The student's guide to diseases of children.
- Sir James Goodhart, 1st Baronet
- Date:
- 1886
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The student's guide to diseases of children. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![liarity of morbid deposit; of constancy of limitation to the growing age; of constancy of peculiai'ity of cbstribution of the disease, and so on. Certain diseases of the skin and teeth might equally be advanced, but, having said even this, we should still be at faiilt for material for a book. The difficulties and dill’erences which render it advisable that tliese diseases should receive special study are mostly those of semeiology jind treatment; or they arise because the student, when fii’st introduced to this branch of practice, finds himself thrown upon liis own resoui'ces. In the adult, questions can be asked and clues obtained, whicli, not- standing that they often mislead, are, on the whole, a considerable aid in forming a diagnosis. With infants and children the history is faulty or often quite want- ing, and here the student fails. For instance, it is a common occurrence in hospital practice to find that no account is forthcoming from the clinical clerk of some child that has been admitted since the last visit of the physician. “ i have not yet seen the mother!” is the explanation of the remissness which is offered. Supposing now that we change the venue, so to speak, of this illustration to that of the veterinary surgeon, and one of the lower animals, and such an answer, were it conceivably possible, would l)e ludicrous. Yet there is not so very much dilierence between the student who has to investigate the diseases of children, and one Avho has to do Avith diseases of the loA\-er animals. In both cases the diagnosis Avill chiefly rest Aipon the doctor’s mere observation and examination; in both it is intelligible speech that is AA-anting. 1 am by no means desirous of underrating the history Avhich a parent or relative can give; on the contrary, an intel- ligent mother and nurse are to be listened to patiently and attentively—they are often acute observers of early signs of ill health, or changes in the sym])toms. All 1 Avish to enforce is, that the previous historv occupies a suboi'diiiate, not tlie chief, position, and the student is at all times to consider himself as indepen-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24990462_0022.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
