The Woman's Voice Clinic: Questions About Our Children

The Woman's Voice Clinic

Here are the answers to some of the questions we often put to our doctors about our children:

1 — My child recently came down with German measles; does this give him immunity against ordinary measles, which he has not yet had?

Measles is one thing and German measles another, and the first has no connection with the second except in name. Your child's having one of the two diseases gives him no immunity against the other.

2 — What is the disease leukemia?

— It is the fatal disease which some call "cancer of the blood." It preys upon children and young people: the white blood corpuscles multiply with tremendous speed and drive out the red corpuscles, so that the patient suffers a severe anemia which leads him inevitably to death.

Medicine has not yet discovered a curative remedy for this disease; there are only treatments that lighten the pain, such as blood transfusion, X-rays, and radium.

3 — What is the percentage of twin births?

— Statistics show that the chance of twins being born occurs once in every 86 births, and in most cases they are of different sexes, that is, a boy and a girl. As for the chance of twins of one sex — that is, from a single ovary — its likelihood is slight, and it does not exceed 25% of the whole number of twins.

4 — My child often complains of earache; what should I do?

— Do not leave the treatment of your child's ear to home remedies; consult the doctor at once, for chronic earache very often leads to inflammation of the passages of the inner ear, and to loss of hearing.

5 — My child fell ill last week with "abu ku'ayb," or "Mumpes," and kept to his bed only a few days, during which every trace of the illness disappeared. May he go back to school, or is it better for him to stay at home?

— Your child goes on carrying the mumps germ for more than two weeks after his recovery from this disease. He must therefore stay at home for 18 days after recovery, and be kept from mixing with the neighbors' children or anyone else, lest he pass the disease to them without meaning to.