Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/101

 seton, that has been long established, has been followed, in many instances, by the most disastrous consequences. I had an instance of this but a short time ago, in a patient who, at the age of 60, permitted an issue, which had run for more than 15 years, to heal, and though no inconvenience was felt for some weeks, yet anasarcous swellings, and, subsequently, difficulty of breathing, with many other symptoms indicative of effusion in the chest, supervened, though his surgeon had re-established the issue. The case eventually proved fatal, nor would it be difficult to adduce other analogous instances to shew how dangerous it is, even in adults, to suffer undue interference with every morbid process that developes itself, provided the viscera are not implicated in the disease. Now, if this is true in the case of adults, how much greater must the danger be in the premature suppression of infantile eruptions. There are, indeed, certain eruptions peculiar to infancy, as no less than five or six different affections of the skin occur during the process of dentition. Some of these never take place until the teeth begin to appear, the strophulus confertus for instance. But, are not all these eruptions, when spontaneous, the surest means of easy and safe dentition? Experience shews us that these cuticular developments are designed by nature, in most instances, to subserve some beneficial purpose, to ward off some worse danger; perhaps to relieve some local congestion, or furnish an outlet to some noxious principle. This, indeed, seems more especially to be the case in that class of infantile eruptions which are unaccompanied with pyrexial symptoms, and in those five species of the eruption