A treatise on the diseases of children : with directions for the management of infants / by the late Michael Underwood.

  • Underwood, Michael, 1736-1820.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases of children : with directions for the management of infants / by the late Michael Underwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    A TREATISE DISEASES OF CHILDREN. SECTION I. ON INFANTS APPARENTLY STILL-BORN. The present exordium is dedicated to the consideration of the state of apparently still-born children, and to point out the most likely means of their animation. And what I have here to offer is the result of an experience that has been attended with more success than might have been expected; at least from anything recorded by preceding writers. I have, indeed, both at the Lying-in-Hospital, and elsewhere, met with many instances of children born with very little, and others without even the smallest appearance of life ; some of whom have remained entirely destitute of any sign of it, for more than a quarter of an hour, and yet have been happily restored. I pretend to little or no skill in this business, not generally practised, and can scarcely guess to what to attribute this success, unless it be an unwearied assiduity and perseverance in my attempts, whensoever there are no certain signs of death, till I conceive nothing is possibly to be expected from them. And this has so often succeeded, that I have been tempted to think its importance may not have been sufficiently attended to by every practitioner. I rest this presump- tion not only upon some fortunate events where I have had little or no previous ground for hope, but where other practitioners had, in some instances, abandoned it. A certain steady perseverance in our attempts to preserve life, as long as the least hope may re- main, is indeed not only a duty we owe to the public, but one successful attempt is an abundant recompense for many failures ; especially as I imagine we shall rarely fail whenever there may be the least positive grounds for hope of a favourable issue. As to the means, they consist only of warmth, clysters, stimu- lants, and especially, blowing forcibly into the trachea.