Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/337

 *tions; she would have made everything give way to the preservation of their health; and, in many instances, she would have been amply repaid by having the lives of her children spared to her. We frequently hear of patients in confirmed consumption being sent to Menton, to Madeira, and to other foreign parts. Can anything be more cruel or absurd? If there be any disease that requires the comforts of home—and truly may an Englishman's dwelling he called home!—and good nursing more than another, it is consumption. 361. ''What is the death-rate of Consumption in England? At what age does Consumption most frequently occur? Are girls more liable to it than boys? What are the symptoms of this disease?''

It is asserted, on good authority, that there always are, in England, 78,000 cases of consumption, and that the yearly death-rate of this fell disease alone is 39,000! Consumption more frequently shows itself between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one: after then, the liability to the disease gradually diminishes, until at the age of forty-five it becomes comparatively rare. Boys are more prone to this complaint than girls. Some of the most important symptoms of pulmonary consumption are indicated by the stethoscope; but, as I am addressing a mother, it would, of course, be quite out of place to treat of such signs in Conversations of this kind. The symptoms it might be well for a parent to recognize, in order that she may seek aid early, I will presently describe. It is perfectly hopeless to expect to cure consumption unless advice be sought at the onset, as the only effectual good in this disease is to be done at first.

It might be well to state that consumption creeps on insidiously. One of the earliest symptoms of this dreadful scourge is a slight, dry, short cough, attended with tickling and irritation at the top of the throat. This cough