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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![■who make objection if brandy or wine be ordered, but this ditiicnlty may l)e readily solved l)y prescribing tincture of cardamoms or rectified spirit. It is not unnecessary to add tliat all drugs shotdd be made as palatable as possible. ('astor oil and Gregory may be very good remedies, bnt, except to babies, they are mostly disgusting, and tliei’e ai'e now at hand numberless substitutes and metliods of disguising nasty remedies which should be studied. Some may be put into lozenges, some into gelatine lamels or small pills, some into syiaips, some can bo inixed into a palatable emulsion, and so on. In conclusion, I must allude to baths, because their sphere of usefulness as a therapeutic agent is a lai'ge one. It would probably be difiicult to enumerate the variety of diseases in which a batli is useful. As a general rule, when a state of jiyrexia. is recognized, the child is likely to be smothered to keej) it warm. For the same reason the linen which is not actually soiled by the excreta is not changed for fear of chill. But children of all ages perspire freely, and in the course of a few hours will g(;t exceedingly uncomfortable under these circumstances, frettiiiic and becoming restless, whilst the mother w'orries at the unusual wakefulnes.s. Put the child into a warm bath for a few minutes, and, with fresh linen and a comfortable cot, it will probably soon be at rest. Then, too, in most stat(!S of fevei-, sponging is of value—warm or tepid or cold according to the necessities of the case— and a bath, even a warm b.-itli, will reduce the tem- ptu’atui’e if it be very high. 'rc])id or cold baths mav be admiiustered to children in high fever, if rcipiisite, but, if cold, the bath must be of short duration. A fall of temperature is set going by the immediate shock, not necessarily by prolonge<l immersion, and the latter i.s liable to induce a statti of collapse and exhaustion such as is not often seen in sulults. For this reason I sehlom make use of a, cold bath ; and never without anxiety. I prefer to exhaust the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24990462_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
