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An Account of the Difeafes maft incident to Children, from their Birth till the Age of Puberty; with a fuccessful Method of treating them. To which is added, an Effay on Nurfing. By George Armstrong, M. D. Phyfician to the Difpenfary. 8vo. 3's. feed. Cadell.

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IN the preface to this volume, Dr. Armstrong informs us, that on revifing his papers refpecting the difeafes of infants, with the view of publishing a new and enlarged edition of his Effay on that fubject, it occurred to him, that as the greater part of the obfervations he intended to add, related to children who had paffed the ftage of infancy, it was proper to give the work a more general title than that of his former treatise. In regard to the propriety of this alteration we readily acquiefce; but in conformity to this extenfion of his plan, perhaps the doctor ought to have treated more fully of the fmall-pox and meafles, as being difeafes more frequent amongst children than those of a riper age. In answer to this objection we are told, that thofe two difeafes being of an infectious nature, and requiring attendance at the patient's houses, are excepted from the Charity inftituted for the Relief of the Infant Poor; on which account the author had not fuch opportunity of making obfervations upon them, as on most of the other difeafes incident to children; and intending to give only the refult of his own experience, avoided entering upon a detail of the obfervations of other writers. An apology fo ingenuous and fatisfactory admits of no reply.

The following is the author's account of the method in which he treats the hooping cough; whence it appears that he adopts both the medicines lately recommended in the difeafe.

If the fever is high, when I am firft called, and the child of a fanguine habit, I advife bleeding; and if the patient is coftive, I direct a cooling glyfter to be adminiftered, and the body to be kept open with fome gentle purgative, viz. a fmall dofe of manna, magnefia, rhubarb, or calomel, given occafionally. Till the fever abates, or remits, or intermits, I give the extractum cicuta, according to Dr. Bútter's directions, and as foon as I find a plain remiffion, or intermiffion of the fever, I have recourfe to the tin&ture, or decoction of the bark, the elixir paregoricum, in a double quantity to that of the fudorific elixir, ordered by Dr. Lettfom, and the tincture of cantharides; and this I continue till the end of the difeafe. Taking care all the while, to keep the body moderately open, and if the phlegm is trouble fome or the patient feverish in the night, I give the antimonial folution in the evening, as before mentioned. If the child is turned of fix or feven months,

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and troubled with worms, or has a great foulness of the intestines, I prefer calomel, by way of laxative, to any other medicine, giving it over night in a fufficient quantity to procure two or three ftools next day.

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During the whole cure, I pay the ftricteft regard to the diet, forbidding the use of any kind of meat, or fish, nay even of broth, while the child is feverish at nights. I chiefly allow fago and panada to children at the breast, or while they are very young. To fuch as are little grown up, about two years old and upwards, befides the above-mentioned, bread pudding, apple pudding, or dumpling, during the feafon, ftale French-roll with honey, currant-jelly, or rafberry-jam, apples, boiled, roafted, or baked; but no pye cruft of any fort, nor any jelly of meat or hartfhorn. Turnips, if they are good, well boiled, and mashed with milk instead of butter, and likewife potatoes, dreffed in the fame manner. But the mealy fort is the best, and they ought to be carefully picked and tasted before they are mashed; because it is no unufual thing here to meet with potatoes that look very well, but, when you come to taste them, they have a most disagreeable flavour, and are very unwholefome. Thefe, I imagine, are raised in the garden grounds about town, and contract that rankness from the too great quantity of dung with which the foil is corrupted, and rendered incapable of producing either potatoes or turnips in perfection. Both these roots grow beft in a light, fandy foil, and new ground, with little or no dung, and every body knows, that the turnips brought to market here, are not fit for the table till the field ones come in. In the fame manner the potatoes that are fent to market from different parts of the country where the foil is lefs manured, must be the mcft fweet and wholefome. Bread and milk I have no objection to, when there is not inuch fever, if the child is fond of it, and it used to agree with him when in health. But to make it digeft the more easily, a little Spanish foap should be diffolved in it, viz. the bignefs of a filberd to half a pint of milk, adding to it a fufficient quantity of fugar, to take off the difagreeable tafte of the foap. For drink, infufion of malt, or of apples in the feafon, barley-water, baum tea, hyffop-tea, or that of horehound, if you can perfuade them to take it. But it is not fufficient to give proper attention to the quality of the food, the quantity likewife fhould be carefully regarded; that is to fay, the child muft never be allowed to feed too heartily at a time. There is nothing more hurtful in a cough of any kind, than filling the ftomach too much at once, but efpecially in the hooping-cough. A fatal inftance of this happened a few years ago. to a child near two years

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old, which I attended in that difeafe. The cough had been better for some days, and was apparently going off, when the parents one Sunday fed it too heartily with bread-pudding, which they had boiled for their own dinner, and which from its lightness they thought could not do the child any harm, but unfortunately it was thereby immediately thrown into convulfions, of which it died the next morning. A gentle puke was given, which operated very well, but it was fo weakened by the violence of the fits, that nothing administered gave any fenfible relief. I muft however observe, that he was naturally a very tender, delicate child, but never had been subject to convulfions before,

But after all, in fome children the hooping-cough is a tedious and obftinate complaint; and even the change of air, fo much celebrated in this difeafe, though in fome patients it feems to have a remarkable good effect, yet to others it affords no fenfible relief.'

To the directions for nurfing children, formerly published, Dr. Armstrong has now prefixed fome general obfervations and precautions, relative to the management of them in the birth, fo as to prevent their catching cold. He has alfo added a general account of the Difpenfary for Infant Poor, which evidently appears to be an inftitution of great advantage to the inhabitants of the metropolis, as well as to thofe of the adjacent country.

Cafes, medical, chirurgical, and anatomical, with Obfervations. Selected and translated into English from the History and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris; from the Year 1666 10 the prefent Time. By Loftus Wood, M. D. Vol. I. 800. 6s. in boards. Bew.

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N account of the great number of volumes of which the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris now confift, which is upwards of a hundred and twenty, in quarto, it may well be fuppofed, that many valuable obfervations in that work, respecting the science of medicine, are not generally known in this country. A fele&ion, and tranflation of them, therefore, we imagine, cannot fail of being acceptable to the English reader; and upon this prefumption Dr. Wood has undertaken the work now before us.

To enumerate the cafes, would be equally tedious and unneceffary; and it may therefore be fufficient to give a fhort fpecimen of the tranflation. The following extract is taken from Anatomical Reflexions upon the Disorders occafioned by certain Attitudes, and particular Modes of Drefs. By M. Winflow.

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It is well known that certain carclefs attitudes have alone been the cause of many inconveniencies, infirmities, and even dangerous diforders of the human body; and that because a proper attention had not been paid to the first cause of these disorders, feveral remedies have been employed not only in vain, but also not unfrequently to the great aggravation of the difeafe.

A certain lady, tall in ftature and very ftraight, having taken to a fedentary way of life, became accustomed to dress herself very negligently, and to fit very often in a crooked pofition, fometimes bending forwards, at other times leaning to one or the other fide. A few months after this she began to find that he could not ftand erect, as he had formerly done, without confiderable difficulty; and afterwards the perceived a kind of inequality at the lower part of her fpine. Having confulted me upon this matter, I advised ber at first, in order to prevent at least any augmentation of this disorder, to wear a small pair of jumps made for that purpose, and to make use of a back fitted to her common feat; but neglecting to follow my advice, her fpine became daily more diftorted, reprefenting nearly the figure of the Roman letter S, fo that at length, having always neglected to ufe the remedies I had propofed, the loft near one quarter of her former height, and was not only bent fide ways in two contrary directions, from the right fo the left, and from the left to the right, but was alfo bent forwards in fuch a manner, that the falfe ribs of one fide approached very near to the fpine of the os ilium of the fame fide; and that the vifcera of the abdomen were, by the fame canfe, irregularly pushed towards the oppofite fide; even her ftomach was fo compreffed, that whatever the fwallowed feemed to fall into two diftind cavities.

I have feen many young ftudents who, being obliged to remain upon their knees and in a crooked pofition for a long time, while writing in the public claffes, have been very much incommoded by the compreffion of the lower part of the thorax, and alto of the vifcera contained in the epigastric region, and which was occafioned by this contrained attitude fo frequently repeated; but more especially fuch as were nearfighted, who being confequently much more exposed to thefe inconveniencies, were more liable to be affe&ed by the different diforders of the thorax and abdomen arifing from them.

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• The beft remedies preferited by those whom they had confulted, but who were unacquainted with the caufe of these diforders, were attended with no kind of fuccefs, and even fometimes augmented the complaint. It was only by interrogating the patients that I was able to difcover the caufe of

their complaints to be this improper attitude; which being afterwards difcontinued, many of them were perfectly cured even without the aid of medicine, and others by the fame remedies that had been employed before without fuccefs,

I have alfo obferved young ftudents very fubje& to pains of the head, eyes, neck, &c. which diforders could not be pre. vented from frequently returning, although bleeding and other proper remedies had been used: but at last, being intormed by their overseer that it was a very general custom with thefe young people to fleep with their heads behind the bolters, I immediately made them change this attitude, ordering those who had the charge of them to take particular care to awake those whom they might find fleeping in fuch a pofition; this had a very good effect, even with regard to the diforderswhich had been long refractory, and were almoft become habitual'.

-The effects occafioned by the use of certain articles of dress do not merit lefs atsention. Many ancient authors have already communicated to us their obfervations on the inconveniencies and bad confequences attending fuch women and girls, who clofely confine their bodies in whalebone stays, and by this means comprefs, in a more or lefs dangerous degree, the principal vifcera of the abdomen, and even wound, lame, or deftroy the foetus in its mother's womb.

Many years are elapfed fince I first observed that those who had accustomed themfelves to wear very tight cravats, bands, fhirt collars, &c. fo as greatly to comprefs their necks, were very fubject, and from this caufe alone, to diforders of the head, eyes, neck, to numbness, vertigo, fyncope, frequent bleeding at the nose, &c, and that for want of a knowledge of this primary and immediate caufe, various kinds of remedies have been employed without the leaft fuccefs, while I have often cured thefe diforders in a moment, by only loofing those ligatures or bands that had hindered the free return of the blood through the jugular veins, which the carotid arteries had diftributed without obftruction to the feveral external and internal parts of the head.

M. Cruger, furgeon-general of Denmark and Norway, being in Paris, and hearing me mention this obfervation, told me that a captain of the army in his country caufed all the foldiers of his company to tie their cravats very tight about their necks, and alfo to wear their garters in the fame manner below their knees, in order that the high colour of their faces, and the augmented fize of the calves of their legs, which these right ligatures produced, might make thefe foldiers appear to be well fed, very vigorous, and in good plight.'

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