Children in health and disease : a study of child-life.

  • Forsyth, David.
Date:
1909
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Children in health and disease : a study of child-life. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    knowledge thus gathered, we shall discuss the important subject of nutrition. In conclusion, we shall briefly refer to the physical changes associated with the advent of puberty. This chapter, therefore, will be divided into four sections :— 1. The Physiology of Growth ; 2. The Physiology of certain Special Functions ; 3. The Physiology of Metabolism, including Animal Heat and Nutrition; 4. The Physiology of Puberty. I. The Physiology of Growth An infant is not merely a small replica, anatomical and physiological, of an adult. The process of growth consists of something more than an addition to his weight, volume, and height. Not only does it involve, as we shall see later, changes in the chemical composition of his body, but it also implies alterations in the relative sizes and weights of every viscus. These alterations, carried on persistently but gradually over many years, prove that his several physiological functions are undergoing quantitative if not qualitative changes. Some functions rise in importance, others decline; and since the organism does not maintain superfluous tissues, the less necessary a function becomes, the smaller does the particular organ grow. Month by month, even day by day, the child's physiology passes through some modification. Every such change aflects the general physiology directly, but it also starts a whole series of secondary changes, which produce their influence even on remote parts of the body. Let us consider, by way of example, the changes in the lower jaw. At birth the jaw is relatively undeveloped and consists of a mere shell of bone. Soon it is called on to accommodate the milk-teeth, and later, the permanent teeth. Simultaneously it is required to withstand the strain of the powerful muscles of mastication. In response to these demands, It alters its shape, and becomes a larger and more prominent feature of the face, and its weight increases considerably. Numerous secondary results must follow. The temporal bones