ease lasts. The physician will give you the proper medicines to be
used in these cases, and if no physician is within reach, you are
perfectly safe in dropping into the spread apart vulva a few drops of
twenty-per-cent argyrol and then applying the vulva pad. After each
treatment the hands of the mother or nurse must be most rigidly
cleansed.

ECZEMA

Eczema is a very troublesome disease, particularly in infants; there
are so many forms of it that there is neither time nor space in this
volume to describe them individually. This disease may be produced in
children by either internal or external causes--from friction on the
skin, from coarse, rough woolen clothes, or from starched garments, or
from lace or starched bonnet strings which rub into the folds of the
skin. Irritating soap, the contact of soiled diapers, cheap toilet
powders, and discharges from the nose and ears may also be responsible
for the disease. The particular internal causes are over-feeding,
digestive disturbances, the too early use of starches which create
fermentation in the intestinal tract. In the most frequent form of
eczema the skin becomes red and then there appear tiny vesicles (water
blisters) which soon rupture and "weep." This fluid which oozes from
these tiny, ruptured vesicles, in connection with the perspiration and
exfoliation of old skin, forms heavy crusts upon the face which are
both unsightly and annoying.

Another form of eczema is simply a very badly chafed condition
accompanied by intense itching, and commonly known as "dry eczema." A
very disagreeable form is the pustular variety. One poor little
sufferer that was once brought to us had so many pustules on his head
that one could not put a ten cent piece on his scalp without touching
a pustule. The treatment of these cases, in order to be effective and
leave the child's head in normal condition, must be administered with
the utmost patience every day for weeks. A doctor's help is always
required in combating this sort of skin trouble. If the cause is
external, then the clothes should be changed. All irritation should be
removed--the clothing must not be allowed to scratch the skin. The
child must not scratch himself. If necessary, little splints may be
placed on the inside of his arms to prevent his bending the elbows if
the eczema is on the face, while the little sleeves may be pinned to
the side of the dress to resist the movement of the arms.

ECZEMA TREATMENT

The