Volume 3

A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds.

Date:
1866-1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    magnesia, or of rliubavb and soda, should be given. If the child is being brought up by hand, the addition of lime-water to its milk, in the proportion of one part of lime-water to two parts of milk, will be of service. The mouth should always after every meal be washed out by dipping a soft rag in lukewarm water and gently rubbing it over the internal surface of the mouth. When due to hot or acrid substances taken into the mouth, mucilaginous drinks should be given; if due to teething, the gums, if necessary, should be lanced. 3. Thkush. Thrush—known also as Diffuse Inflammation of the Mouth with Curdy Exudation, as White Mouth, or Le Muguet—is a form of inflammation of the mouth met with at all ages, but much more frequently in new-born infants and children than in adults. It occurs usually as a complication of other diseases. In new-born infants it is, however, so easily produced that it has been called in them idiopathic; but as it is invariably preceded by some gastric symptoms, and more or less diarrhcea, it is in infants, as in adults, a secondary affection. The change in the secretion of the mouth from an alkaline to an acid reaction is favourable to the pro- duction of this disease; and as during the first weeks of infancy the mucous membrane of the mouth yields, even in a state of health,— and wholly independently of whether or no the child is brought up at the breast,—an acid reaction, this circumstance accounts for the Jar greater liability of infants than of adults to this affection.— (West.) The invasion of this disease is generally marked by more or less constitutional disturbance ; the symptoms'first noticed by the mother being slight feverishness, irritability, loss of appetite, and the presence of a little diarrhoea: severe diarrhoea is not by any means a constant primary symptom. The mouth is generally hot and dry, and the secretion of the saliva lessened. On looking into the mouth, if the child be seen before the cha- racteristic white curdy exudation has made its appearance, the mucous membrane is found in places to present the same appearance as that described in Simple Erythema. Small red raised patches are to be seen. They may appear first either on the tongue, the insides of the. cheeks, or at the inner margin of the lips, at the angles of the mouth, and generally at this latter part first. In this stage it cannot be dia- gnosed from simple erythema, the heat and dryness of the mouth and the red raised patches being similar in both; but it is rare in this disease for the child to be brought under notice so early that some of the cluu'acteristic curdy exudation is not to be seen on some part of the mouth. The time that ela^xses between the first symptom of the i