Essays on infant therapeutics : to which are added observations on ergot ; history of the origin of the use of mercury in inflammatory complaints; together with the statistics of the deaths from poisoning in New York in the years 1841-2-3 / by John B. Beck.

  • Beck, John B. (John Brodhead), 1794-1851.
Date:
1852, ©1851
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on infant therapeutics : to which are added observations on ergot ; history of the origin of the use of mercury in inflammatory complaints; together with the statistics of the deaths from poisoning in New York in the years 1841-2-3 / by John B. Beck. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    infant, it happens that convulsions are so much more common in the early periods of life. Thus, for example, the irritation of teething—of worms or crude matters in the intestines, is frequently followed by convulsions. Intermittent fever, which in the adiilt commences with a chill, in the child is frequently ushered in by a convulsion. Scarlet fever, too, in the child, not unfrequently commences with a convulsion, while in the adult I have never witnessed such an occurrence. Now, with such peculiar predispositions characterizing the system in infancy, it may readily be conceived how it is that such an article as opium should act with more power at that period than in after life. In the second place, the difference in the tempera- ment or cojistitution of infants. In the adult, we know as a matter of fact, that opium differs great- ly in its effects in different constitutions. Thus, as a general rule, the sanguine temperament does not appear to bear the use of this drug as well as the melancholic or the nervous. In the former, it is much more apt to produce cerebral disturbance, and in large doses is more likely to prove injuri- ous. Now, infants differ from one another, as much, if not more, than adults, in these peculiari- ties of constitution, and, as a matter of course, the difference in the effects of this article must be greater. Besides, as these peculiarities and differ- ences can only be detected by actual experience and as we cannot of necessity have the same ben-