h also in a few days may subside.
This, however, is less frequent than the opposite course of the
affection, in which a drop of fluid forms at the top of each tiny
pimple, and escaping forms a yellowish, thin, transparent, watery,
irritating discharge, which reddens still more the raw and weeping
surface of the skin. The fluid when abundant dries at length into
yellowish flakes or crusts, which sometimes assume a brownish colour if
the surface is made to bleed by irritating or scratching. If the crusts
are not removed, the fluid which still continues to be poured out
beneath them soon changes into matter or _pus_ as it is called, and
this, shut up beneath the hard crust above, increases the irritation,
and thickens the deposit. After a time the inflammation lessens of its
own accord, the secretion diminishes, the crusts dry up, and at length
fall off, leaving the skin red, slightly swollen, and its surface
scaling off in flakes, which gradually cease to form, and the skin by
degrees becomes quite sound again, and so remains, until perhaps the
irritation caused by the approach of a new tooth to the surface,
rekindles the old trouble, to go once again through the same stages as
before.

It is on the cheeks, the sides of the face, and the top of the head that
these changes may be best studied, but there are other situations in
which the same kind of process often goes on. It may be seen in the
creases of the neck, or the folds of the thigh in fat children, only as
two surfaces of skin are there in contact the fluid never dries to a
crust, but the skin, red and sore and swollen, pours out an abundant
secretion which, just as when it occurs behind the ears, gives out a
strong and offensive smell. It occurs, too, at the bends of the joints,
as under the knee, and at the inside of the elbow joint, as well as on
the front of the chest, the back, and sometimes even over the whole
body, and especially at any part where the pressure of the dress
irritates the skin. When thus general, it seldom fails to pass into a
chronic state such as to call for constant, skilled medical treatment.

The attack often comes on with general feverishness, a hot skin,
fretfulness, and restlessness, which subside when the skin begins to
discharge, though the discomfort produced by the local irritation still
continues. At other times, and this perhaps more often when the eruption
first appears on the head, its onset is more gradual, and slight
scurfi