crawl about as other babies do. It does not learn to stand or
walk till late, and then stands awkwardly, walks with difficulty,
crossing its legs immediately on assuming the erect posture, an
infirmity which it often takes years to overcome. Just, too, as the
idiot is slow to notice, slow in learning to grasp anything, or to stand
or walk, so he is late in learning to talk, he often acquires but few
words, for his ideas are few. He learns even these few with difficulty,
and employs the same to express many different things; he generally
articulates them indistinctly, often indeed so imperfectly as to be
almost unintelligible.
In other instances the evidences of idiocy are not present at birth, or
at any rate are not then noticed, but succeed to some attack of
convulsions or to some illness attended with serious affection of the
brain. Sometimes too there is no point in the child's history which can
be laid hold on as marking the commencement of the weakening of his
intellect, but as the body grows the mind remains stationary, or its
powers retrocede, until by degrees the painful conviction that the child
has become idiotic forces itself upon the unwilling parents. Here we
have sometimes the sad spectacle of the body perfectly developed, hale
and strong, but the mind obscured; the child in constant unrest,
perpetually chattering, laughing without cause, destroying its clothes,
or the furniture of its room, for no purpose; or sitting silent, with a
weird smile upon its face, looking at its spread-out fingers, or
stroking a piece of cloth for a quarter of an hour together as though
the sensation yielded it a kind of pleasure. It would be almost endless
to describe the various degrees of mental weakness; from the slight
silliness down to the condition in which the child is, and remains all
life long, below the level of the brute.
Parents as a rule are anxious to persuade themselves, and to persuade
the doctor that their idiot child was once as bright and intelligent as
others; and that the mind was darkened by some grave illness. We have,
however, the highest authority, that of Dr. Down, for saying that as a
rule which has but few exceptions idiocy from birth is more amenable to
training than that which comes on afterwards, that in fact it is more
hopeful to have to do with an ill-developed than with a damaged brain.
The one great question which still remains is what can the parents do
for best and wisest whom the affliction has befallen of having an idiot
child.
First. To moderate their expectations as to the results of any, even the
best devised and most successful treatment. The child who has been born
of weak intellect, or who has become so as the result of illness, will
always remain at a lower level than others, and this, even though some
one faculty, as the musical faculty, or the power of calculation, should
be above the average.
Secondly. From the child's earliest infancy to occupy themselves in
perfecting as far as possible the physical powers and aptitudes, and the
habits of cleanliness and order. Development of mind waits on
development of body: to stand, to sit, to walk, to grasp an object put
into the hand, are essential to bringing the idiot child into relation
with the world around it; are its elementary education, to be given
patiently, cheerfully, lovingly, even for years together. To attend to
its natural wants, and by fixed routine to accustom it at stated hours
to empty its bowels and its bladder is a lesson hard to teach; and not
less difficult is it to make the child learn to masticate its food, to
drink without slobbering, and then to use the spoon and fork, and to
feed itself; and afterwards to dress itself, to wash itself, to tie its
shoestrings; for idiots almost without exception are awkward as well as
lazy.
The common class of nurses, even the very kindest, find it so much
easier to feed the child, to wash it, and to dress it, than to teach it
to do any of these things for itself, that it too often grows up, till
too old to remain in the nursery, without having made the slightest
advance above the condition of completest babyhood. It is absolutely
essential either that the mother should devote herself solely to the
care and teaching of the idiot, or that she should engage a nurse who
will have no other duty. Such a person must be above the average in
education and intelligence, and of course will command more than the
ordinary wages. The mother, too, must resign herself to the little one's
affection being transferred in a great degree from herself to the person
who has constant charge of it--a hard trial this, but one to which, for
her child's good, she must bring herself to submit.
Thirdly. So soon as the child has been taught at home to exercise these
lower powers, and the question of what is termed its education arises,
it is a matter of absolute necessity that he be sent to an institution
specially set apart for the feeble-minded. It is absolutely impossible
with the most devoted love and the most lavish expenditure of money, to
do at home what can be, and is constantly, accomplished even in a pauper
idiot asylum. The imitative faculty, which is usually very strongly
marked in the idiot, furnishes one great means of his improvement; while
besides there are many of the moral powers which cannot be brought out
except in the society of other children of his own age and not differing
too widely from him in mental power.
I have warned, and I repeat the warning, against exaggerated
expectations as to the results of even the wisest treatment. To teach
cleanliness, order, and neatness; to impart knowledge enough to enable
the idiot to take care of himself; to develop his affections; to enable
him to read and write; to practise some easy handicraft; to partake of
some simple pleasures, and so at length to return to the shelter of his
own home, and to be there, not an object to be hidden away, too painful
to look upon, but an object rather of special tenderness, repaying with
his guileless love the sad self-sacrifice of his parents for many a
year; these are endeavours almost sure of accomplishment in a
well-conducted institution, sure never to be realised in a home.
I have often sent afflicted parents, who shrank from parting with their
children, to one institution near London; and I doubt not there are
others in England, where pains, and care, and skill, and untiring love
awake the slumbering intellect, arouse the dormant affections, and work
miracles of healing on these helpless little ones.
INDEX.
Abdomen, large, its importance exaggerated, 158
---- tenderness of, very important, 158
Acute constitutional diseases, 187
Aperients, 23
Artificial feeding, its dangers, 45
---- ---- rules for, 50
---- ---- sometimes necessary, 49, 58
---- ---- substitutes for milk, 59
Asses' milk best substitute for human, 51
Asthma, 145
Atrophy, infantile, 45
---- its causes and symptoms, 47
---- symptoms essentially different from consumption, 48, 62
---- may depend on consumption, 61
Backwardness, 224
Bath, warm, management of, 19
---- ---- when to be used in convulsions, 91
Bed, importance of, in illness, 16
Bedsores, how to prevent, and treat, 18
Bedstead, best form of, for children, 17
Brain, disease of, cry in, 5
---- ---- proofs of absence of, 10
---- and nervous system, mortality from diseases of, 88
---- ---- convulsions as a sign of, 89
---- congestion of, 95
---- disorder of, from exhaustion, 106
---- inflammation of, 99. _See_ Water on the Brain.
---- disease from disease of the ear, 102
---- ---- symptoms of, 103
---- ---- treatment of, 105
Breathing, frequency of, in health and disease, 8
Bright's disease of the kidneys, 169
Bronchitis, 130
---- more serious than pneumonia, 131
---- its symptoms, 131
Catarrh, 128
---- its prevention and treatment, 129
Chafing, 77
Chest, cry in disease of, 5
Chicken-pox, 202
Childhood, characters of second period of, 85
---- mental and moral faculties, peculiarities in, 213
---- difference between child and adult, 213
---- patience of child, 214
---- vividness of imagination, 215
---- phantasms and sounds, 216
---- sensibility intense, 217
---- craving for sympathy in, 218
Children and infants, mortality of, 1; _see_ Mortality.
---- diseases of, their signs, 5; _see_ Diseases of Children.
---- management, 12
---- spoiled, 13
---- sick, importance of truth with them, 13
---- keeping happy, 16
Chloroform in convulsions, 92
Chronic constitutional diseases, 173
Cold to the head, how to apply, 22
Colic, characters of, 158
Congestion of the brain, 95
---- fatal termination of, 96
---- chronic water on brain from, 97
---- treatment of, 97
Constitutional diseases, 173
Consumption, how distinguished from non-expansion of lungs, 38
---- its symptoms when cause of infantile atrophy, 61
---- its nature, 174
---- recovery from, 176
---- causes of, 176
---- symptoms, 177
---- dependent on disease of glands of lungs, 177
---- in infancy, 178
---- galloping, 178
---- of the bowels, 179
Convulsions, as sign of brain disorder, 88
---- less serious than in grown person, 89
---- signs of their approach, 93
---- causes of, various, 90
---- description of a fit of, 94
---- treatment of, 91
---- now and then without apparent cause, 111
Cough, from disease of glands of lungs, 177
Cow's milk, excess of curd in, 51
---- ---- easily deteriorated, 52
Cow-pox, its nature, 198
Croup, its nature, 133
---- its two kinds, 134
---- catarrhal, 134
---- distinction from diphtheria, 135
---- treatment of, 135
---- spasmodic, 107. _See_ Spasmodic Croup.
Cry in illness, various meanings of, 5
---- when lungs are imperfectly expanded, 36
Diabetes, 169
Diarrh[oe]a in childhood, 154
---- simple, 156
---- inflammatory, 157
Digestion, how performed, 151
Digestive organs, peculiarities of, in infancy, 46
Diphtheria, 136
---- its gradual progress, 136
---- caution not to overlook it, 137.
---- various dangers of, 138
---- management of, 139
---- opening windpipe in, 140
---- paralysis after, 141
Diseases of infants and children, their signs, 5
---- management, 12
Doctor, proper relation of parents to, 28
Dream images vivid in childhood, 215
Dyspepsia of weakly children, 153
Earache, symptoms of, 103
---- treatment of, 105
---- inflammation of brain from disease of ear, 102
Eczema, 79
---- its symptoms and course, 79
---- treatment, 81
---- alleged dangers of curing, 84
Epilepsy, its two forms, 112
---- prospects of recovery from, 113
---- moral perversion, from, 114
---- treatment of, 116
---- moral management of, 117
Exhaustion a cause of brain disorder, 106
Farinaceous food, why unsuitable, 46
---- ---- results of its excess, 47
---- ---- best forms of, 60
Feeding-bottle, best form of, 55
Feigned illness, 221
Fingers, scrofulous disease of bones of, 183
Food, quantity required by an infant, 54
---- best mode of giving, 54
Galvanism, in cases of paralysis, 123
German measles, 204
Glandular enlargement in infantile consumption, 61
---- swellings from scrofula, 183
Gravel, 170
Grimacing, distinct from St. Vitus's dance, 119
Gums in teething, when to be lanced, 75
---- management when ulcerated, 76
Head, varieties in shape of, unimportant, 106
Headache, neuralgic, 124
---- from defective sight, 126
Heart, malformation of, 146
---- ---- management of, 148
---- frequency of disease of, from rheumatic fever, 149, 188
---- inflammation of, 148
Hooping-cough, 141
---- management of, 143
---- its dangers, 144
Hysteria, relation of, to epilepsy, 115
Idiocy, 224, 225
---- its management, 227
Incontinence of urine, 171
Indigestion in infancy, 47, 56
---- its management, 65
Infants and children, mortality of. _See_ Mortality
---- rules for artificial feeding of, 50
---- substitutes for mother's milk, 51
---- quantity of food required, 54
---- feeding-bottles, 55
Influenza, 132
Inoculation and vaccination, 196
Jaundice of new-born children, 39
---- in childhood, 154
Kidneys, disease of, 168
Lavements, their use and abuse, 26
Leeches very useful in some cases, 21
---- how to apply, 21
Liver, disease of, a cause of infantile atrophy, 62
Lungs, imperfect expansion of, 35
---- ---- ---- ---- its symptoms, 36
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- treatment, 38
---- inflammation of, rare in early infancy, 37
Measles, 202
---- its symptoms and dangers, 203
---- ---- management, 204
Medicine, choice and administration of, 23
Mercury, not cause of sore-mouth in children, 165
Mesenteric disease, 179
---- ---- its importance exaggerated, 181
Milk, why proper food of infants, 46
---- mother's, peculiarities of, soon after birth of child, 50
---- ---- best substitutes for, 50
---- ---- and that of animals compared, 50
---- substitutes for, 59
---- condensed, inferior to fresh milk, 53
Moral insanity in childhood, 219-223
---- perversion from epilepsy, 114
Mortality of infants and children, 1
---- varies in different places and times, 1
---- causes of, 2
---- ---- intermarriage and hereditary taint, 2
---- ---- unhealthy dwellings, 3
---- ---- unwholesome food, 4
---- increased during teething, 72 note
Mother not always good nurse, 12
Mouth, how to examine, 10
---- sore, 163
Mumps, 190
Napkins, inconvenience of, 18
Navel, rupture of, 43
Nettle-rash, 78
Neuralgia and headache, 124
Night terrors, 126
Nose, offensive discharge from, 184
Notes, importance of keeping in illness, 28
Ophthalmia of new-born children, 40
Opiates, 27
Palsy, 121
---- form of, peculiar to childhood, 122
---- its cause, 123
---- ---- treatment, 123
---- cases mistaken for it, 124
Peritonitis, 158
---- local, often overlooked, 158
Phantasms in childhood, 215
Pleurisy, 132
Pneumonia, 130
---- its symptoms, 131
Poultices, uses of, 20
---- how made, 20 note
Premature birth, 33
---- ---- its management, 34
Pulse, frequency of, in health and disease, 8
Quinsy, 165
Red-gum, 77
Respiration, frequency of, in health and disease, 8
---- artificial, 33
Rheumatic fever, 188
Rheumatism, connection of, with St. Vitus's dance, 118
---- chief cause of heart inflammation, 149
Rickets, 185
Round-worm, 160
Rupture of navel, 43
Scalp-swellings, 42
Scarlatina, 205
---- its dangers and symptoms, 206
---- characters of rash, 207
---- sore-throat of, 208
---- how recognised, 208
---- management of; duties of parents, 209
Scrofula, 181
---- abscesses under skin, 182
---- disease of bones of fingers, 183
---- glandular swellings, 183
---- offensive discharge from nostrils, 184
Shamming does not disprove illness, 115
Sick-room, management of, 14
Sleep-walking, 216
Small-pox, 195
---- after vaccination, 201
Snuffles, 128
Sore-mouth, 163
---- ---- not diphtheritic, 164
---- ---- not due to mercury, 165
---- throat of scarlatina, 208
Spasmodic croup, 107
---- ---- its nature and symptoms, 108
---- ---- ---- treatment, 111
Still-birth, 32
Stomach, how to examine, 9
---- ache, cry in, characteristic, 5
St. Vitus's dance, 118
---- ---- ---- its connection with rheumatism, 118
---- ---- ---- its symptoms, 118
---- ---- ---- distinct from mere grimacing, 119
---- ---- ---- its treatment, 120
Suckling, importance of, to mother and child, 40, 50
---- unfitness of some mothers for it, 49
---- sometimes has to be abandoned, 57
Sunstroke, 98
Tape-worm, 161
Tears, their value as a sign of disease, 11, 101
Teething, takes place later in man than in other animals, 47
---- order in which teeth appear, 73
---- when the gums should be lanced, 75
---- rules for management of, 76
Temperature, in health and disease, 7
---- of sick-room, 14
---- increase of, in infantile consumption, 61
Thermometer, importance of use of, 7, 28
Thread-worms, 160
Throat, white spots on, not always diphtheritic, 137
---- sore, inflammatory, or quinsey, 165
---- abscess at back of, 168
Thrush, 70
Tonsils, enlarged, 166
---- inflamed, 165
---- when to be removed, 167
Typhoid fever, 191
---- ---- its symptoms, 192
---- ---- ---- management, 194
Urine, incontinence of, 171
Vaccination, 196
---- M. Pasteur's experiments, 197
---- death from, 198
---- re-vaccination, 199
---- animal, 200
---- alleged transmission of disease by, 200
---- conclusions with reference to it, 200
---- small-pox after, 201
Vomiting in infancy, 63
---- its treatment, 64
---- as sign of congestion of brain, 95
Water on the brain, acute, its early symptoms, 99
---- ---- ---- ---- symptoms of its progress, 101
---- ---- ----- ---- chronic, two kinds of, 97, 105
Whey, Dr. Frankland's rules for preparing, 51 note
---- its uses, 51
White decoction, 59
Whites in children, 184
Worms, 160
---- the round, and the thread-worm, 160
---- tape-worm, 161
---- treatment of, 162
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
[Transcriber's Notes: Printer's errors have been corrected as follows:
Page 2--thoes corrected to those (to those conditions)
Page 2--do corrected to does (The experience ... does not apply)
Page 99--added comma (more gloomy, more pettish)
Page 107--removed space (distinguished)
Page 119--fidgetty corrected to fidgety (odd fidgety movements)
Page 160--added hyphen to round worm (round-worm)
Page 220--added quotation mark (a hospital for adults.')
Page 231--203 corrected to 202 (Chicken-pox, 202)
All other spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation has been left as written.
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