Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/102

 called the gum, as described by Dr. Willan. It is common, at least in most instances, to find that, during their existence, so far is the general health of the child from suffering any manifest detriment, that no disturbance in the usual functions supervenes, whereas in those instances where, from whatever cause, a sudden repulsion has taken place, the shock is often felt in every part of the system. The brain, the liver, and the intestines, seem among the first to feel the effect of this change, and cerebral excitement is not slow to shew itself, especially if other circumstances combine to favour such determination. Where repulsion takes place, before all the deciduous teeth have made their appearance, the danger is greater, as the nervous as well as vascular system, seems endowed with singular susceptibility during dentition. Not infrequently violent spasmodic affections have speedily followed the disappearance of the eruption, and sometimes unequivocal indications of cerebral excitement. Instances not a few have occurred to me in proof of this fact. Very lately I saw a child, Mary Calverly, æt. two years, who lay in a comatose state, the pupils dilated and insensible to light; the respiration interrupted by sighs; pulse weak and irregular; bowels costive. On enquiry, I found that the child for several months had been troubled with an eruption which the mother called the itch, which had occupied not only the arms and thighs, but other parts of the body. The eruption not giving way to the internal exhibition of alternatives, the external application of an ointment, consisting of the unguentum sulphuris, with a little of the ''ung. hydrar. nitrat.'' added to it, was successful in producing the desired result about