not
shrunken but distended, constipation is not present, but on the contrary
there is a disposition to diarrh[oe]a. If the symptoms are
misinterpreted and wrongly treated, unmistakable signs of exhaustion at
last come on, and the child may die from its not being borne in mind
that results at first sight much the same may flow from causes
diametrically opposite.

The moral of this is too obvious for me to need insist upon it. Cold to
the head, low diet, aperients, possibly leeches, are needed in the one
case; increased nourishment, perhaps stimulants, in the other. In every
instance where symptoms of brain disorder occur in the child, remember
the grievous consequences of a mistake as to their nature, and seek for
further help and guidance to preserve you from the possibility of error.

=Spasmodic Croup.=--I have already tried to explain how, in early life,
the brain is often unequal to control the sensitiveness of the nervous
system to various sources of irritation from without, and how, in
consequence this irritation manifests itself by those involuntary
movements which we call convulsions. But in addition to, or in the place
of those violent contortions or convulsions, the same condition shows
itself sometimes in disordered action of the muscles which subserve
parts not directly subject to the will, as those for instance which open
and close the entrance to the windpipe, or glottis as it is called in
medical phraseology.

Cases in which this occurs are known in popular language as
child-crowing, or _spasmodic croup_, from the peculiar catch or crow
which accompanies the entrance of air through the spasmodically
contracted opening of the windpipe; a spasm which if severe and
sufficiently continued closes the opening altogether, so that after
fruitless efforts to get its breath the child dies suffocated. This
affection occurs chiefly during teething, just as the fits of a
hysterical girl oftenest occur during the transition from girlhood to
womanhood; but many other causes besides the local irritation of the
teeth may produce it, such as constipation, indigestible food, or
disorder of the bowels.

It does not often occur in perfectly healthy children; but an infant
who is attacked by it is usually observed to have been drooping for some
time previously, to have lost its appetite, to have become fretful by
day and restless at night, and to present many of those ill-defined
ailments which are popularly ascribed to te