Notice of Dr Guggenbühl's hospital for infant cretins.

Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notice of Dr Guggenbühl's hospital for infant cretins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    s after her birth had begun to lose all resemblance to a human being, and that so rapidly, now made as rapid strides towards recovery. In three months’ time the deformities of her person began to disappear, her skin recovered its natural warmth, the wrinkles vanished, and her face grew young again, with the hue and the charm of infancy; and at the same time her smile, and the manner in which she took notice of those around her, showed that the faculties of her mind were awakening also. In the space of twelve months, she had lost the appearance of a little doll, and had regained that of children of her own age—proof sufficient of the effi¬ cacy of proper treatment begun without loss of time, and of the disorder being more efficaciously treated in earliest infancy than at a later period. It is now eighteen months since she left us, and we have had the happi¬ ness of learning from the Pastor Bitzius of Lutzelfliick, so well known as a popular writer, in whose parish she is, that she continues in perfect health, and can talk and express herself well.” Dr Guggenbiihl makes a distinction between cretinism and idiotism, and after illustrating his ideas on the subject by the description of two brothers who are in his institution—the one cretin, the other idiot—he proceeds thus :— “ Cretinism shows itself sometimes in the physical development, and sometimes in the intellectual, and sometimes in both, and to about the same degree. It is always accompanied by some great defect in the constitution; while the intellect is nevertheless capable of being acted upon. “ Idiotism, on the contrary, is often found in a beautiful, well-pro¬ portioned body. It is occasioned, without any exception, by a fault in the formation of the brain—sometimes too large—or an organization of it which excludes the possibility of any but a very slight degree of cultiva¬ tion. “ Anatomical researches on the bodies of cretins have shown that the seat of the disorder is almost always in the brain. Sometimes its substance differs from that of healthy subjects by being too hard or too little, some¬ times it is watery, and sometimes its fibres are flat and small, as in ani¬ mals. Yet a cause still hidden from us, either before or after birth, hin¬ ders the proper development of the brain and of the spinal marrow, both so essentially necessary to the growth and the progress of the child. “ Cretinism is also closely allied to scrofula : the symptoms of the latter being often, if not always, found in cretins, and the same remedies being generally good for both. (Goitres, also, often accompany or precede it, and are sometimes enormous in old cretins.) Scrofula is frequent in the valleys, very fatal, and its effects dreadful, even where it does not kill.” Such, then, is cretinism—a disorder which is sometimes brought into the world by the unfortunate child at its birth, and which in that case has a stronger hold over the constitution that when it attacks it at a later period; but which the oftenest shows itself in the first few weeks, or months, or years of its existence: seldom or ever after the age of seven years; and if met by a change of air and diet, by strengthening and ex¬ citing remedies, by action on the nerves, the bones, and the muscles, can be stopped short, and finally cured if taken in time after the moment when it first manifests itself, and if the treatment is continued long enough ; and which can almost always be modified : thus differing entirely
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