not because it is hungry
and needs nourishment. If the child has been weaned, still greater care
will be required, for it will often be found that it is no longer able
to digest its ordinary food, which either is at once rejected by the
stomach, or else passes through the intestines undigested. Very thin
arrowroot made with water, with the addition of one third of milk, will
suit in many cases, or equal parts of milk and water with isinglass, or
equal parts of milk and the white decoction. The bowels of course must
be kept open with very simple and mild aperients, but the bowels are in
general more inclined to diarrh[oe]a than to constipation, and the
diarrh[oe]a of teething children is often troublesome and requires good
medical advice.

The ulcerated state of the mouth is usually connected with special
disorder of the digestive organs, and that condition of acidity for
which I have already recommended soda, magnesia, and similar remedies,
while locally the mouth needs just that local care which is applicable
in cases of thrush. Now and then, severe inflammation of the gums
occurs, in which they become extremely swollen; and ulceration takes
place of the gum just above where the tooth should come through, and
even around some of those which have already appeared. These are cases
in which lancing the gums would do nothing but mischief. They require
the local care already insisted on, a mild plan of diet, and treatment
to reduce any feverishness; and above all one medicine, the chlorate of
potass, which in doses of four grains every four hours for a child a
year old, is almost a specific.

AFFECTIONS OF THE SKIN.--There are a few affections of the skin to which
children in early infancy are especially liable, concerning which a few
words must be said.

The Latin word _intertrigo_ is used for that _chafing_ of the skin of
the lower part of the body of an infant which is by no means unusual,
and is often very distressing. It is almost invariably due to want of
care. Either wetted napkins are dried, and put on again without previous
rinsing in water, or they have been washed in water containing soda, and
not passed through pure water afterwards, or attention is not paid to
change the infant's napkin immediately that it requires; or a fresh
napkin is put on without previous careful ablution of the child; or
lastly it occurs almost unavoidably in cases of diarrh[oe]a from the
extension of irritation beginning at the edge