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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    of conjugal endearment, even to the eleventh hour of pregnancy. I do not doubt that this is a frequent cause of abortion. I may here add the probability of tight-lacing as a cause, for it ve been affirmed; by Breschet and Goélis, that the children of unmarried women, who have attempted to conceal their shape, were the most, fre- quent) subjects ‘of effusion. While the foetus is passing through those progressive changes, each stage of which so beautifully illustrates. the ascent in the scale of creation, from the zoophyte to the perfect being, those conditions’ of comparative deficiency or excess, of atrophy, or hypertrophy, are induced; which constitute the anomalies of monstrosity. Although there may be superficial indications of perfect. health, yet. the nervous and vascular systems of the foetus may be so influenced, or the fluids be so tainted by the maternal springs, that the infant, may be born either with an intense degree of irritability, or of laxity of vessels, which become the fertile source of disorder, or with that germ of disease that only waits: for excitement to induce its development.» This. ¢on- stitutes the essence of predisposing cause. Of these tendencies, or pre- dispositions, the strumous diathesis is: most prominent ; yet even) that may be so slightly marked at birth as not even to: be suspected... On the onset. of cerebral disorder, however, its existence may. so weigh with us as to justify an-assurance of great peril in our prognosis. The subject: of the tubercular diathesis is of the. greatest. importance, as it not only predisposes to disorder, but) renders) that, disorder, in- tractable and perilous. When, for instance, encephalitis occurs ima healthy brain, the form is phlegmonous, and itis more amenable. to ‘ac- tive treatment. | The very frequent discovery of oranular tuberele..on ihe pia mater, especially about the base of the brain in fatal cases of effusion, (ninety- five per cent., according to Dr. Hennis Green,) will induce us to: believe that it) may constitute: the essential soap to hydrencephalie. dis- order. 7 In:very many of these cases, the tubercular depdsit is not confined to the encephalic membranes. The lungs especially, the liver and, in- testines, the mesenteric: and’ bronchial glands, are often. either. studded with granular tubercle, or: coated with» flaky. caseous patches. IL have often seen the mesenteric glands, only exhibit the true strumous dege- neration, when there have been no evidences inoany other tissues, espe-- cially in cases of low remittent fever. With these important facts before us, when we see associated with cerebral symptoms deficiency of cranial ossification, enlargement of the ends of cylindrical: bones, tumid abdomen, and enlarged mesenteric gland, and especially if the condition of several children in a family in-