INFANCY. 



opiates should be interposed. If the 

 purging be connected with toothing, or 

 attended with fever, though it continue 

 obstinate, It requires much caution. For, 

 in this case, so far from being a disease, 

 it may, perhaps, be considered itself as a 

 remedy, in preventing the occurrence of 

 more dangerous symptoms. Keeping the 

 discharge merely within bounds is the 

 proper mode of proceeding, and the chalk 

 julep will be the best remedy ; when, the 

 bowels being once cleared, and the irri- 

 tation removed, the treatment will be 

 much regulated by the appearance of the 

 stools. These have been distinguished 

 into sour, clayey, watery, bloody, and 

 fetid. 



The last kind, when it occurs, requires 

 the use of a powerful purgative, such as 

 senna-tea, if the child be old enough to 

 bear it. Blood is seldom mixed with the 

 stools but towards the end of the disease, 

 and an occasional streak of it is of little 

 consequence. Watery stools, where com- 

 bined with greenness, or an appearance 

 of curdled matter, are best removed by a 

 gentle emetic, and a warm purge. Slimy 

 stools, with an appearance of hiccup, 

 should be treated with magnesia and 

 other absorbents, warmed by the addition 

 of a little grated nutmeg. White and 

 clayey stools are best corrected by a drop 

 or two of the water of kali, mixed with 

 the preceding aperients. A soap clyster 

 will likewise be useful, if the complaint 

 be attended with much griping ; nor is 

 some light cordial to be withheld ; and 

 fomenting the belly with a little warm 

 brandy, or a decoction of camomile-flow- 

 ers and white poppy-heads, will be a great 

 assistance to the other parts of the treat- 

 ment. 



Wherever purgative medicines are 

 used for children, the form of compound- 

 ing them is a material circumstance. 

 They should always possess the addition 

 of acomatics, especially those of the car- 

 minative kind, as a little ginger, pound- 

 ed cardamumseedSjdill or aniseseed water. 

 The pain is hereby relieved, the healthy 

 action of the mouths of the lacteals re- 

 newed, and the morbid irritation of the 

 secernments of the intestines diminished. 



Improper food is the common cause of 

 infantile diarrhoeas: either an acetous fer- 

 mentation is excited in the stomach, or 

 the gastric juice is changed in its nature, 

 and secretes an acid of its own. Other 

 derangements of the bowels may proceed 

 from the use of improper diet : but acidi- 

 ty from one or,other of these causes is the 

 common effect. The chief proof of acidity 

 w in the green colour of the evacua- 



tions : these are at the same time usually 

 accompanied with pain, and watery in 

 their consistence. If the pain be extreme, 

 the legs rigidly drawn up towards the 

 belly, and the ejections small in quantity, 

 but very frequent, and a mere watery 

 discharge, or intermixed with slime or 

 mucus alone, the disease is then called 

 watery gripes. This, however, is a com- 

 plaint of the lower and larger intestines 

 rather than of the stomach or digestion 

 itself, and of course evinces less proof of 

 acidity, which is peculiarly dependent 

 upon the stomach. 



Acidity is also said to be evinced by the 

 regurgitalions of curdled milk; butthisis 

 not strictly correct. The milk of all ani- 

 mals is curdled, in a state of the most per- 

 fect health, before it becomes digested, 

 or rather perhaps during the very process 

 of digestion. We cannot now enter into 

 the question, why this change should be 

 necessary : it is enough to state it to be a 

 fact, and to caution the mother against 

 loading the stomach of her child with 

 aperients or absorbent earths, merely be- 

 cause of such curdled regurgitutions. 

 The regurgitation is usually the simple 

 effect of superabundance, and the cur- 

 dled appearance a proof of healthy di- 

 gestion. The stimulus of superabundance 

 in infancy, as well as in the other stages 

 of life, frequently excites hiccup ; an af- 

 fection peculiarly useful to infants, as the 

 action hereby produced enables the sto- 

 mach to discharge its contents, both 

 through the mouth and into the duode- 

 num. But if the regurgitated food be 

 not only curdled, but evince an acid 

 smell, and especially if the breath itself 

 betray such a smell independently of re* 

 gurgitation, we have then a sufficient 

 proof of the existence of acidity in the 

 stomach from one of the two causes now 

 enumerated, and should apply ourselves 

 to remedy it. 



The first point is to get rid of the acid, 

 or other irritating matter, that actually 

 exists in the intestinal canal ; and the se- 

 cond is to prevent the formation of fresh 

 matter of the same kind. The former 

 intention is, best accomplished by ape- 

 rients; and, of all aperients, by calomel, 

 either alone, or in conjunction with small 

 doses of rhubarb ; the latter, by changing 

 the nature of the morbid action of the se- 

 cernments of the stomach or intestines, 

 and recovering them to their accustomed 

 secretions. This is best produced by 

 gentle stimulants, as dill, aniseseed or cin- 

 namon water, and especially sal volatile, 

 of which two or three drops may be given 

 at a dose, and which answers the double 



