ES 466 cil 
[July 1, 
MEDICAL REPORT. 
Rerort of Diseases and Casuatriss occurring inthe public and private Practice 
of the Physician who has the care of the Western Dist ict of the City Dispensary. 
— 
BVERY thing within the last few weeks, 
the production of which is at all con- 
nected with heat, has made its appear- 
ance prematurely. Diseases, equally with 
vegetation, have this summer changed 
months; and medical men are now sum- 
moned to attend upon bilious derange- 
ments with the same frequency as is com- 
monly the case at the commencement of 
the autumnal season. The affections at 
present witnessed are not, however, of 
precisely the same kind and degree as 
those that are incident toa more advanced 
time; most of the cases which are met 
with wear an aspect as if of premature 
development,—a sort of would-be charac- 
ter, and are wanting in defined lines and 
determined strength, This circumstance 
seems to prove, that it is a something 
beside heat from which the autumnal cho- 
lera and diarrhoea derive their existence, 
although excessive heat has allowedly a 
very considerable share in their produc- 
tion. The treatment of course requires to 
be varied with the varying character of 
the disorder ; but, the tendency having been 
for the most part more towards inflamma- 
tion than cholera, the indications of re- 
medy have been influenced by more than 
common fears on the score of enteritis, 
To the external application of castor oil 
over the whole of the abdomen, the Re- 
porter continues partial; and, although his 
medical friends are for the most part 
sceptical, in respect to the specific utility 
of this drug thus administered, such scep- 
ticism, the writer thinks, is the result (as 
both in large and small concerns is but 
too often the case,) of a negligent indis- 
position to scrutinize and compare. This 
oil, thus applied, is especially useful in the 
complaints of children, in which the de- 
sires of the practitioner are at once to 
abate irritation, and prevent the secre- 
tions from being arrested by the means 
necessary for the removal of that irrita- 
tion. The writer takes occasion to re- 
mark, that opiates and preparations of 
poppy, from having’ been too indnlgently 
and indiscriminately had recourse to in 
infantile ailments, are at present perhaps 
too fearfully shunned. Far, very far, is 
it from: his design or wish’ 'to advocate the 
practice of quieting children for the sake 
of causing quiet to the nurse, or of inti- 
mating. the propriety of opium forming 
part of the nursery implements for the 
Tearing of the young. Indéed, it may be 
considered that medicinal anodynes ought 
to be left almost entirely to the expe- 
rienced tact of the professional prescriber ; 
yet it is often much better that a degree 
of torpor should be induced by artificial 
means, than that the little subject of com- 
plicated irritation should wear itself down 
into a still worse torpor by violent and 
continued screaming. 
It scarcely needs be said, that most of 
the disturbances incident to infancy are 
connected with a disordered action in the 
stomach and bowels; and that the radical 
remedies for these disorders ate those 
which correct acidity, and excite more 
healthy secretions. Magnesia in small 
quantities can seldom be objected to, and 
the occasional addition of four or five drops 
of sal volatile will serve to assist the antacid 
effect of the magnesia, while it will prove 
a much safer means of correcting griping 
than any thing of a spicy or spirituous na- 
ture. For the purpose of gradually in- 
fluencing the secreting organs, the writer 
knows nothing better than the Hydrarg. 
cum Creta of the London Pharmacopeia, 
and he would almost limit his list of infan- 
tine medicinals to the articles above men- 
tioned; namely, castor oil, magnesia, sal 
volatile, syrup of poppies, and the quick- 
silyer with chalk. 
Whether to wash very young children 
with warm or cold water, is a question 
which a medical practitioner will often- 
times be called upon to answer; but it is 
one which, like many other medicinal 
questions, is insusceptible of a direct or 
abstract reply. If the little subject of so- 
licitude be robust, if there be no griping 
or expression of intestinal ailment, and 
while the skin is devoid of eruption, then 
coldness will prove a salutary quality in 
the water used for washing ; but, in spite 
of her wish to render her offspring robust, 
let the anxious mother desist from perse- 
verance in her morning ablutions of cold 
water, and use tepid water instead, should 
bowel irritations prove urgent and obsti- 
nate, should marks of weakness be promi- 
nent, or should eruptions break out on the 
surface of the skin. In this last case the 
repellent effect of cold washing is parti- 
cularly to be apprehended, as the skin 
irritation is almost invariably vicarious of 
internal disorder. 
The “ childless wit” may be inclined to 
ridicule the papa character of the present 
paper, but the writer nevertheless fear- 
lessly sends the above intimations into the 
world from a consciousness that much mis- 
take still obtains with respect to the most 
common precepts by which children’s com- 
plaints ought to be regulated, and from a 
conviction that “mismanagement in the 
dawn of life often overcasts its meridian 
and its close with a cloud of misery, that 
neither skill nor fortune can disperse.” 
Small-pox continues dreadfully to in- 
crease, particularly among the purlieus of 
the poor. Oh! that some plan could be 
devised, 
