Softening of the stomach in children in Australia : with some observations on the disease in adults / by C.E. Reeves.

  • Reeves, C. E. (Charles Evans), 1828-1880.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Softening of the stomach in children in Australia : with some observations on the disease in adults / by C.E. Reeves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    slightly turned, food that has been allowed to remain some time in the saucepan, or made in a dirty sauce- pan, or in one already containing stale food. If a mother values the life of her child, she should make its food herself, see that the vessels used are well cleaned, and feed it herself. The demands on an attendant’s patience by a child suffering from this disease are so heavy that very few servants will make very great efforts to meet them. The medical man will do well to examine the nap- kins when the case does not progress well, for he will often find barley-seeds, pieces of parsley or other herbg added to the broth to render it tasteful, pieces of meat, vegetables, or fruit, and large pieces of curdled milk, although he may have interdicted them. It is, the writer believes, better to interdict even the breast-milk, if it is vomited or passed in a curdled state, and confine the child to farinaceous food. If this is done early, the stomach, as before observed, soon recovers its healthy state. The mother, while abstain- ing from suckling the child, should take a dose of castor oil or some other mild aperient. In hot weather, constipated bowels, biliousness, or diarrhoea will often cause the milk to disagree with the child. The remedial means to be used are few—opium (or its active principle, morphia, which is possibly prefer- able as it varies less in strength, is not so bitter, or so liable to cause sickness, and children will there- fore take it more readily), bicarbonate of potash, acetate of lead, and tannic acid. The writer thinks that he has found the acetate of lead and morphia of more service than any other remedies. In cases in which there has been diarrhoea of some duration, tannic acid has been added with very considerable benefit. There is great tolerance of opium and morphia in this disease. In some cases they lose their narcotic power from the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels not having the power to absorb them. It is in these cases that the aid of one or other of these remedies is most demanded. The child is in a state of great emaciation, restless in the extreme,