ON THE LIBERAL USE OF ALCOHOL IN THE TREATMENT OF THE DISEASES OF CHILDREN (1890)

[摘要] At the 1890 meeting of the American Pediatric Society several of the founding members of the Society, in their discussion of a formal paper on the use of alcohol in the treatment of ill children, favored its liberal use, even for small infants.For example, L. Emmett Holt (1854-1924) commented:1I am almost afraid to mention the amount of alcohol which I have given some young children. Recently I treated a baby two months old, weighing about seven pounds, for a severe broncho-pneumonia. The child took for twenty-four hours a teaspoonful of whiskey every half-hour, and for the two succeeding days almost as much. To a boy sixteen months old at the Infant Asylum, who had first pneumonia, followed by pleurisy with effusion, and then diphtheria, all in the course of a few weeks, with complete recovery, we gave half a pint of whiskey a day for several days; this, too, without producing any cerebral symptoms, although they were carefully watched for. It seems to me, therefore, that we should be guided in dosage by the effect produced, and not by any preconceived idea as to how much the child ought to have.Victor C. Vaughan (1851-1929), of Ann Arbor, Michigan, also supported Holt's view of the therapeutic value of alcohol, especially in diphtheria and typhoid fever.He noted1:In the treatment of mild cases of diphtheria, and more expecially in the typhoid fever of children, there has been no other remedy at my command so good as alcohol. In the typhoid fever of children the temperature often runs up as high as 105° to 106° F.

[学科分类] 儿科学