Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1886 — Swollen Tonsils. [ARTICLE]

Swollen Tonsils.

Even if the phrase “swollen tonsils” be limited in meaning to express only a condition of some duration, it does not ahvays mean the same thing. In health the tonsil is very small—So small that some avlio have studied throat diseases particularly think that it does not exist in the sense of being a visible prominence. Now, when the tonsil becomes enlarged and remains so it may be from removable causes and conditions, or it may not. The one group of cases may be considered as those in which much of the enlargement is due to an excess of blood in the tissues, and the other group contains cases in Avhich actual overgroAvtli of the tonsil has occurred. In the former cases the enlargement may diminish until the tonsil, while still larger than proper, gives no very great trouble. In the latter the most experienced observers doubt if any treatment short of removal of the tonsil by some means is of much value. The popular idea about outgrowing the condition is based partly upon the false assumption that what is really a considerably enlarged tonsil is the natural state of things, and partly upon the inability of non-professional observers to distinguish betiveen the temporary swelling of the tousils, the chronically engorged tonsils, and the really overgrown tonsils. The opinion of the most “experienced mother” can be of no value here. She Cannot, at the outside, have seen more than two or three cases of the last-mentioned variety.—Babyhood. -