Prize essay on scrofula : submitted to the Medical Society of Tennessee, May 1846 / by W.L. Sutton.

  • Sutton, William Loftus, 1797-1862.
Date:
1846
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prize essay on scrofula : submitted to the Medical Society of Tennessee, May 1846 / by W.L. Sutton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    23 marriage. The strong probability is, that notwithstanding their utmost care, their children will be born to disease and misery, and probably will, most of them at any rate, die young. Yet the children of such parents, at least where one is not affected by the disease, are not to be considered as be- yond hope. Some of the children may reasonably be ex- pected to conform in their organization to the healthy parent. By rigid adherence to rational training, too, much may be done to invigorate the constitution and ward off the approach of the disease. By putting the child to a healthy nurse, if the mother is tainted, by a free exposure to a pleasant dry atmos- phere, by constant invigorating exercise, and by great atten- tion to the chylopoietic viscera, much may be accomplished. Notwithstanding the gloomy prognostics which Lugol applies to all persons affected with scrofula, he yet admits the possi- bility of an improvement in the health of such families, when sufficient pains arc taken to secure that end. 'In the most fortunate cases,' says he, 'those where we can believe that the diseases anterior to puberty are completely arrested, scro- fula may be transmitted hereditarily, and it is not till after several generations and happy alliances that the scrofulous habit ceases to be perpetuated in families.' Op. cit. p. 36. LSo, too, parents born in communities where scrofula exists endemically, if they are affected with this disease, do not pro- tect their children from it by emigrating to more exposed and healthy situations; on the contrary, they carry the disease with them. * * * This emigration does not bear its fruit, till after several generations, and only in cases where the children have good nurses, and where marriages are made discreetlv.' Page 231. Stokes advances the same opinion: lBut on the other hand we sometimes find scrofulous parents beget healthv children. This appears to be an anomaly, but it may be ex- plained by the circumstances of the child having a good healthy nurse, living in a pure air and having comfortable warm clothing, all circumstances calculated to develope the red tis- sues and therefore strengthen the system. Thus a scrofulous