A practical treatise on the diseases of children / by J. Forsyth Meigs.

  • Meigs, J. Forsyth (John Forsyth), 1818-1882.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of children / by J. Forsyth Meigs. 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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    two, or three lumbricoides, or the slightest fever from any cause, are suffi- cient to produce this efifect, and hence it is that the character of the sleep will often become to a watchful practitioner the first sign of disorder held out by nature. The degree of disturbance of this function will vary with the nature and severity of the disturbing cause. When slight the child will continue to sleep throughout the ordinary period, but the sleep will be somewhat uneasy. The countenance will be disturbed. There will be contractions of the brow, and momentary workings of the features will express the perception of some unhealthful sensation. Often the child will toss and turn, and change its position more frequently than natural. Sometimes it will cry out, and appear distressed by some dream or painful sensation. When the cause of disturbance is more serious, the sleep is more broken, the child wakes often, and lies awake for a longer or shorter time, and it becomes very difficult to lull it to sleep again. Or it has painful dreams or nightmare, causing it to scream and struggle in sleep, and then to wake in the most violent affright. In severe instances it becomes almost sleepless. I have very often known teething children not to sleep more than half as much as in health, and to wear out, by the long continuance of this sleeplessness,.the patience and even the health of their attendants. In some instances they will no longer sleep in the bed or crib, and the nurse is obliged to get up and walk with them, or soothe them by the movement of a rocking-chair or cradle. In other cases, the derange- ment of the health is shown by grinding of the teeth, and by the most violent tossing and tumbling about the bed. I have frequently seen a child lying with its head where its feet should be, or across the bed, and with all the coverings thrown off, in spite of the most careful arrangement of the bed-clothes. These various disturbances are therefore signs of some alteration in the health of the child. They do not lead to an appreciation of the precise nature of that alteration, but they are invaluable as affording indications of the existence of some morbid condition of the economy. Very often, as above stated, they are the first symptoms of the approach of some more or less serious sickness, and as such will often enable us to determine, with much precision, the moment of onset of the attack. The Cry.—Crying is one of the modes of expression of the child. Indeed, this, with the expression of the face, are, according to M. Billard, the only means of expression with which nature has endowed the young infant. This is, however, scarcely correct, since we may also class amongst its means of expression the various spontaneous muscular movements indicative of uneasiness, or of pain, or pleasure; the manner in which it drinks or sucks, whether eagerly and with appetite, or Ian-