Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/117

 of cerebral oppression had disappeared. Some months elapsed before I again saw this child, with Mr. Ledgard, the house surgeon of the infirmary, when symptoms of dyspnœa were present, and an œdematous state of the lower extremities, which were likewise relieved in less than two months, leaving, however, a tickling cough and great emaciation. Nor was this cough relieved until the appearance of a small tumour, of a scrofulous kind, on the lower part of the sternum, which afterwards proceeded to suppuration, and though the discharge was considerable, yet the child gradually gained strength, under the use of chalybeate drops and the daily allowance of a small quantity of port wine. On visiting her a few days ago, the tumour on the breast appeared nearly healed, but for several days the cough had returned with great severity, accompanied with a spitting of blood. The other children of this family, I should observe, had strong indications of strumous diathesis, and three of them, like their mother, had been the subjects of scrofulous ophthalmic.

I have dwelt more largely on the multiform aspects of scrofula, because its appearance is often insidious, and its coincidence with other diseases such, as not infrequently to occasion great obscurity in the symptoms. It is important, too, always to watch those circumstances, or local peculiarities, which favour its development in different situations, as it is by observations of this kind, that some useful practical suggestion may be derived, and its ravages curtailed. We know that scrofula is of more frequent occurrence among the inhabitants of great towns, than in