Softening of the stomach in children in Australia : with some observations on the disease in adults / by C.E. Reeves.

  • Reeves, C. E. (Charles Evans), 1828-1880.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Softening of the stomach in children in Australia : with some observations on the disease in adults / by C.E. Reeves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the flooring. No less than 38 were over-crowded, large families occupying two or three small rooms ; in several instances the places were mere huts with mud floors. The chief source of damp was either ponds on a level with the floor, which in most in- stances rested on the earth, or more frecpiently the water-tap which was placed close to the house, the water from which, instead of being carried off by a proper drain, was allowed to flow over the yard and find its way under the house. This, with overflow- ing of the closets, had a great deal to do with causing the disease, for as a rule wooden houses, with good foundations and properly lathed and plastered, seem to be the most healthy. 4. Improper Food.—Improper food has a very great deal to do with exciting and keeping up the disease. In very young infants, in bringing them up by hand, the milk in hot weather is either kept too long, or it is too heavy. Sometimes there is some defect in the nurse’s milk ; it is cither too heavy, or .she is out df health, or her milk is too old. In some cases the infant gets an attack of thrush, and vftth this the mother’s milk ceases to agree ; the skin becomes harsh, dry, and covered with scaly eruption; the .stomach symptoms set in at the same time. In a few in.stances this takes place when attempts are made to bring infants up by hand. Changing the nurse, or putting the child to the breast after it has been separated for some weeks, or given it at very long intervals and irregularly, will produce it. These are causes, especially in hot weather, which excite the disease in very young children. In older children, weaniiig them, and'then giving hard indigestible food, or such food as the family is accustomed to take, and in exces.s, or continuing to suckle the child after pregnancy has occurred. It is not uncommon to find, in women liable to bilious attacks, that if the bowels become very much confined that the milk disagrees with the infant; and if this state of the bowels is allowed to remain, symptoms of softening of the stomach soon become evident