A practical treatise on the diseases of children / by Alfred Vogel ; translated and edited by H. Raphael.

Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of children / by Alfred Vogel ; translated and edited by H. Raphael. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ceeding years, the children are not to be subjected to the danger of suffering decided harm, they thereby become accustomed from their earliest youth on to an unsettled, roving life, and regard themselves as eternal patients. That there is no happy prospect in store for such hot-house plants needs scarcely any additional assurance. Of the remedial agents, cod-liver oil without doubt deserves the first name on the list. It is contraindicated in febrile conditions, in anorexia, and in diarrhoea; the latter condition it is of itself apt to induce in the hot summer season. Aside from that, it is taken with the greatest advantage for years by all scrofulous, and also well-pro- nounced tuberculous children. It is best to give it one or two hours after breakfast, in quantities of from one-half to one tablespoonful—a little coffee or a small piece of sugar is given afterward. On the whole, most children do not re- quire to be remunerated at all with any particular delicacies for taking the oil, for usually it is not repulsive to them in the least, and they will themselves remind the nurse to give it to them if she has once for- gotten to do so. It is -well to inform the relations, at the very outset of the cure, that an improvement can only be derived from years’ constant use of the remedy, and that it has to be given for many months, even though at first no change or no aggravation should have taken place. In well-nourished, but, for the most part, strongly-tainted, scrofu- lous children, small doses of tincture of iodine, one or two drops, to the ounce of the oil, may be added. Still, I would never advise a long-continued, internal treatment with iodine. Springs containing iodine and bromine, of which Heilbronner stands at the head of the list, next Kreuznach, are of decided benefit in scrofulous children free from bronchitis, but totally contraindicated in emaciated children with suspicious bronchitis. If the cod-liver oil is not tolerated, or the cliild refuses to take it, some substitute must be looked for which will take its place. A tea made from w’alnut-leaves seems to be the most advantageous, and of which two or three cupfuls should be given daily. A decoction of hops, or a calamus infusion, is also relished by some children, but many others refuse to take either on account of the intense bitterness. To children with excessively-pale lips and mucous membrane, mineral waters containing iron, or easily-assimilated preparations of iron, for example, martis pomat.,* must be given. All exhausting treatment, whether it consists in abstraction of blood or emetics, in purgatives, in antimonials or mercurials, induces, in all cases, an aggravation of the dyscrasia, and is therefore to be entirely avoided. * [Malate of iron.]