ide cutting teeth of the lower jaw, and lastly, the corresponding ones
of the upper. This, however, is not quite invariable, for sometimes all
the cutting teeth in one jaw precede in their appearance any of those in
the other. The first four grinding teeth next succeed, and often without
any very definite order as to whether those of the upper or of the lower
jaw are first visible, though in the majority of instances the lower are
the first to appear. The four eye teeth follow, and lastly, the
remaining four grinding teeth, which complete the set of first, or as
they are often called, milk teeth.

We must not, however, picture to ourselves this process as going on
uninterruptedly until completed--a mistake into which parents often
fall, whose anxiety respecting their children is excited by observing
that after several teeth have appeared in rapid succession, the process
appears to come to a standstill. Nature has so ordered it that teething
which begins at the seventh or eighth month, shall not be completed
until the twenty-fourth or thirtieth; and has doubtless done so in some
measure with the view of diminishing the risk of constitutional
disturbance that might be incurred if the evolution of the teeth went on
without a pause. As a rule the two lower central incisors or cutting
teeth make their appearance in the course of a week; six weeks or two
months often intervene before the central upper incisors pierce the gum,
but they are in general quickly followed by the lateral incisors. A
pause of three or four months most frequently occurs before we see the
first grinding teeth, another of equal length previous to the appearance
of the eye teeth, and then another still longer before the last grinding
teeth are cut.

Though a perfectly natural process, teething is almost always attended
with some degree of suffering. This, however, is not always the case,
for sometimes we discover that an infant has cut a tooth, who yet had
shown no signs of discomfort, nor any indication that teething was
commencing, with the exception of an increased flow of saliva. More
frequently indeed, the mouth becomes hot, and the gums look tumid,
tense, and shining, while the exact position of each tooth is marked,
for some time before its appearance, by the prominence of the gum; or
the eruption of the teeth is preceded by much redness, and great heat of
the mouth with profuse flow of saliva, and even with little painful
ulcers of the edge of t