Notice of Dr Guggenbühl's hospital for infant cretins.

Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notice of Dr Guggenbühl's hospital for infant cretins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Nevertheless ill-naturecl doubts were thrown on the facts which Dr Guggenbiihl published, and ricidule even was not wanting to dishearten and distress him. Some generous-minded persons were, however to be found, who held out a helping hand, and assisted him to put his benevo¬ lent designs in execution. As soon as the establishment was opened, the government of Berne granted it a sum of six hundred livres; and those of Fribourg, the Valais, and St Gall, sent cretin children to be maintained there at their expense. The king of Prussia likewise took notice of it, and ordered two children to be placed there from the principality of Neufchatel; the Countess of Hahn Hahn, who had taken her daughter to the Abendberg, in the vain hope of effecting her cure (but her age, sixteen, rendered it impossible), with a most natural sympathy for others similarly afflicted, requested that a Valasian child should be always maintained there at her expense, to be called her child, one succeeding the other when cured, and for which she gave the necessary funds. Associations began then to be formed in many of the capitals of Europe, beginning with Hamburg, Amsterdam, Ac.; and finally, Dr Troxler, pro¬ fessor at Berne, gave the establishment the sanction of his powerful name. Subscriptions were made which have enabled Dr Guggenbiihl to extend his operations wider than he possibly could have done; and last year he ventured to add a second building to the original one, that the children might be enabled to continue their gymnastic exercises through the winter, whereas before, they could only be performed in the open air. He has also added two or three rooms in the new building, which can be occupied by parents of the children, who may wish to remain with them for a longer or a shorter time; for amongst the sick, whom Dr Guggenbuhl’s rising reputation has brought to the Abendberg, are some of high rank, who, though not precisely cretins, were yet of that class of patients in whom the brain appears not to have been properly developed, and to these he has been of very great use. When we visited him in 1846, and fully enjoyed the sight of so much natural and moral beauty, we saw two titled little girls who had been taken to him from Germany, to die, as it was thought, but who have, on the contrary, lived and prospered under his roof. Of the number of children hitherto admitted, one-third have been sent back to their families quite cured, others more or less ameliorated, and some few have died. In general, Dr Guggenbiihl complains that they are not left long enough, and assures that a long space of time and con¬ tinued care are absolutely necessary to insure perfect success,—not less than three years in general. Some have appeared to baffle every effort, their bodies presenting an ensemble of deformity, their tongues obtru¬ ding from their mouths, their heads hanging down, their skin wrink¬ led like a person of eighty, their limbs dwindled to nothing, their bodies enormous, and neither sign of intelligence nor any articulate sound to be drawn from them. Even these, by his kind and judicious treatment, by unwearying care, by baths, by aromatic frictions, by electricity, by goat’s milk, by exposure to the air and sun, by every means of infant development, playing, talking, laughing, by lessons with pictures, and by singing—even these have acquired the use of their limbs, the power of speech, the faculty of learning, and have, after a long stay on the Abendberg, been sent back as well as, and even more forward