The student's guide to diseases of children / by James Frederic Goodhart.

  • Goodhart, James Frederic, Sir, 1845-1916.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The student's guide to diseases of children / by James Frederic Goodhart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    of detail which are well worth attention. In the first place it is often worse than useless to put a young child on its back and uncover it for examination. It will kick and scream, put its muscles into a state of rigidity, and nothing can be made out. One must often be content with an examination while it is sitting up and by placing the hand beneath its clothes. It is equally useless to poke the abdominal wall wth the tips of two or three fingers, as the muscles are provoked to action by this means also, and nothing can be felt behind them. Palpation can only be properly conducted by placing the warm palm perfectly flat and open upon the abdominal wall and making pressure at any .jsart that requires examina- tion with the flat of one or two Angers. Any ab- normal tumours can in this way be retidily detected and their edges deflned—be they hepatic or splenic or what not. Splenic and renal tumours are best examined by one hand being placed flat beneath the body sup- porting the hinder wall of the abdomen, while the other, flat and open as before, makes pressure from above upon the abdominal wall supported by the hand behind. The ejecta of children should all be examined, whether they be vomited or passed from the bladder or rectum. The sleep of a child should be watched if oppor- tunity offer. A child sleeps quite calmly when in health and for a long time at a stretch when the flrst few months have passed over and the necessity of frequent suckhng has gone by, but it is quickly disturbed in ill- health of all kinds. Slight attacks of fever, gastro- intestinal derangements, dentition, brain disease, &c., all make the sleep uneasy, although not much differ- entiation of disease can be accomplished by observa- tions of this kind. The manner of deglutition is another feature which often conveys an indication of disease. For in any interference with the freedom of respiration a child will take a few snatches of