advice the moment the cough shows any disposition to become hard, or the
breathing hurried. Next, when any sudden illness sets in with very high
temperature and much general ailing, not to let the disorder of the
head, or the delirium, make you shut your eyes to the import of the
short cough, the dry eyes, the hurried breathing; and lastly, to
remember that, grave though the symptoms may be, the tendency in
pneumonia is to eventual recovery, and that in early life bronchitis is
the graver of the two diseases.

A caution may not be out of place with reference to cases which may
occur during the epidemic prevalence of _influenza_. A child is
sometimes struck down by it, just as grown persons are sometimes, with
great depression, extreme rapidity of breathing, and very high fever,
which, passing off in a couple of days, leave a state of great
exhaustion behind. It is well to bear in mind that such symptoms have no
such grave meaning when influenza is prevalent as they would have at
another time; and the knowledge of this fact may serve in some degree to
control your anxiety.

=Pleurisy.=--It is not possible for anyone, without medical experience,
to discriminate between pneumonia, or inflammation of the substance of
the lung, and pleurisy, or inflammation of its covering. Some degree of
the latter, indeed, very often accompanies the former, and this accounts
for the pain which interferes with every attempt of the child to draw a
deep breath. When pleurisy comes on independent of affection of the
lung-substance, it generally sets in suddenly with severe pain in the
chest, and a short hacking cough which causes so much pain that the
child tries as much as possible to suppress it. After a few hours the
severity of the pain usually subsides, but fever, hurried breathing, and
cough continue, and the child, though usually it looks heavy and seems
drowsy, yet becomes extremely restless at intervals--cries and struggles
as if in pain, and violently resists any attempt to alter its position,
since every movement brings on an increase of its sufferings. The
posture which it selects varies much; sometimes its breathing seems
disturbed in any other position than sitting straight up in bed; at
other times it lies on its back, or one side; but whatever be the
posture, any alteration of it causes much distress, and is sure to be
resisted by the child.

The variations of posture depend on the seat of the inflammation; the
pain depend