Children with adenoids are very liable to colds in the head, which aggravate all the symptoms, and in the slighter forms of the disease the symptoms may hardly be noticeable, except when the child is suffering from a cold.

[10 Mothers’ remedies]

Chronic catarrh is often caused by adenoids.  A chronic pus discharge often develops, especially in children.  There is often a half-pus discharge trickling over the posterior wall of the pharynx from the nose-pharynx.  And yet some children with adenoids never have any discharge from the nose.  There may be more or less dribbling of saliva from the mouth, especially in young children, and this is usually worse during sleep.  Headache is not uncommon when these growths persist into adult life:  they continue to give rise to most of the symptoms just described, although these symptoms may be less marked because of the relatively larger size of the nose-pharynx.  The older patients seek relief, usually, from nasal catarrh symptoms.  They complain of a dry throat on waking and they hawk and cough, In order to clear the sticky secretion from the throat.  The adenoids have often undergone a considerable amount of shrinking, but they frequently give rise to a troublesome inflammation of the nose and pharynx.  Rounded or irregular red elevations will often be seen on the posterior wall of the pharynx, outgrowths of adenoid tissue in this region.  Similar elevations are sometimes seen on the posterior pillars of the fauces.  The tonsils are often enlarged.  A good deal of thick discharge will sometimes be seen in the posterior wall of the pharynx proceeding from the nose-pharynx.

Although adenoids, like the normal tonsil, usually tend to diminish and disappear with the approach of youth, they constitute during childhood a constant source of danger and trouble and not infrequently inflict permanent mischief.  Also children afflicted with adenoids are less able to cope with diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, whooping-cough, etc.

Deafness, mouth-breathing habit, and imperfect resonance of the voice, as well as the characteristic expression of the face, will often remain as permanent effects of the impairment of function due to these growths in childhood, even though they have more or less completely disappeared.  The collapsed state of the wings of the nose, and wasted condition of their muscles, resulting from long disease, often contributes to the perpetuation of the mouth-breathing habit.  On the other hand the rapid improvement, after a timely removal of the growths, is usually very striking.

Treatment.—­The only thing to do is to remove them soon, no matter how young the patient may be.  An anaesthetic is usually given to children.  The operation does not take long and the patient soon recovers from its effects.  The result of an operation, especially in young children, is usually very satisfactory.  Breathing through the nose is re-established, the face expression is changed for the better.  The symptoms as before described disappear to a great extent.