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welcomed in its own existence, like the morning bird, with a shrill note of gladness, the infant ceases its cry, and, after a few short sobs, usually subsides into sleep or quietude.

2454. At the same instant that the air rushes into the lungs, the valve, or door between the two sides of the heart-and through which the blood had previously passed—is closed and hermetically sealed, and the blood taking a new course, bounds into the lungs, now expanded with air, and which we have likened to a wetted sponge, to which they bear a not unapt affinity, air being substituted for water. It here receives the oxygen from the atmosphere, and the chyle, or white blood, from the digested food, and becomes, in an instant, arterial blood, a vital principle, from which every solid and fluid of the body is constructed. Besides the lungs, Nature has provided another respiratory organ, a sort of supplemental lung, that, as well as being a covering to the body, inspires air and expires moisture;-this is the cuticle, or skin; and so intimate is the connection between the skin and lungs, that whatever injures the first, is certain to affect the latter.

2455. Hence the difficulty of breathing experienced after scalds or burns on the cuticle, the cough that follows the absorption of cold or damp by the skin, the oppressed and laborious breathing experienced by children in all eruptive diseases, while the rash is coming to the surface, and the hot, dry skin that always attends congestion of the lungs, and fever.

2456. The great practical advantage derivable from this fact is, the knowledge that whatever relieves the one benefits the other. Hence, too, the great utility of hot baths in all affections of the lungs or diseases of the skin; and the reason why exposure to cold or wet is, in nearly all cases, followed by tightness of the chest, sore throat, difficulty of breathing, and cough. These symptoms are the consequence of a larger quantity of blood than is natural remaining in the lungs, and the cough is a mere effort of Nature to throw off the obstruction caused by the presence of too much blood in the organ of respiration. The hot bath, by causing a larger amount of blood to rush suddenly to the skin, has the effect of relieving the lungs of their excess of blood, and by equalizing the circulation, aud promoting perspiration from the cuticle, affords immediate and direct benefit, both to the lungs and the system at large.

The Stomach.-Digestion.

2457. The organs that either directly or indirectly contribute to the process of digestion are, the mouth, teeth, tongue, and gullet, the stomach, small intestines, the pancreas, the salivary glands, and the liver. Next to respiration, digestion is the chief function in the economy of life, as, without the nutri tious fluid digested from the aliment, there would be nothing to supply the immense and constantly recurring waste of the system, caused by the activity with which the arteries at all periods, but especially during infancy and youth, are building up the frame and developing the body. In infancy (the period of

which our present subject treats), the series of parts engaged in the process of digestion may be reduced simply to the stomach and liver, or rather its secretion, the bile. The stomach is a thick muscular bag, connected above with the gullet, and, at its lower extremity, with the commencement of the small intestines. The duty or function of the stomach is to secrete from the arteries spread over its inner surface, a sharp acid liquid called the gastric juice; this, with a due mixture of saliva, softens, dissolves, and gradually digests the food or contents of the stomach, reducing the whole into a soft pulpy mass, which then passes into the first part of the small intestines, where it comes in contact with the bile from the gall-bladder, which immediately separates the digested food into two parts; one is a white creamy fluid called chyle, and the absolute concentration of all nourishment, which is taken up by proper vessels, and, as we have before said, carried directly to the heart, to be made blood of, and vitalized in the lungs, and thus provide for the wear and tear of the system. It must be here observed that the stomach can only digest solids, for fluids, being incapable of that process, can only be absorbed; and without the result of digestion, animal, at least human life, could not exist. Now, as Nature has ordained that infantine life shall be supported on liquid aliment, and as, without a digestion the body would perish, some provision was necessary to meet this difficulty, and that provision was found in the nature of the liquid itself, or in other words, THE MILK. The process of making cheese, or fresh curds and whey, is familiar to most persons; but as it is necessary to the elucidation of our subject, we will briefly repeat it. The internal membrane, or the lining coat of a calf's stomach, having been removed from the organ, is hung up, like a bladder, to dry; when required, a piece is cut off, put in a jug, a little warm water poured upon it, and after a few hours it is fit for use; the liquid so made being called rennet. A little of this rennet, poured into a basin of warm milk, at once coagulates the greater part, and separates from it a quantity of thin liquor, called whey. This is precisely the action that takes place in the infant's stomach after every supply from the breast. The cause is the same in both cases, the acid of the gastric juice in the infant's stomach immediately converting the milk into a soft cheese. It is gastric juice, adhering to the calf's stomach, and drawn out by the water, forming rennet, that makes the curds in the basin. The cheesy substance being a solid, at once undergoes the process of digestion, is separated into chyle by the bile, and, in a few hours, finds its way to the infant's heart, to become blood, and commence the architecture of its little frame. This is the simple process of a baby's digestion :-milk converted into cheese, cheese into chyle, chyle into blood, and blood into flesh, bone, and tegument-how simple is the cause, but how sublime and wonderful are the effects!

2458. We have described the most important of the three functions that take place in the infant's body-respiration and digestion; the third, namely, circulation, we hardly think it necessary to enter on, not being called for by the requirements of the nurse and mother; so we shall omit its notice, and proceed from theoretical to more practical considerations. Children of weakly

constitutions are just as likely to be born of robust parents, and those who carn their bread by toil, as the offspring of luxury and affluence; and, indeed, it is against the ordinary providence of Nature to suppose the children of the hardworking and necessitous to be hardier and more vigorous than those of parents blessed with ease and competence.

2459. All children come into the world in the same imploring helplessness, with the same general organization and wants, and demanding either from the newly-awakened mother's love, or from the memory of motherly feeling in the nurse, or the common appeals of humanity in those who undertake the carliest duties of an infant, the same assistance and protection, and the same fostering care.

THE INFANT.

2460. WE have already described the phenomena produced on the new-born child by the contact of air, which, after a succession of muscular twitchings, becomes endowed with voice, and heralds its advent by a loud but brief succession of cries. But though this is the general rule, it sometimes happens (from causes it is unnecessary here to explain) that the infant does not cry, or give utterance to any audible sounds, or if it does, they are so faint as scarcely to be distinguished as human accents, plainly indicating that life, as yet, to the new visitor, is neither a boon nor a blessing; the infant being, in fact, in a state of suspended or imperfect vitality, a state of quasi existence, closely approximating the condition of a still-birth.

2461. As soon as this state of things is discovered, the child should be turned on its right side, and the whole length of the spine, from the head downwards, rubbed with all the fingers of the right hand, sharply, and quickly, without intermission, till the quick action has not only evoked heat, but electricity in the part, and till the loud and sharp cries of the child have thoroughly expanded the lungs, and satisfactorily established its life. The operation will seldom require above a minute to effect, and less frequently demands a repetition. If there is brandy at hand, the fingers before rubbing may be dipped into that, or any other spirit.

2462. There is another condition of what we may call "mute births," where the child only makes short ineffectual gasps, and those at intervals of a minute or two apart, when the lips, eyelids, and fingers become of a deep purple or slate colour, sometimes half the body remaining white, while the other half, which was at first swarthy, deepens to a livid hue. This condition of the infant is owing to the valve between the two sides of the heart remaining open, and allowing the unvitalized venous blood to enter the arteries and get into the circulation.

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2463. The object in this case, as in the previous one, is to dilate the lungs as quickly as possible, so that, by the sudden effect of a vigorous inspiration, the valve may be firmly closed, and the impure blood, losing this means of egress, be sent directly to the lungs. The same treatment is therefore necessary as in the previous case, with the addition, if the friction along the spine has failed, of a warm bath at a temperature of about 80°, in which the child is to be plunged up to the neck, first cleansing the mouth and nostrils of the mucus that might interfere with the free passage of air.

2464. While in the bath, the friction along the spine is to be continued, and if the lungs still remain unexpanded, while one person retains the child in an inclined position in the water, another should insert the pipe of a small pair of bellows into one nostril, and while the mouth is closed and the other nostril compressed on the pipe with the hand of the assistant, the lungs are to be slowly inflated by steady puffs of air from the bellows, the hand being removed from the mouth and nose after each inflation, and placed on the pit of the stomach, and by a steady pressure expelling it out again by the mouth. This process is to be continued, steadily inflating and expelling the air from the lungs, till, with a sort of tremulous leap, Nature takes up the process, and the infant begins to gasp, and finally to cry, at first low and faint, but with every engulp of air increasing in length and strength of volume, when it is to be removed from the water, and instantly wrapped (all but the face and mouth) in a flannel. Sometimes, however, all these means will fail in effecting an utterance from the child, which will lie, with livid lips and a flaccid body, every few minutes opening its mouth with a short gasping pant, and then subsiding into a state of pulseless inaction, lingering probably some hours, till the spasmodic pantings growing further apart, it ceases to exist.

2465. The time that this state of negative vitality will linger in the frame of an infant is remarkable; and even when all the previous operations, though long-continued, have proved ineffectual, the child will often rally from the simplest of means-the application of dry heat. When removed from the bath, place three or four hot bricks or tiles on the hearth, and lay the child, loosely folded in a flannel, on its back along them, taking care that there is but one fold of flannel between the spine and heated bricks or tiles. When neither of these articles can be procured, put a few clear pieces of red cinder in a warming-pan, and extend the child in the same manner along the closed lid. As the heat gradually diffuses itself over the spinal marrow, the child that was dying, or seemingly dead, will frequently give a sudden and energetic cry, succeeded in another minute by a long and vigorous peal, making up, in volume and force, for the previous delay, and instantly confirming its existence by every effort in its nature.

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2466. With these two exceptions,-restored by the means we have pointed out to the functions of life, we will proceed to the consideration of the child HEALTHILY BORN. Here the first thing that meets us on the threshold of

inquiry, and what is often between mother and nurse not only a vexed question, but one of vexatious import, is the crying of the child; the mother, in her natural anxiety, maintaining that her infant must be ill to cause it to cry so much or so often, and the nurse insisting that all children cry, and that nothing is the matter with it, and that crying does good, and is, indeed, an especial benefit to infancy. The anxious and unfamiliar mother, though not convinced by these abstract sayings of the truth or wisdom of the explanation, takes both for granted; and, giving the nurse credit for more knowledge and experience on this head than she can have, contentedly resigns herself to the infliction, as a thing necessary to be endured for the good of the baby, but thinking it, at the same time, an extraordinary instance of the imperfectibility of Nature as regards the human infant; for her mind wanders to what she has observed in her childhood with puppies and kittens, who, except when rudely torn from their nurse, seldom give utterance to any complaining.

2467. We, undoubtedly, believe that crying, to a certain extent, is not only conducive to health, but positively necessary to the full development and physical economy of the infant's being. But though holding this opinion, we are far from believing that a child does not very often cry from pain, thirst, want of food, and attention to its personal comfort; but there is as much difference in the tone and expression of a child's cry as in the notes of an adult's voice; and the mother's ear will not be long in discriminating between the sharp peevish whine of irritation and fever, and the louder intermitting cry that characterizes the want of warmth and sleep. All these shades of expression in the child's inarticulate voice every nurse should understand, and every mother will soon teach herself to interpret them with an accuracy equal to language.

2468. There is no part of a woman's duty to her child that a young mother should so soon make it her business to study, as the voice of her infant, and the language conveyed in its cry. The study is neither hard nor difficult; a close attention to its tone, and the expression of the baby's features, are the two most important points demanding attention. The key to both the mother will find in her own heart, and the knowledge of her success in the comfort and smile of her infant. We have two reasons-both strong ones-for urging on mothers the imperative necessity of early making themselves acquainted with the nature and wants of their child: the first, that when left to the entire responsibility of the baby, after the departure of the nurse, she may be able to undertake her new duties with more confidence than if left to her own resources and mother's instinct, without a clue to guide her through the mysteries of those calls that vibrate through every nerve of her nature; and, secondly, that she may be able to guard her child from the nefarious practices of unprincipled nurses, who, while calming the mother's mind with false statements as to the character of the baby's cries, rather than lose their rest, or devote that time which would remove the cause of suffering, administer, behind the curtains, those deadly narcotics which, while stupefying Nature into

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