Diseases of Children

Children.?By James Burnett, m.d. E. and S. Livingstone, Edinburgh. This small work is intended by the author to serve as an introduction to the subject. As such it seems to fulfil its purpose. Included in the book are separate chapters on the infectious fevers, diseases of the skin, diseases of the nose, throat and ear, and diseases of the eye. These will, doubtless, prove welcome to many. The chapter on heart affections is disappointing and behind the times. The chapter on infant feeding is interesting. The author claims that the best artificial food for infants is cow's milk, diluted with ordinary water only, without the addition of cream or milk sugar or anything else. If this is so, and the experiment seems worthy of trial, then the artificial feeding of infants becomes a simple matter. We take exception to his view on congenital hypertrophic stenosis (so-called) of the pylorus. The condition is generally recognised to arise after birth and hence the author's view that it is due to an error of development is untenable. Spasm followed by hypertrophy seems to be the order of things. The spasm is best explained by the formation of too large a curd owing to excess of rennin, or to pancreatic inadequacy leading to compensatory continued contraction of the pylorus and subsequent hypertrophy. We also disagree with his views on treatment of the condition.