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.

    461/502 page 451
    SYPHILIS. ADI] - ment of bowels, &c., which attend, must be met by suitable means ; and during the treatment we shall frequently have occasion to employ gentle, alterative aperients. When the digestive system has been set to rights, tonics, both internal and external, will be required : among the latter, the tepid salt water bath, and friction will generally prove serviceable ; and among the former, iodine and the different preparations of iron hold the first place. For the modes of adminis- tering these medicines, we must refer to the chapter on Therapeutics. In holding and carrying a ricketty child, the greatest attention should be paid to the avoidance of undue pressure upon any part, especially the chest. It must be remembered that the bones are in a flexible and pliant condition, and that pressure carelessly continued in the same situation, will be very likely to alter their shape. When recovery is taking place, and the child is sufficiently old, well-regulated gymnastic exercises will often produce very good effects in expanding the chest, and straightening the limbs and spine ; but they should be used very cautiously, and always with due regard to the delicate health and impaired strength of the patient. Dupuytren was in the habit of placing a child with a deformed chest, with its back against a flat resisting body, and then pressing with the expanded palm of the hand upon the sternum, so as to flatten the thorax from before backwards, and increase the convexity of the ribs from side to side. By repeating this practice . from day to day, it is possible to effect much improvement in the shape of the chest; but force sufficient to cause pain should never be employed. All instruments for straightening the limbs, or supporting the spine, are worse than useless, as they prevent the action and development of the muscles, which afford the only true means of restoring strength and symmetry. Til. SYPHILIS. The venereal disease may be communicated to the young child in three ways. Ist, The foetus may be contaminated, while yet in the womb of its mother; 2nd, The infant may receive infection from the nipple of a diseased nurse ; and, 3rd, It may be infected during its birth, the mother at the time labouring under primary symptoms of the disease. By most authors it has been supposed, that the two latter are the only modes by which the child can be infected ; but, strange as it may appear, the first mentioned has been, in our
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