ADENOIDS

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16212, 29 September 1924, Page 7

ADENOIDS

AN IMPORTANT NURSERY AILMENT. If one can estimate the importance of a malady, not by what it appears to be at the time of its appearance, but the train of evils it may initiate, then it is no exaggeration to say that the condition of adenoids constitutes one of the most alarming afflictions in the life of a growing child (says a writer in the Daily Chronicle). In the throat of every -child, immediately behind the nose, there is a small mass of tissue which normally never gets in the way, and gradually as (ime goes on diminishes in size, so that often by the a’ge of about 18 it has practically disappeared completely, Sometimes, however, this mass, instead of diminishing, undergoes progressive enlargement, and when this is so considerable as to produce symptoms, the condition known as adenoids is present. t

The ordinary child is not a mouthbreather. But one of the first consequences of adenoids is an obstruction of the nose by this overgrown tissue, so that the pernicious habit of mouth-breathing is forced upon a little person that really knows much better. The mother will soon begin to notice that the child snores at night, that nightmares occur frequently, and that owing to the deprivation of oxygen it wakes tired and unrefreshed.

But • the most important effects of mouth-breathing are the changes produced in ithe appearance of the softhoned child. The nose becomes thin and pinched, the jaws fail to develop properly, so that the teeth are crowded and “struckout”; and the foundations are laid of an unsightly receding chin. But mouth-breathing is only one way that “adenoids” has of manifesting itself. At the hack of the mouth are situated certain tubes communicating with the ear. When these are pressed on by the adenoid tissue the child becomes slightly deaf, and many a child has been regarded as stupid when all the trouble has been a little deafness which has made it impossible for it to take in the lessons that it has been taught.

And as these are only a few of the evils arising from adenoids, surely thfe moral is clear. Adenoids is a slight condition, easily treated. Not every case needs operation; many are benefited by medical means. But the time for diagnosis is not when permanent bony changes have occured, and the child’s habit of mouth-breathing has become almost ineradicable; hut at the earliest manifestations when treatment is simple and cure can he complete.