f these
precautions will suffice to restore the child's health. If, however,
other signs of disorder of the stomach or bowels have preceded the
sickness, or are associated with it, medicine cannot be wholly dispensed
with, and the advice of the doctor must be sought for. Very likely in
addition to directing the rules above laid down to be attended to, he
may lay a tiny dose of calomel, as a quarter, half or a whole grain on
the tongue, which often has a wonderful influence in arresting sickness;
while he may further put a small poultice not much bigger than a crown
piece, made half of mustard, half of flour, on the pit of the stomach
for a few minutes, and may give the child a little saline, with a grain
or two of carbonate of soda, and perhaps a drop of prussic acid. These,
however, are not remedies to be employed by the mother, but must be
prescribed, and their effect watched by the medical attendant.

Sickness, indeed, is not always a solitary symptom unattended by other
evidences of disordered digestion, but is sometimes associated with
signs of its general impairment, and this may be so serious as to lead
to great loss of flesh, and even to end in endangering life. In many
instances, however, the child does not lose much flesh though it digests
ill, and its symptoms would be troublesome rather than alarming, if it
were not that they are often the signs of an unhealthy constitution, out
of which in the course of a few months consumption is not infrequently
developed. Long-continued indigestion in the infant always warrants
anxiety on the part of the parent.

In some of these cases there is complete loss of appetite, the infant
caring neither for the breast nor for any other food. It loses the look
of health and grows pale and languid, though it may not have any special
disorder either of the stomach or of the bowels. It sucks but seldom and
is soon satisfied, and even of the small quantity taken, a portion is
often regurgitated almost immediately. This state of things is sometimes
brought on by a mother's over-anxious care, who, fearful of her infant
taking cold, keeps it in a room too hot or too imperfectly ventilated.
It follows, also, in delicate infants on attacks of catarrh or of
diarrh[oe]a, but it is then for the most part a passing evil which time
will cure. In the majority of cases, however, the loss of appetite is
associated with evidence of the stomach's inability to digest even the
small quantity of foo