Guide to the clinical examination and treatment of sick children / by John Thomson.

Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Guide to the clinical examination and treatment of sick children / by John Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    CHAPTER I. SOME FACTS OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT. GROWTH IN WEIGHT. An average-sized baby at birth weighs 7 lbs. or thereby (5 to 12). During the first two days of life there is a loss of 8 to 10 oz., due jiartly to the jussage of urine and meconium and partly to the fact that the child does not receive enough nourishment at first to make up for the tissue-waste. On the third day a steady increase begins, the birth-weight being reached again, on an average, by the tenth day of life. After this the rise continues more or less steadily, the infant gaining from f to 1 oz. daily during the first five months, and from $ to jj oz. daily during the rest of the first year. The gain may vary considerably from day to day, but the average daily increase for the week will l>e at about that rate. By the end of the fourth month the baby’s weight should be nearly double what it was at birth ; and, by the end of the first year, about three times its original figure. During the second year the child gains 5 to 6 lbs.; during the third, about 4A lbs.; and during the fourth, fifth, and sixth, about 4 lbs. a year. Thus by the end of the sixth year the weight is somewhere about six times what it was at birth, and at fourteen years double that amount.