Clinical pediatrics / by John Lovett Morse.

  • John Lovett Morse
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Clinical pediatrics / by John Lovett Morse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE This book was written primarily for my own amusement, not with the idea of enlightening the world or of adding anything to the sum of human knowledge. I hope, nevertheless, that it may be interesting and instructive to both students and general practitioners. In it I have endeavored to summarize what I have found it necessary to know of the physiology and anatomy of early life, of gross pathology and of bac¬ teriology to make a proper physical examination, to appreciate the etiology of and the pathologic changes in the diseases of infancy and childhood and to serve as a basis for an intelligent diagnosis. I have laid especial stress on methods of physical examination and on what can be learned from it, because I feel that in daily practice the physician must depend very largely on his own powers of observation for a diag¬ nosis and because I know that it is not only impossible, but also unneces¬ sary, for him to carry out complicated laboratory procedures except in occasional instances. I have not attempted to give detailed descriptions of microscopic pathologic changes, which I should have been compelled to copy from some other book and which I would not recognize if I saw them. I have also not attempted to describe diseases with which I have had no practical experience. In consequence, there are many omissions. I realize, moreover, that the space given to the various diseases is not commensurate with their relative importance. The explanation is that I have written most about those diseases concerning which I felt I knew most or was most interested in, and least about those with which I was less familiar or in which I was not especially interested. In discussing differential diagnosis I have tried to emphasize the facts that, in general, the diagnosis rests on one or two special symptoms or signs and that symptoms or signs common to several conditions are of no importance. I have described only those methods of treatment which I have found useful and which seem to me to be rational. Finally, I have endeavored to show the futility and unreasonableness of much of the treatment in common use. John Lovett Morse. Boston, Mass.
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