dice many against the use
of it altogether.

It is well, in many cases, not to touch the child with _water_ or
_soap_. The vinegar and oil cleanse the skin and do all that is
required. Then vinegar very much diluted should be used warm to apply
with a soft rag to the sores. Take a teaspoonful of vinegar in a
breakfastcupful of warm water. If this causes the child to cry when
applied, then dilute still further. Vinegar weak enough to cause hardly
any feeling when it touches the sore, will _heal_; stronger vinegar
will _injure_.

We have known a nurse try to heal an outstricken face by means of good
vinegar at its full strength. She was instructed to use the vinegar
very much diluted, but fancied it would heal faster if much stronger.
She might just as well have fancied that it is better to put one's cold
hands into the fire than to hold them at some distance when wishing to
warm them. The child's face was made greatly worse, of course, and the
cure abandoned. It is therefore necessary to urge that a strength of
acid which secures only the most gentle sensation of smarting is
essential to cure. The weak vinegar is first applied to the outer and
less fiery parts of the outstrike. Try to heal from this inwards, by
gradual advances from day to day. On the less affected parts the weak
acid may be applied twice a day; on the sorer parts only when itching
is so distressing as to demand it.

We have seen a child whose head, face, and neck were one distressing
sore; we have taken the cloth with the diluted vinegar and daubed a
square inch or so of the skin on which the fiery eruption was so full,
and in less than two minutes we have seen the colour change into a
healthy pink, and remain that colour when the olive oil was applied.
The child's sores yielded gradually, till the whole illness was
removed.

Sometimes such eruptions, in adults as well as children, arise from
suppressed perspiration, or from the perspiration being of an acrid and
irritating nature. It is sometimes apparently the result of the rubbing
off of a little of the skin, or it comes on without any known accident.
For a time it seems scarcely worth noticing, and is consequently
neglected; but gradually it spreads on the surface and gives
uneasiness, especially after the patient has been some time in bed. It
goes on till a large portion of the skin from the knee to the ankle is
reddened and roughened with a moist eruption. Now remedies of various
kinds are t