The Physical Training of ChildrenChavasse, Pye Henry
Science
The Physical Training of Children
Chavasse, Pye Henry
Child care; Children -- Health and hygiene
Sir Charles Locock, who has taken a kind interest in this little work,
has given me valid reasons why a mother should be so enlightened. The
following extracts are from a letter which I received from Sir Charles
on the subject, and which he has courteously allowed me to publish. He
says: “As an old physician of some experience in complaints of infants
and children, I may perhaps be allowed to suggest that in a future
edition you should add a few words on the actual treatment of some of
the more urgent infantile diseases. It is very right to caution parents
against superseding the doctor, and attempting to manage serious illness
themselves; but your advice, with very small exceptions, always being to
‘to lose no time in sending for a medical man,’ much valuable and often
irremediable time may be lost _when a medical man is not to be had_.
Take, for instance, a case of croup: there are no directions given at
all, except to send for a medical man, and always to keep medicines in
the house which he may have directed. But how can this apply to a first
attack? You state that a first attack is generally the worst. But why is
it so? Simply because it often occurs when the parents do not recognize
it, and it is allowed to get to a worse point than in subsequent
attacks, when they are thoroughly alive to it. As the very best remedy,
and often the only essential one, if given early, is a full emetic,
surely it is better that you should give some directions as to this in a
future edition, and I can speak from my own experience when I say that
an emetic, _given in time_, and repeated to free vomiting, will cut
short any case of croup. In nine cases out of ten the attack takes place
in the evening or early night, and when vomiting is effected the dinner
of that day is brought up nearly undigested, and the severity of the
symptoms at once cut short. Whenever any remedy is valuable, the more by
its being administered _in time_, it is surely wiser to give directions
as to its use, although, as a general rule, it is much better to advise
the sending for medical advice.”
The above reasons, coming from such a learned and experienced physician
as Sir Charles Locock, are conclusive, and have decided me to comply
with his advice, to enlighten a mother on the _treatment_ of some of the
more urgent diseases of infants and of children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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