82 CHAP. XI. Of the Ranula. 91 CHAP. XIV. Of the Watchings of Children. 102 108 CHAP. XV. Of the Frights of Children in III and Convulfive Motions of Children. 123 151 163 CHAP. XX. Of Ruptures, and first of the 168 173 CHAP. XXII. Of the Rupture by Congestion, CHAP. XXIII. Of the Ani Procidentia; or falling down of the Anus. CHAP. XXIV. Of Worms. 177 181 CHAP. XXV. Of the Scrophula, or King's- Evil. CHAP. XXVI. Of the Rickets. 196 212 CHAP. XXVII. Of the Extenuation, or 224 THE THE DISEASES O F CHILDREN. B Y the diseases of children we mean, 1. Such as affect infancy in particular, and these we may properly call its peculiar diseases. Of this class, are the symptoms of dentition, which we seldom meet with in any age but in this. 2. The difeafes that children are more frequently liable to than adults; fuch are worms, and their confequences. 3. The difeafes infants have in common with adults, and to which both are equally fubject; but require fome change in the method of cure, with respect to the tender age and constitution of children; these are convulfions, epilepfy, &c. The fubjects of these various ailments are, boys to the age of fourteen, and girls to that of twelve; after which, their diseases belong not to our present treatise, because they then cease being children, and become liable to the fame disorders with adults, which in both fhould be treated after the fame manner. The three claffes of the disorders abovementioned do not equally happen in the different ftages of childhood; for the proper diseases of children, are chiefly obfervable from the day of their birth, until they have attained the age of three or four years, when they infenfibly give way to the disorders of the second class, or to those which, though common, are more frequent in children than adults, and which chiefly affect this tender age, from the time of birth to the age of feven years, receding in the fame proportion with the former, until the diseases of the third clafs come on, or those which children have in common with adults, and which become more frequent than any of the two former, about the age of twelve or fourteen. I fhall not particularize, or enter into fubtilties concerning these three periods, or their circumftances. Having Having thus premised a general Idea of the following treatise, it will not be improper to divide the whole into fix fections: the firft will comprehend the cutaneous diseases of children: the fecond, dentition, and its confequences: the third will explain the disorders which affect each region of the body, beginning first with those of the head, as the epilepfy, hydrocephalus, &c. the fourth will treat of the diseases of the breast in any of the three claffes before-mentioned: the fifth will comprise the diseases of the lower belly in the fame order: and the fixth, the univerfal disorders of the body, or those which attack the extremities, the trunk, &c. as the rickets. As to the fmall-pox and measles, to which children are very subject, I have explained them at length in my treatise of fevers; to which I refer you concerning those points, The method of treating children immediately after their birth, when they begin to fuck, and how they should be weaned. BER EFORE I enter upon an explanation of the cutaneous diforders of children, it will not be foreign to my purpose, 1. to acquaint B 2 quaint you how an infant fhould be treated after its birth; 2. what is to be done when it begins to fuck; 3. how it is to be managed when the nurfe intends to wean it. I. How to tie and cut the navel-firing. 1. A S foon as the child is born, let it be covered with a warm napkin, and carefully laid on the midwife's knees, with its face towards hers, that it may be the better fecured from the waters which then flow from the mother; and on its fide, that it may be the less incommoded by the spittle it throws up; and not upon its back, for fear that the humours running to its mouth and nose, may choak it for want of free evacuation. At the fame time, the mother's parts are to be covered with a warm folded linen, to hinder the ingrefs of the cold air, obferving the other cautions given in my treatise of the difeafes of women, relating to midwifery nor is the infant to be kept long in the above-mentioned fituation, left it should catch cold. This being done, take four or five doubles of thread, about a foot long; knot them at each |