e horizontal position. A second precaution concerns the diet; solid
food and animal broths should for a time be discontinued, and arrowroot,
milk and water, and rice substituted for it, for a day or two, with
isinglass jelly, and the white decoction of which I have already spoken.
It is not always that astringents are suitable at the beginning of an
attack, and the sending to the neighbouring chemist for diarrh[oe]a
medicine, which often contains an unknown quantity of opium, is always
risky, frequently mischievous. In a first attack of diarrh[oe]a, the
doctor should always be consulted, for when it is associated with
disorder of the liver a mercurial may in the first instance be needed,
or possibly very small doses of a saline medicine, such as Epsom salts,
with the addition of a few drops of the tincture of rhubarb; or, again,
if the diarrh[oe]a sets in with profuse watery discharges, sulphuric
acid for the first few hours is often of extreme service. It is at a
later time that direct astringents commonly have their use; and the
mother, who in her child's first attack of diarrh[oe]a has had the
advice of a judicious doctor, will often be helped by him to manage for
herself slight returns of the ailment.

_Inflammatory diarrh[oe]a_, or dysentery, not only follows the
continuance of the simpler forms of the disease, but sometimes in the
hot months of summer or autumn sets in suddenly with violence. It then
frequently commences with vomiting, and the stomach may continue so
irritable for twenty-four hours as not to retain even a teaspoonful of
cold water. At the same time the over-action of the bowels sets in, and
twenty or thirty evacuations may be passed in twenty-four hours. The
motions soon lose their natural character, and become watery, slimy, and
mixed with blood. They are at first expelled with violence, afterwards
with much pain, effort, and often fruitless straining. With these local
symptoms, the child, as might be expected, is very ill, feverish, and
stupid, though without sound sleep, much exhausted, and its nervous
system so disturbed as to occasion frequent twitchings of the fingers
and of the corners of the mouth, while sometimes actual convulsions take
place. The thirst is intense, the child calling constantly for cold
water, and crying out for more the moment the cup is taken away from its
lips; while the loss of flesh and the exhaustion are more rapid than in
any other disease with which I am acquainted