The Mother's Manual of Children's DiseasesWest, Charles
Science
The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases
West, Charles
Pediatrics -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
In the infant it is the last of these which very often calls attention
to the illness from which it is suffering. Cries are the only language
which a young baby has to express its distress; as smiles and laughter
and merry antics tell without a word its gladness. The baby must be ill,
is all that its cries tell one person; another, who has seen much of
sick children, will gather from them more, and will be able to judge
whether its suffering is in the head, or chest, or stomach. The cries of
a baby with stomach-ache are long and loud and passionate; it sheds a
profusion of tears; now stops for a moment, and then begins again,
drawing up its legs to its stomach; and as the pain passes off,
stretches them out again, and with many little sobs passes off into a
quiet sleep. If it has inflammation of the chest it does not cry aloud,
it sheds no tears, but every few minutes, especially after drawing a
deeper breath than before, or after each short hacking cough, it gives a
little cry, which it checks apparently before it is half finished; and
this, either because it has no breath to waste in cries, or because the
effort makes its breathing more painful. If disease is going on in the
head, the child utters sharp piercing shrieks, and then between whiles a
low moan or wail, or perhaps no sound at all, but lies quiet, apparently
dozing, till pain wakes it up again.
It is not, however, by the cry alone, or by any one sign of disease,
that it is possible to judge either of its nature or of its degree, but
the mention of this serves merely as an illustration, which anyone can
understand, of the different meanings that even a baby's cry will convey
to different persons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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