Volume 1

A practical treatise on the management and diseases of children / By R.T. Evanson and H. Maunsell.

  • Evanson, Richard T. (Richard Tonson), 1806-1871.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the management and diseases of children / By R.T. Evanson and H. Maunsell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    39/502 page 29
    GROWTH. . 1G VII.— GROWTH. We have already designated infancy as the period of growth ; and this character, which continues during childhood, is sufficiently manifested by the progressive and rapid advance made in the body at large, and its several organs in detail. The progress of this advance is uniform ; so that the successive developments of different parts ob- serve stated periods and a well known order. In this progress we are most attracted by the advance made in the organs of animal life: but the changes which take place in the organic functions are not less remarkable, though less noticed; consisting principally of a decrease in activity, if not power, and occurring out of sight, so as to be little obnoxious to observation.” As the infant grows older, digestion ceases to be so active and the digestive tube so sensitive. Food is less frequently required ; and the kind of food may be more varied, a more stimulating variety being borne, and necessary. The secretions begin more to resemble those of adult life, and the evacuations require less frequently to be voided, being no longer passed independently of the will. The involuntary muscles generally acquire more tone, grow firmer mn struc- ture, and deeper in colour, losing their pwerie irritability. Respiration becomes slower, gradually parting with the attributes of puertlity, and is performed more by the aid of the ribs and less by the abdominal muscles.t The pulsations of the heart also be- come less frequent, and the pulse diminishes proportionately im rapidity. The activity of secretion becomes abated, and the membranes are not so vascular or sensitive. Less mucus is secreted naturally, or * In both systems of nerves, sensibility precedes activity, the course or cur- rent of innervation being, at first, from sensation to motion, although afterwards the opposite often obtains. There is also a certain correspondence between sensation and action, but this is more remarkable in the organic nervous sys- tem than in that of animal life; for in the former, action is directly propor- tioned to sensation, being in fact, a necessary consequence of it: but in animal life, this relation is uncertain, the result not being invariable, but controlled by. the brain, through which impressions must pass, or in which they originate [Note to 4th Edition ]. + About the age of three or four years, costal respiration is marked, and the in- fluence of sex begins to show itself, according to Messrs. Beau and Massiot, who point out superior costal respiration or that performed principally by the ele- - yation and expansion of the upper ribs, as characteristic of respiration in the female. [Note to 5th Edition. |
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