Charles West
The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066191245
Table of Contents
ON THE MORTALITY OF CHILDREN, AND ITS CAUSES.
THE GENERAL SIGNS OF DISEASE IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.
THE GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF DISEASE IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD.
ON THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF CHILDREN DURING THE FIRST MONTH AFTER BIRTH.
ON THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF CHILDREN AFTER THE FIRST MONTH, AND UNTIL TEETHING IS FINISHED.
ON THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES INCIDENT TO ALL PERIODS OF CHILDHOOD.
THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM.
THE DISORDERS AND DISEASES OF THE CHEST.
DISEASES OF THE ORGANS OF DIGESTION.
ON THE MENTAL AND MORAL FACULTIES IN CHILDHOOD, AND ON THE DISORDERS TO WHICH THEY ARE LIABLE.
PART I.
INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE MORTALITY OF CHILDREN, AND ITS CAUSES.
The purpose of this little book will probably be best attained, and needless repetition best avoided, if we begin by inquiring very briefly why so many children die, what general signs indicate that they are ill, and what general rules can be laid down for their management in sickness.
The first of these inquiries would be as useless as it would be sad, if the rate of infant mortality were fixed by determinate laws, such as those which limit the stature of man or the age to which he can attain.
But this is not so; the mortality in early life varies widely in different countries, in different parts of the same country, and in the same country at different times. Thus, while in some parts of Germany the mortality under one year was recently as high as 25 to 30 per cent. of the total births, and in England as 15, it was only a little above 10 per cent. in Norway. Infantile mortality is higher in manufacturing districts, lower in those which are agricultural, and varies from 16 per cent. in Lancashire to 9 in Dorsetshire. It is then evident that mortality in infancy is in part dependent on remediable causes; and of this there is no better proof than the fact that the mortality in England under one year has been reduced from 15 per cent. in 1872 to 13 per cent. in 1882.
It would lead us far from any practical purpose if we were to examine into all the causes which govern the liability to disease and death during infancy and childhood, in the different ranks of society. We must therefore limit our inquiry to those conditions which are met with in the class to which my readers may fairly be assumed to belong.
First among the causes of sickly infancy and premature death may be mentioned the intermarriage of near relatives. The experience of the breeders of animals, who, by what is termed breeding in and in, undoubtedly obtain certain qualities of speed, or strength, or beauty, does not apply here. They select for their experiments animals whose qualities in these respects are pre-eminent, and eliminate from them all who do not occupy the first rank. In family intermarriages, however, it is rare that any consideration is regarded, save that of wealth; and the fact remains, explain it as we may, that the intermarriage of near relatives during several successive generations is followed by a marked deterioration of the children, physical, mental, and moral; and by the intensifying of any hereditary predisposition to consumption, scrofula, and other constitutional ailments which form the second great cause of early sickness and mortality.
These are facts known to all, which yet it is not easy to represent by figures. All the world is aware that consumption is hereditary, that consumptive parents are more likely than others to have consumptive children; and a fourth of all the patients admitted into the Hospital for Consumption at Brompton stated that