Guide to the clinical examination and treatment of sick children.

  • Thomson, John, 1856-1926.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Guide to the clinical examination and treatment of sick children. 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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    comes to lie more horizontally. The small development of the fundus in young babies accounts partially for the small amount their stomachs are able to hold. According to Holt, the average capacity of the infant's stomach is, at birth, \\ oz.; at three months, 4I oz.; at six months, 6 oz., and at twelve months, 9 oz. An infant's stomach does not play such an important part in the process of digestion as that of the adult. This is apparently because the gastric juice in the former is scantier and less powerful and also because the stomach contents are not allowed to remain long enough in it to be completely digested. When a meal of breast-milk is taken into the stomach, the curd of it is usually coagulated within 10 to 15 minutes by the action of the rennet-ferment. This is then acted on by the acid and pepsin of the gastric juice in the usual way; but before its digestion is nearly completed, a large proportion of the meal has passed on into the bowel to be further dealt with there. Holt says that in young infants a considerable part of the milk passes into the intestine during the first half hour, and that, by the end of an hour, the stomach is often empty. The duration of the gastric digestion varies with the infant's age and with the nature of his food. Thus, while the stomach is empty 1 to ii hours after feeding in breast-fed babies of a month old, in those of two to eight months the average time is 2 hours. In the case of children fed on cows' milk the time is about half an hour longer. The gastric juice contains pepsin, hydrochloric acid, and sometimes lactic acid as in adults; but it is relatively less in amount, and contains free hydrochloric acid in much smaller proportions. The small proportion of free acid is