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.

    18/68 (page 16)
    the acute and in the chronic form is an exception. The disease is an exhausting one, depending on the fluid poured out by the stomach irritating the mucous membrane of the bowels and causing them to act. The irritative nature of the evacuations may be often noticed by the excoriated state of the nates. After death the lining membrane of the rectum will be found in these cases more or less iiyected. The motions have often a sour smell, and give an acid reaction to test paper. The acute form is certainly closely allied to colo- nial fever—a fever depending on the presence of some morbid poison in the blood, for at the onset there is congestion of the lungs—the quick ]>ulse and the dry skin (never clammy and greasy, as observed in adults) of this fever—but these pass off as soon as the sickness and purging set in ; the congestion of the lungs may, however, remain. There are other peculiarities worthy of note. 1st. That colonial fever is never observed in children under two or two and a-half years of age ; this is the writer’s experience of nearly five years’ careful study of this fever. 2nd. It would seem that when the age of tendency to acute softening of the stomach ends, then that of colonial fever begins, and, as age advances, increases, or rather becomes more marked. In children from the 3rd to the 7th year, and even later, the lung symptoms are more marked than later in life. There will be but very few cases of this fever met with, however, in which there will not be found more or le.ss congestion of the lungs ; the absence of cough, difficulty of breathing, and pain in the chest may lead the cursory observer to pass it over. 3rd. The writer has been repeatedly called upon to treat those residing in the same house, grown-irp chil- dren, and the mother, and sometimes the father, for colonial fever, at the time, or soon after, he has been attending the infant for softening of the stomach. The urine in infants who have had symptoms of fever