=Scrofula.=--With this word of comfort I leave the subject of consumption, and pass to that of the allied disease _scrofula_. Briefly stated, two of the great differences between it and consumption are that scrofula is almost entirely limited to childhood and youth, while consumption may occur at any age; and next, that while scrofula attacks the bones and the glands, the skin and the membranes adjacent to it, consumption has its seat in the lungs, the brain, and the internal organs.
Scrofulous diseases of the bones come so exclusively under the observation of the surgeon, that I do not feel myself competent to say anything about them. I would however warn all parents to be very much alive to the importance of noticing the early symptoms of any such diseases, as shown by slight lameness, complaint of pain in the back, or difficulty in moving the hand or arm, or in turning the head or bending the neck. They may be but temporary accidents, due to cold, or to slight muscular rheumatism, or to some sprain not noticed at the time; but they may also be signs of the commencement of scrofulous disease of some bone; and in no disease whatever is early judicious treatment of greater value, or the result of neglect less remediable.
Besides these graver ailments which seldom appear until after the time of infancy has passed, there are others of a less serious nature which often show themselves within the first year of life. One of these consists in the formation beneath the skin of numerous small lumps of a rounded form, and of the size of a kidney-bean, slightly movable, and not tender. By degrees such lumps become adherent to the skin, the surface of which above them grows red, they project slightly above it, and at last open by a small circular aperture, discharge a little matter, and then subside. They collapse and disappear; a slight depression and a degree of lividity of the skin mark for a considerable time the situation they had occupied. I refer to them, because while they are a sign of a scrofulous constitution, which may require special care in diet and preparations of iron and cod-liver oil, they are best left absolutely alone--neither poulticed nor lanced. The same principle of non-intervention applies equally to the swellings which sometimes form on two or three of the fingers in infancy, not involving the joints but producing great thickening and a hard swelling around the bone. These swellings disappear by degrees as the constitutional vigour improves, and this is especially promoted by a long stay at the seaside; but they tend, if the health fails, to affect the bones themselves, and thus to occasion deformities of the hand.