Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/118

 the agricultural population of a country; and though no locality is exempt from its invasion, yet a more clear and purer atmosphere, and the salubrious exhalations from growing vegetables, are most influential in averting some of its worst modifications. To the statistical enquirer this subject is of the last importance, as the influence of scrofula in warm, as well as cold climates is great, and especially during early life. But there are other causes which play an important part in the production of infantile diseases, some of which I have already alluded to; such as dentition, worms, eruptions, &c. Yet pathologists have hardly, I think, attached sufficient importance to the peculiarities of infant organization, and the influence which they exercise on the character of the morbid phenomena which occur at that period. Take, for instance, the state of natural hypertrophy of the livers of very young children, as compared with what we observe in adult age. We know that as the infant advances in age, the liver diminishes in size, and instead of extending into the abdomen, retires behind the ribs, below which it does not extend, except when in a state of disease. In some cases, it is true, the child retains this natural hypertrophy, and in some children it is greater than in others. In those in whom this disproportion is the greatest, it is consistent with analogy to suppose, that its influence must more or less be felt in the digestive functions, on the lungs, and on the brain; just as is the case in a greater degree, in the enlarged liver occurring in after-life.

Another peculiarity may be found in the size of the brain, which is usually so much larger, in proportion