hrows up its milk is not
suffering from indigestion. Vomiting is sometimes a sign of health, and
shows that the stomach is vigorous enough to free itself promptly from
excess of food. The child is thus saved from the effects of
over-feeding. The obvious remedy is to diminish the quantity of milk
taken at each nursing or meal.

But vomiting from over-feeding is very different from that caused by
irritation of the stomach, which causes it to reject proper food. The
common sense of the mother will enable her easily to distinguish between
the two sorts. In the former, the child remains cheerful, happy, and
well nourished, scarcely changing countenance even while the
superabundant milk is being returned from its stomach. In the latter,
the child soon becomes pale, feeble, and distressed looking.
Over-feeding, if persisted in, may occasion indigestion.

Indigestion during the first year of life shows itself by languor,
pallor, and evident discomfort. The child wishes to be constantly at the
breast, and suckles eagerly, but vomits the milk shortly after, usually
curdled. The bowels are either constipated or too loose. The most
prominent and often the only symptoms are this alternation of vomiting
and an eager desire to take the breast, associated with loss of flesh
and strength. The child is evidently not nourished by the food it takes,
and if relief be not afforded it sinks, and dies from starvation in the
course of a month or two.

Children who are _weaned abruptly, and at a very early period_, are
liable to a serious form of indigestion, which may come on in a few days
after weaning, or not for several weeks.

Older children are liable to slight attacks of indigestion, which are
attended with vomiting or purging, or both, for a few days, when the
stomach recovers its health. In some cases, however, the derangement
continues longer, the child then losing its appetite, and suffering from
colic, and becoming fretful, pale, and weak. The breath becomes sour,
and the passages green. Such cases require careful watching and
treatment, especially during the hot weather of the summer.

In infants at the breast indigestion is usually caused by giving the
breast too often or by an excess or change in the quality of the milk.
Errors in diet on the part of the mother, and other faults which we have
pointed out in our chapter on nursing, are the most frequent causes of
this ailment. In children who are weaned the causes are almost