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.
65/732 page 45
![It is more common in girls tlnin in boys. The subjt'cts of it nre usually thin ami plaintive, waywai’d in temper, without anytliing definitely wi’ong ; their apj>etites are capricious, the breath often ofleiisive, !ind they are supposed to have worms. Children they are who do no credit to good living, and who trouble the doctor because they are somewhat tardy in answering to his remedies, and because some of the symptoms may lead him to suspect the onset of the formation of tubei'cle. ffenoch* mentions even more extreme cases in children of seven and nine years in whom the constipation gradually leads to extreme distension of the whole abdomen, with jiain and tenderness, so as to simulate peritonitis. I have my.self seen one or two cases which may have been of this kind, but in which there has been visible peristaltic action and a dilated I'ectum. One boy that 1 remember was much relieved by the use of enemata, and the daily ev^acuatiou thus ensured, but when they were discontinued he was not permanently better, and 1 coidd not but su])pose that the constipa- tion owed its origin and persistency to some organic di.sea.se which could not be unveiled. For constipation in older children, regular habits must 1)6 enfoi’ced. It is jit least as necessary that a child should go to the closet regularly, as that she should do certain household duties, or perfect herself in certain iiccomplishments with regularity. But this is a imitter that many mothers never think of. In the next ])lace, oises of this kind are not adapted for the frecpTent exhibition of purgatives. Some gentle .alkidine hixative infiy be given for a d;iy oi’ two, and, if it were not so nauseous to most j)alates, none is better than the old-fashioned I'hubarb and soda(F. ii). Hospital out-patients take this, and even like it, but other chil- di-en very .seldom do, and a dessert-spoonful to a table- spoonful of the li(|. magne.sia> ciirbonatis is tiiken by them with less repugnance. Fome take Fi-iedrichshall • “ Vorlesungcii uber Kimlerkraukhoitcn, p. 4.J9.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24990462_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
