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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    even if the most careful inquiries be made as to the parental illnesses—sore throats, rheumatism, eruptions, miscarriages, &c. At all stages of its history syphilis trails the scent of scrofula, and the evidence one way and the other must be balanced as well as may be. Prognosis.—Many children waste and die during the progress of the eruptive stage; but, if seen early and subjected to treatment, a great many recover, and may lose all traces of the disease, save for such scarring^ of the face or trunk as may be left behind by the former eruption. The severer generahzed bullous forms of eruption are highly dangerous, and, if a child wastes persistently under treatment, the danger is great; the sai^e is true if there be much diarrhoea, snuffles, or bronchitis, but fading all these thmgs, the child will probably do well. Treatment.—“ The only certain cure for infantde syphilis is mercury,” writes Henoch; and probably in that short summary lies the kernel of the experience of all. The mercurial may be administered either by giving it to the mother (a plan which has been advocated strongly by some, but which I prefer least of all, as too uncertain), by internal administration as grey powder to the infant, or by inunction. I have nothing to add to the statement of Dr. Eustace Smith, that in the hydrargyrum c. creta, or the hquor hydrargyri perchloridi, we have two effec- tive and easily borne preparations. The former may be given in grain doses night and morning, with two or three grains of carbonate of soda or bismuth, and this dose may, if necessary, be increased to two grains of the mercurial. In case of diarrhcea, the solution of the perchloride may be given; infants take it well in half-drachm doses, which may be gradually in- creased if necessary. The inunction is carried out by rubbing half a drachm of the mercurial ointment upon the abdomen, back, or sides, and coveiing the part with a ilannel roller afterwards. The child should be well bathed