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.

    31/418 (page 9)
    practically important, not only because of its bearing on the rapidity of digestion, but because it accounts for the fact that the gastric juice in young infants has less germicide power. This probably explains to a large degree their characteristic susceptibility to gastro-intestinal infection. The mucous glands of the stomach are more numerous and the secretion of mucus more copious in the infant than in the adult. The Intestine.—In young children the intestine differs in several respects from that of the adult. Its length, for example, is relatively greater, and its muscular wall is com- paratively feebly developed. This latter fact helps to account for the greater tendency to constipation in young children, and for the flatulent distention of the abdomen which is so common in early life. At birth the caecum is situated relatively high up, and it is more movable than in adult life (Dwight); the ascending colon is short. The large size of the sigmoid flexure is a striking feature in the new-born child : at birth it is nearly as long as the rest of the large intestine; but by the fourth month the other parts of the colon have grown so much that the sigmoid has nearly assumed its permanent pro- portion to them (Rotch). In the small intestines the food is further acted upon by the pancreatic juice and other secretions : and not only are water, salts, sugars, and peptones absorbed as in the stomach, but the fat of the food is emulsified and taken up. In the large bowel there is absorption, but little or no digestion of food. The Thymus.—The thymus gland must be remembered in examining the thorax in babies. It is a comparatively