The diet ought to be dry and nourishing, as good bread, roasted flesh, &c. Biscuit is generally reckoned the best bread; and pigeons, pullets, veal, rabbits, or mutton roasted or minced, are the most proper flesh. If the child be too young for flesh-meats, he may have rice, millet, or pearl-barley boiled with raisins, to which may be added a little wine and spice. His drink may be good claret, mixed with an equal quantity of water. Those who cannot afford claret, may give the child now and then a wine-glass of mild ale, or good porter.
MEDICINE.——Medicines are here of little avail. The disease may often be cured by the nurse, but seldom by the physician. In children of a gross habit, gentle vomits and repeated purges of rhubarb may sometimes be of use, but they will seldom carry off the disease; that must depend chiefly upon such things as brace and strengthen the system: for which purpose, besides the regimen mentioned above, we would recommend the cold bath, especially in the warm season. It must however be used with prudence, as some ricketty children cannot bear it. The best time for using the cold bath is in the morning, and the child should be well rubbed with a dry cloth immediately after he comes out of it. If the child should be weakened by the cold bath, it must be discontinued.
Sometimes issues have been found beneficial in this disease. They are peculiarly necessary for children who abound with gross humours. An infusion of the Peruvian bark in wine or ale would be of service, were it possible to bring children to take it. We might here mention many other medicines which have been recommended for the rickets; but as there is far more danger in trusting to these than in neglecting them altogether, we chuse rather to pass them over, and to recommend a proper regimen as the thing chiefly to be depended on.
OF CONVULSIONS.
Though more children are said to die of convulsions than of any other disease, yet they are for the most part only a symptom of some other malady. Whatever greatly irritates or stimulates the nerves, may occasion convulsions. Hence infants whose nerves are easily affected, are often thrown into convulsions by any thing that irritates the alimentary canal; likewise by teething; strait clothes; the approach of the small-pox, measles, or other eruptive diseases.
When convulsions proceed from an irritation of the stomach or bowels, whatever clears them of their acrid contents, or renders these mild and inoffensive, will generally perform a cure: wherefore, if the child be costive, the best way will be to begin with a clyster, and afterwards to give a gentle vomit, which may be repeated occasionally, and the body in the mean time kept open by gentle doses of magnesia alba, or small quantities of rhubarb mixed with the powder of crabs claws.
Convulsions which precede the eruption of the small-pox or measles generally go off upon these making their appearance. The principal danger in this case arises from the fears and apprehensions of those who have the care of the patient. Convulsions are very alarming, and something must be done to appease the affrighted parents, nurses, &c. Hence the unhappy infant often undergoes bleeding, blistering, and several other operations, to the great danger of its life, when a little time, bathing the feet in warm water, and throwing in a mild clyster, would have set all to rights.
When convulsion fits arise from the cutting of teeth, besides gentle evacuations, we would recommend blistering, and the use of antispasmodic medicines, as the tincture of soot, asafœtida, or castor. A few drops of any of these may be mixed in a cup of white-wine whey, and given occasionally.
When convulsions proceed from any external cause, as the pressure occasioned by strait clothes or bandages, &c. these ought immediately to be removed; though in this case taking away the cause will not always remove the effect, yet it ought to be done. It is not likely that the patient will recover, as long as the cause which first gave rise to the disorder continues to act.
When a child is seized with convulsions without having any complaint in the bowels, or symptoms of teething; or any rash or other discharge which has been suddenly dried up; we have reason to conclude that it is a primary disease, and proceeds immediately from the brain. Cases of this kind, however, happen but seldom, which is very fortunate, as little can be done to relieve the unhappy patient. When a disease proceeds from an origial fault in the formation or structure of the brain itself, we cannot expect that it should yield to medicine. But as this is not always the cause, even of convulsions which proceed immediately from the brain, some attempts should be made to remove them. The chief intention to be pursued for this purpose, is to make some derivation from the head, by blistering, purging, and the like. Should these fail, issues or setons may be put in the neck, or between the shoulders.