n accompanies infantile diarrh[oe]a, even when the
food taken cannot be regarded as its occasion; and now and then the
stomach, with no obvious exciting cause, suddenly becomes too irritable
to retain any food, and this indeed may be the case even though attended
by few or no other indications of intestinal disorder. The child in such
cases seems still anxious for the breast; but so great is the
irritability of the stomach that the milk is either thrown up unchanged
immediately after it has been swallowed, or it is retained only for a
few minutes, and is then rejected in a curdled state; while each
application of the child to the breast is followed by the same result.
It will generally be found, when this accident takes place in the
previously healthy child of a healthy mother, that it has been
occasioned by some act of indiscretion on the part of its mother or
nurse. She perhaps has been absent from her nursling longer than usual,
and returning tired from a long walk or from some fatiguing occupation,
has at once offered it the breast, and allowed it to suck abundantly; or
the infant has been roused from sleep before its customary hour, or it
has been over-excited or over-wearied at play, or in hot weather has
been carried about in the sun without proper protection from its rays.

The infant in whom from any of these causes vomiting has come on, must
at once be taken from the breast, and for a couple of hours neither food
nor medicine should be given to it. It may then be offered a teaspoonful
of cold water; and should the stomach retain this, one or two spoonfuls
may be given in the course of the next half-hour. If this is not
rejected, a little isinglass may be dissolved in the water, which must
still be given by a teaspoonful at a time, frequently repeated; or cold
barley-water may be given in the same manner. In eight or ten hours, if
no return of vomiting takes place, the experiment may be tried of giving
the child its mother's milk, or cows' milk diluted with water, in small
quantities from a teaspoon. If the food thus given does not occasion
sickness, the infant may in from twelve to twenty-four hours be restored
to the breast: with the precaution, however, of allowing it to suck only
very small quantities at a time, lest, the stomach being overloaded, the
vomiting should again be produced.

In many instances when the sickness has arisen from some accidental
cause, such as those above referred to, the adoption o