Although a great deal has been written concerning adenoids in children, so that competent practitioners readily diagnose them and have them removed, little attention has been paid to these growths in early infancy. In New York at least a very considerable proportion of infants have adenoids that require removal during the first year.
Adenoids, if they are to be removed at all, should be removed as soon as they produce symptoms, and especially during the first year of life, for it must be remembered that children with lymphatic hyperplasia have one of the indications of lymphatic constitution and may not be good subjects for anesthesia, while adenoids may be removed during the first year without anesthesia.
Attention should be directed to this abnormality of early infancy, as the persistence of this trouble interferes with the proper development of the child, by reflex action, by the