ly be attended with great
success when repeated purgatives have been resisted.

Olive or castor oil may be used for this purpose; they must be warmed
and rubbed over the abdomen night and morning, for five or ten minutes.
Perhaps the best form of liniment that can be made use of is the
following:--

Compound soap liniment, one ounce;
Compound tincture of aloes, half an ounce.

Sect. II.--CALOMEL.

Calomel is one of the most useful medicines we possess; but though
powerful for good, it is by no means powerless for mischief, and pages
might be written upon the evil effects which have resulted from its
indiscriminate use in the nursery; medical men are daily and hourly
witnessing this fact. It is particularly eligible in the diseases of
children; but then it is quite impossible for unprofessional persons to
judge when it may be appropriately exhibited. And it cannot be too
generally known, that the effect of this medicine upon the evacuations
is always to make them appear unnatural. From ignorance of this fact,
calomel is often repeated again and again to relieve that very
condition which it has itself produced, causing, but too frequently, a
degree of irritation in the delicate lining membrane of the bowel,
which it may be very difficult for a medical man to remove, and perhaps
a source of misery to the child as long as it lives.

Its frequent exhibition has also another evil attending it, for "the
immoderate use of mercury in early infancy produces more, perhaps, than
any other similar cause, that universal tendency to decay, which, in
many instances, destroys almost every tooth at an early age."[FN#20]

[FN#20] Bell on the Teeth.

In the diseases of childhood it is often administered by the mother or
nurse with a degree of careless excess which ultimately, if not
immediately, produces severe and irremediable injury. I have met with
such cases; but Mr. Bell details a remarkable instance in point: "A
child, about three years of age, was brought to me, having a most
extensive ulceration in the gum of the lower jaw, by which the alveolar
process (that portion of the jaw which forms the sockets of the teeth)
was partially denuded. The account given by the mother was, that the
child had some time previously been the subject of measles, for which a
chemist, whom she consulted, gave her white powders, one of which was
ordered to be taken every four hours. It appears by the result, that
this must have b