6 DISEASES OF CHILDREN. 



discharge has ceased. The best dressing for them after this period is any mild 

 stimulating ointment spread upon soft rag. Resin ointment, or ointment of the 

 oxide of zinc, are both very useful. 



Cliil< I ('rowing. (See False Croup.) 



Children's Paralysis. This disease is also called infantile or essential paralysis. 

 The name "essential" is given because it often happens that no cause for it is detectable. 

 It occurs generally dining the period of teething, and cases are not so common after two 

 years of age. The child may have been quite well previous to the attack, or, it may 

 be, just recovering from measles or some other disease of childhood, or perhaps it 

 has had a febrile attack accompanied by pain in the joints or limbs, which is spoken 

 of as rheumatism. Very often the onset is marked by slight feverishness accom- 

 panied 1-y indigestion. During the attack the mother or nurse notices that the child 

 is unable to move some of its limbs. Perhaps one arm or one leg hangs helplessly, 

 or both legs and one arm may be .affected, and the child may be reduced to a condi- 

 tion of almost complete helplessness. This extreme amount of paralysis generally 

 passes off in a few days, but the limb never completely recovers, and there is 

 always a residuum of paralysis left : this varies in amount. It may be that the 

 whole of one limb is paralysed, or it may be that certain muscles only are affected. 

 The child may be able to use the hand fairly well, but is unable to raise the shoulder : 

 or the leg may be useful to some extent, but there is a certain dragging of the'toes, 

 or swinging inwards or outwards of the foot, or a difficulty in bending the knee, 

 or a clumsiness in the movement about the hip-joint. If this residual paralysis does 

 not receive very prompt and very careful attention, it will remain permanent, and if 

 tin- paralysis be not cured, we are apt to get a shortening and contraction of the non- 

 pa nil ysed muscles, and an unequal action of the muscles working round a joint, and 

 as a consequence a permanent deformity of the joint. This form of paralysis is the 

 yi'i-iit rii use of club feet and similar deformities, and most of the children whom one 

 sees walking about in irons, with their feet enclosed in various kinds of surgical 

 boots, have suffered from infantile paralysis. 



The treatment of this paralysis must be prosecuted with the greatest perseverance, 

 and with unremitting attention; and although much patience is demanded of the 

 friends and the medical man, there are few complaints in which patience is so well 

 rewarded. 



In the first place, the general health of the child must be kept up, and it must 

 be carefully -dieted, and should be treated with cod liver oil and steel wine, or other 

 tonic medicine. 



Next, as to the treatment of the affected limb. If a limb is completely paralysed, 

 it is not used, and it wastes ; or if partially paralysed, it may be of so little use that 

 practically the child does not use the limb at all, and consequently it wastes. 

 If these cases have been neglected, we find that the limb which is the seat of the 

 paralysis is often of less girth, and very often shorter than its fellow. It is blue, 

 and invariably cold. The most essential thing is to keep up the temperature of the 

 limb, which should be kept constantly enveloped in a stocking or a sleeve made 

 of flannel, and quilted with cotton wool. A child should have a change of these 



