A treatise on the scrofulous disease / by C.G. Hufeland ; translated from the French of M. Bousquet by Charles D. Meigs.

  • Hufeland, Christoph Wilhelm, 1762-1836.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the scrofulous disease / by C.G. Hufeland ; translated from the French of M. Bousquet by Charles D. Meigs. 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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    repeat the same observations I have made, will ascer- tain that many children are made scrofulous, solely by the use of too much narcotic medicine. 11. Want of exercise. Want of exercise produces debility, and weakness prepares the way for scrofula. Exercise is as needful for children as food. This suffices to show how many evils result from a plan of education whose most essen- tial object is to keep children still. Besides the ner- vous affections, crooked spine, &c. this method mani- festly disposes them to scrofula ; experience proves, on the other hand, that those children who pass their time playing in the open air, are rarely affected with it. 12. Want of cleanliness. Under this head I comprise confined air, the neglect of baths, and of washing. It is a fact, that when the skin is not regularly washed, excrementitial matter ac- cumulates upon it, which ends by being reabsorbed. The functions of the skin become deranged, weakness takes possession of it, and is gradually communicated to the entire constitution, and principally to the lym- phatic system. Want of cleanliness is, in my opinion, so powerful a cause of the scrofulous diathesis, that I am convinced its greater frequency in our days is very much owing to the little use we make of baths compared to the habits of the ancients. Further, I am not afraid to assert, that there is no child, however healthy, which may not be rendered scrofulous by filthiness, bad diet, unwhole- some air, and want of exercise. 13. Abuse of heat. The habit of making children sleep on feather beds,