A practical treatise on the management and diseases of children / by Richard T. Evanson and Henry Maunsell.
- Evanson, Richard Tonson, 1800-1871.
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A practical treatise on the management and diseases of children / by Richard T. Evanson and Henry Maunsell. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![than the others. It is desirable that such diseases should have been passed through in early life; and we may be consulted as to the prudence of leaving a child exposed to any of these complaints, or removing it for security. If the child be healthy, and the type of the prevailing epidemic mild,* it will in general be best to allow the child to remain ; but when the infant is delicate, teething, or only recoveruig from a former illness, and under any circumstances, when the type of the prevailing disorder is severe or malignant, it will be advisable to take every precaution against the malady. It is well, also, to keep in mind that contagion is most liable to be communi- cated at the decline of these complaints, after maturation has taken place, and while desquamation is going on. Hence, we may not be too late in separating children after the disease has actually appeared in a family ; but cannot, with any safety, permit them to come together on its decline, or too soon, during convalescence. Cutaneous diseases, to which children are so liable, from the deli- cacy of their skin, and the great sympathy between the cutaneous surface and the lining membrane of the digestive organs, partake not a little of the nature of the eruptive fevers, many running a regu- lar course, or stated period of increase, maturation, and decline; while some are highly contagious, differing chiefly from the exan- themata in the absence of fever; more unsightly than dangerous in their nature, when not mismanaged in treatment. We need not participate in the great horror in which diseases of the skin are held by the fond mother, who little likes to see the beauty of her offspring thus deformed ; while as far are we from agreeing with the ignorant nurse, who rejoices in the great good which the constitution is to derive from the coming out of the eruption. Some may be occa- sionally beneficial, as points of derivation to counteract cerebral, or oftener, abdominal irritation, or that induced by the process of teething; and a few are, perhaps, critical. But none do we hesitate to remove after proper precautions ; and many, which, to ordinary means, prove most rebellious, will be found, in due time, to disap- pear, under a well regulated discipline. The protracted continuance, however, of most, does serious damage to the health, wearing out the child by constant irritation, inducing disorders of the digestive organs, and ultimately leading to a cachectic state, in which the glandular system becomes implicated, and mesenteric disease at length esta- blished. A few forms of disease of the skin appear only in infancy; some are most liable to occur during childhood; and all are modified by the influence of that age: but a large class is to be found in the adult alone. The subject is one of so much importance, that we devote to it a distinct chapter. — (See Cutaneous Diseases.) Diseases of the urinary organs are not very frequent or formidable in the child; but a disordered state of the urine often exists, and is easily induced by derangement of the digestive organs, when a deposit, * The type of an epidemic is not to be judged of by the character of a particular case, but by the general character of the complaint then prevailing; as very severe- forms of disease may be communicated by a mild case; the opposite occasionally occurs. [Note to the 4th Edition.] 7](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21118346_0077.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
