Disease in children : a manual for students and practitioners / by James Carmichael.

  • Carmichael, James.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Disease in children : a manual for students and practitioners / by James Carmichael. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/636 (page 16)
    one morbid condition aiid another. When the nutritional functions have been once interfered with by disease, especially the acute febrile affections, the tendency to further evolutions of morbid processes in tissues or organs is initiated. This is well illustrated in regard to the lymphatic system, which is so intimately connected with nutritive activity, and is so liable to disease in early life. Any catarrhal affection and many inflammatory cutaneous diseases are apt to set up disease of the lymph glands, often of a serious, may be of a fatal, character. After having requested specific information as to all the more common affections with which the child may have been possibly affected, the general query, Any other ailment whatever ? may conclude our examination on this point. The rearing of the infant, whether natural or arti- ficial, must always be ascertained; dentition, its date of commencement and termination. Then should follow queries as to health of other children and parents. It is always of great importance to ascertain the nature of the hygienic surroundings of the child. The previous and family history having been obtained, the date of commencement and par- ticulars of the present illness should be elicited, and there- after should be proceeded with the,— Examinatiun of the Child.—In young children symptoms are objective. In older children subjective symptoms should be noted if they can be elicited, but they are often of little value from want of sense and judgment on the part of the child. At first the student is apt to be dismayed at the impossibility of finding out the child's subjective feelings, but to those accustomed to deal with children this is no hindrance. On the contrary, in children it is an advantage to the chnician to know that, although he is unable to obtain much valuable information which could be elicited in the case of an adult, no element of simulation or misstatement of subjective pheno- mena is likely. He is thus left to the clinical exammation of his patient, relying solely on his. own powers of observation of the purely natural phenomena of disease. Clinical work