The Mother's Manual of Children's DiseasesWest, Charles
Science
The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases
West, Charles
Pediatrics -- Handbooks, manuals, etc.
Besides this purely local ailment, there is another skin affection
which is seen over the body generally, and is known popularly by the
name of _red gum_, or in Latin _strophulus_. I mention the Latin name
because I have known persons sometimes, misled by the similarity of
sound, fancy that it had some connection with scrofula. It is met with
less commonly now than formerly, when people were accustomed to keep
infants unduly wrapped up, and to be less careful than most are
now-a-days about washing and bathing. It depends on over-irritation of
the sweat glands of the delicate skin of the infant, the result of which
shows itself in the eruption on the body and face of a number of small
dry pimples sometimes surrounded by a little redness, itching
considerably, and when their top has been rubbed off by scratching
having a little speck of dried blood at their summit.
A rash like this, a sort of _nettle rash_, more blotchy and causing
little lumps on the skin, which in a day or two come and go, sometimes
appears in the intervals between the pimples, sometimes takes their
place, and causes, as they do, much irritation. This nettle rash is
usually dependent on some error of diet, on some acidity of the stomach,
and, on their being corrected soon passes away, leaving the pimples as
they were before, but sometimes being reproduced if the pimples cause
excessive irritation of the tender skin.
The matter of chief importance for a mother to know, is that these
rashes have no serious signification. Their treatment is very simple. It
consists in dressing the child very lightly, in bathing it very
frequently with tepid water, avoiding as far as may be the use of soap,
and in sponging it often to relieve the irritation with some simple
alkaline lotion; such for instance as one recommended by the late Dr.
Tilbury Fox, and which is composed of twenty grains of carbonate of
soda, two teaspoonfuls of glycerine, and six ounces of rose water. Of
course if the stomach is out of order that must be attended to, but a
little fluid magnesia, once or twice a day, is all that is usually
needed in the way of medicine.
One other affection of the skin, very common, very distressing, very
tedious, of which there are many varieties, generally known by the
technical name of _eczema_, from a compound Greek word which signifies
to flow, needs that I should say something about it. It is not limited
in its occurrence to infancy, nor does it of necessity cease when
childhood is over, but continues to recur even in grown persons, and
shows itself still from time to time even in the aged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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