CASE REPORTS OF TWO INFANTS ADMITTED TO THE BABIES HOSPITAL IN NEW YORK CITY IN THE FALL OF 1888
The Babies Hospital in New York City opened to receive patients in a temporary home at 161 East 36th Street on June 16, 1888. The following case reports of two infants, who were among the first patients admitted, will graphically show the modern pediatrician that acutely ill infants in 1888 could survive by virtue of the vis mediatrix naturae rather than by the drug therapy prescribed for them.1 Case 1—Cecilia, aged fifteen months; entered in November with pneumonia of lower lobe, left side, and pleurisy of both sides. The father had been carrying her around the city all day in a cold storm, trying to find a hospital which would admit her. The mother had been intemperate for several years, and was at the time suffering from a two weeks' debauch. The child was not yet weaned, and was presented with its clothing saturated and in collapse. Temperature, 104.8° F.; respiration, 60; pulse, 140. Tr. digitalis, gt. one, every four hours, and brandy, one-half drachm, every one-half hour, produced but little improvement in the pulse. Nutritive enemata, containing one drachm of brandy, every two hours were added. Four and one-half ounces of brandy were given each twenty-four hours, for three days, the pulse remaining 136 to 148, and compressible, while the temperature had fallen to 99° F. Musk and camphor were then added, but the pulse continued at 148 and intermittent. The child was seen in consultation with Dr A. H. Smith, who suggested the tincture of strophanthus, one-half drop every two hours.