Transactions - 1900 Author:American Medical Association Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CONSTIPATION IN INFANTS. BY H. M. McCLANAHAN, M.D. OMAHA, NER. My remarks are limited to a consideration of this condition in infants from birth to the ... more »age of 6 months. Within the past two years I have had twelve babies in my care, suffering with constipation, and what I shall have to say is based largely on the study of these cases. The most important fact to be determined is the true cause, and each individual case requires special study. The causes in infants are entirely different from those that pertain to children and adults. Rickets is rare in children of this age. although a frequent cause in older children. Although carefully looked for, none of the manifestations of rickets were discovered in any of my twelve cases. Want of tone in the lower bowel, due to weakness of the muscular fiber, is probably a frequent predisposing cause; but seldom is it the sole cause. The real causes may be grouped under two heads: 1. the quality, quantity and method of feeding, and 2, the anatomic condition of the colon. Under the first head nine of the twelve cases may fairly be classed; of these nine cases, seven were bottle- fed and two breast-fed babies; of the seven bottle-fed, three were fed on condensed milk; two on Mellin's food, with milk, and two on milk variously diluted. In all these cases it will be observed that they were receiving a food deficient in fat; in some the casein was in excess: in others, those on condensed milk, it was deficient. In the two breast-fed babies I made an analysis of the milkand the fat was about normal in both, and the casein greatly in excess. I think the important element in producing constipation was the lack of sufficient fats, and excess of casein. Of the remaining three cases the con. stipation began at birth, and persisted in spite of...« less