xperienced in giving powders arises from their
being mixed with the arrowroot or jam in which they are administered. A
very small quantity of arrowroot, bread and milk, or jam, should be put
in a tea-spoon; the powder then laid upon it, and covered over with the
arrowroot or jelly, so, in short, as to make a kind of sandwich, with
the powder, which would thus be untasted, in the middle.

Aloes is a purgative which acts chiefly on the large bowel and to some
degree also on the liver, and is of most use in the habitual
constipation of weakly children. In spite of its bitter taste the powder
is seldom objected to if given between two layers of coarse brown sugar,
while with most children the addition of a teaspoonful of treacle will
induce them to take very readily that useful medicine, the compound
decoction of aloes.

Both rhubarb, aloes, and indeed other remedies which are nauseous if
given as a liquid and are bulky in the form of powder, may very readily
be given in extract in the form of very tiny pills. Thus I have
constantly ordered the extract of rhubarb, which is nearly twice as
strong as the powder, made up into pills scarcely bigger than what
children call 'hundreds and thousands' and silver-coated. Ten or a dozen
of these go down in a teaspoonful of jelly unknown, and with no
expenditure of temper or tears.

The citrate of magnesia, or Dinneford's Magnesia, taken effervescing
with lemon juice, or when the effervescence has passed off, or the
French Limonade Purgative, are almost always very readily taken, and are
often very useful in the little febrile attacks, or in the slight
feverish rashes to which children are liable in the spring and autumn.

Mercurials should have no place among domestic remedies. I do not mean
that the doctor need be called in to prescribe each time that they are
given, but that the mother should learn from him distinctly with
reference to each individual child the circumstances which justify their
employment. They stimulate the liver, as well as produce thereby action
of the bowels, but they have, especially if often employed, a
far-reaching influence on the constitution, and that undoubtedly of a
depressing kind: an influence more than made up for when really needed
by their other qualities, and especially by their power in doing away
with the results of many forms of chronic inflammation. They are 'edged
tools,' however, and we know the proverb about those who play with
them.[6]