The history of paediatrics : the progress of the study of diseases of children up to the end of the XVIIIth century / by George Frederic Still.

  • Still, G. Frederic (George Frederic), Sir, 1868-1941.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of paediatrics : the progress of the study of diseases of children up to the end of the XVIIIth century / by George Frederic Still. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the cord which is left some bind on to the thigh, but it is better to double it over and roll it in the little bit of wool and then lay it gently against the middle of the navel, for perchance by the pressure of its weight the part will be moulded to a better-shaped depression. The custom of salting was no outcome of Greek or Roman medicine, it dates back hundreds of years before the time even of Hippocrates. Its omission was regarded as a mark of uncivilized barbarism as far back as the days of Ezekiel, about 600 b.c.: he says (Chap. xvi. 3) ‘Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee’. This salting of the new-born was handed on from one medical writer to another and persisted, partly perhaps through having become even more authoritative by being mentioned also by Galen, until even in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it still appeared in treatises on diseases of children, although some of the writers not daring to omit it own that it is never done nowadays, and even venture to question its utility: tradition dies hard in medicine. Soranus has been credited with the first reference to rickets in medical writings, and probably justly. It is in Chapter 43 (77009 See KaOl^eiv Kal 77€pi7Tdrr](Tiv dcr/celv) ‘How the child should sit and how he should practise walking'. When the infant attempts to sit and stand assistance should be given to his movements. For when he wants to sit up too soon and too much, he usually becomes round-backed, the spine becoming bent because the little body has no vigour yet: and when he is too forward in standing and wanting to walk the legs below the thighs become distorted. This is seen happening more frequently in Rome, as some suppose because the city has cold waters flowing under it and their bodies are easily chilled, but as others say, because of the frequent sexual intercourse of women, or because they practise coitus after drunkenness; but the fact is that it is due to their lack of experience in the rearing of children. For there is not sufficient