Volume 2

On the cerebral diseases of children : with regard to their early manifestations and treatment / [Walter Cooper Dendy].

  • Dendy, Walter Cooper, 1794-1871
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the cerebral diseases of children : with regard to their early manifestations and treatment / [Walter Cooper Dendy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    disease. This perplexing condition, however, may be, indeed, and often is, induced by profuse diarrheea or hypercatharsis, and by very protracted and inefficient lactation. A mere defect of nutrition, which may induce fatal marasmus, 1s not marked by so prominent a set of symptoms—they are more gradual; yet death may be immediately preceded by convulsion, thus imparting more or less resemblance. The primary symptoms of all are irritabi- lity, languor, torpor, coma, the first and third degrees being the sen- sitive and torpid erethism of Dr. Nicholl. From the commencement, the child becomes more and more pallid, the extremities cold, the lids droop, the pulse is laboured and thready; sometimes there is a transient throbbing, similar to the hemorrhagic effort; the child sobs at intervals, with some slight crepitation in ‘its breathes towards the close of me disorders; the fontanel is usually deeply sunk. Even in this prostrate state, the excito-motory influence, as Dr. Hall has observed, may be very prominent; the tickling of the sole often causing the child to lift its foot with a jerk. The three most important symptoms which should influence our treatment of these insidious conditions are the hue of skin, the state of pulse, and, above all, the depression of the fontanel. If we regard or watch these attentively, we shall not, I believe, fall readily into those errors of diagnosis so often committed. Extensive effusion has been too often discovered when not suspected; and perfect anzmia has existed where meningitis or extreme hydrocephalus was affirmed. Treatment should of course be adapted to condition and causes. Diarrhcea should be checked by cretaceous remedies; prepared chalk with or without aromatic confection, or a few drops of aromatic spirit of ammonia, should be given; and in extreme cases, a minim or two of the black drop—the best opiate for children. If the child be spoon-fed, or the subject of protracted lactation, it ‘would be eligible to procure a young healthy breast, for a time, at least, until the symptoms are changed or removed.. Warm water sponges should be applied to the abdomen. After excess of heemorrhage, spirit of ammonia should be administered in warm water; and if the child lie in prostrate stupor, brandy may also be given in warm water, the child being reclined in a semi-recumbent position. In more protracted Jassitude and debility, the solution of camphor in fluid jar ler (of Sir James Murray) will often be very useful.