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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    labia, Avith which it may come in contact during the act of delivery. The children are covered with a thick layer of vernix caseosa, and liave suffered no loss of substance on any part of the body; in this case they would also have to have a primary chancre before the secondary eruption breaks out, a condition that is scarcely ever ob- served. There is another remarkable fact, namely, that a child, who in- herited its cachexia entirely from the father, the mother being sound, will never inoculate its own mother, while a healthy wet-nurse, who undertakes to suckle such a child, becomes infected as a rule. There results from this the therapeutically important principle that a syphi- litic child may readily enough be allowed to be suckled by its own mother, but never by a wet-nurse, for the latter, if she should happen to become inoculated, may justly hold the physician responsible. The manner in which a syphilitic nursling infects a healthy wet- nurse is not always demonstrable. The simplest manner in which the inoculation may take place is by the ulcers on the lips of the nursling coming in contact with a sore on the nipple of the breast of the wet- mn-se. Occasionally it is observed that the breasts of the wet-nurse remain uninjured, and symptoms of constitutional syphilis come on notwithstanding. Conversely, it also happens, that a syphilitic wet- nurse transmits syphilis upon a healthy child, without the nipples of her breasts having been diseased. There is no necessity at all to resort to a transmission by the milk to explain these cases. Contact of the child with the mouth of the wet-nurse, or with her fingers, which shortly before had touched syphilitic parts, seems to be the more likely cause. It is not absolutely the rule that a father who is affected with secondary syphilis should always beget syphilitic children. A consid- erable number of children remain free from all kinds of cachexim, while the fathers are well known to be strongly tainted. The children of a father are least susceptible, whose syphilis is already very inveterate, has left the skin and mucous membranes, and has become located as tertiary S3philis in the bones. Treatment.—Mercury acts extremely quickly and beneficially in syphilis of small children, and, in fact, best when applied in an ender- mic manner. For a number of years past I have ceased giving mer- [curial preparations internally—calomel and mercurius solubilis Hahne- manni* are most frequently used in this manner. I order 3ss—3j of blue mass to be actively rubbed in every day upon portions of sound skin, of which enough may always be found in every case. When the ointment is rubbed in, in the evening, a bath may be given * [Black oxide of mercury.]