Diseases of children : a short introduction to their study / by Fleetwood Churchill.

  • Churchill, Fleetwood, 1808-1878.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of children : a short introduction to their study / by Fleetwood Churchill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    34/808 (page 14)
    Now let lis take the case of an infant after the excitement to which it is immediately exposed at birth. Under the influence of exhaustion it sleeps long, and each hour of excitement is thus followed by rest for the senses and for the nervous system, and during these periods of rest, and in consequence of them, nutrition and growth proceed rapidly. Food, excitement, and sleep, divide the life of infancy, but the latter preponderate considerably in health. By degrees the organs of life become used to their food and able to employ it beneficially; the organs of sense are accustomed to the stimulus presented to them, and cease to feel it so acutely, or (as in the case of the eye) acquire the power of limiting its extent; and the nervous system, still sensitive, gives evidence that all sensation is not painful. Further, after a while it is clear that another step in advance has been taken, though the proof is slight at first; the child is conscious of something external to himself; he sees, not light merely, but objects ; he hears, not sounds simply, but sounds proceeding from something, towards which he endeavors to turn. A light object immediately attracts attention, and if it be moved the infant will endeavor to follow it with its eye. If the room be darkened, and a space in the curtains admit a ray of light, or if a candle be visible, we may remark that, as the infant of a fortnight old lies on its nurse's lap, it is towards this that its eye is steadily directed. After this education of the eye to light and luminous objects, and of the ear to sounds, and to the sources whence the sounds proceed, has continued for some time, we may perceive another step in advance— the child recognizes certain of them. The mother's voice occasions a start and smile of pleasure, and as the eye has acquired not so much the power of discriminating between objects as of recognizing one or more, the mother's face becomes familiar, and sound and sight together elicit from the baby its earliest expression of preference and affection. But whilst this education of two of the senses for appreciating external relationship has been going on, other means of obtaining information have come into use. The muscles have acquired strength and facility from incessant motion during waking hours, and the touch, too sensitive at first, has become so regulated as to be rather a source of pleasure. By degrees the child acquires the use of the great organ of feeling, the hand, not only in touching objects but in grasping them, and the mind has thus opened to it another source of information, as to the external world, as extensive and valuable as that afforded by the eye. By the union of touch with sight, the infant obtains a knowledge of forms as distinct from surfaces; and it is probably to touch chiefly that it is indebted for the conception of substance. This acquisition of information, concerning external sensible things, commences at a very early period : from the beginning the infant grasps a finger or any object presented to it; the next step is to maintain its