cted, and in many cases grow up to be strong and healthy. Still the
condition is one that not merely entails much suffering on the infant,
but by its continuance seriously impairs the health, and tends to
develop the seeds of any constitutional predisposition to consumptive
disease.

In these cases there are many respects in which the mother can most
efficiently second the doctor. All causes unfavourable to health must be
examined into, and as far as possible removed. It must be seen that the
nursery is well ventilated, and that its temperature is not too high;
while it will often be found that no remedy is half so efficacious as
change of air. Next, it must not be forgotten that the regurgitation of
the food is due in great measure to the weakness and consequent
irritability of the stomach, and care must therefore be taken not to
overload it. If these two points are attended to, benefit may then be
looked for from the employment of tonics, and as the general health
improves the constipated condition of the bowels, so usual in these
cases, will by degrees disappear; while if aperients are needed those
simple remedies only should be employed of which I spoke in the first
part of this book, and the use of mercurials is not to be resorted to
without distinct medical order.

The above mode of treatment is appropriate to cases of what may be
termed the indigestion of debility, but a different plan must be adopted
in those instances in which it depends on some other cause. The rule,
indeed, which limits the quantity of food to be given at one time is no
less applicable here, for the rejection of some of the milk may be the
result of nothing more than of an effort which nature makes to reduce
the work that the stomach has to do within the powers of that organ. But
when, notwithstanding that due attention is paid to this important
point, uneasiness is always produced by taking food, and is not relieved
till after the lapse of some twenty minutes, when vomiting takes place,
or when the infant suffers much from flatulence and from frequent acid
or nauseous eructations, it is clear that the symptoms are due to
something more than the mere feebleness of the system.

It is not, however, the mere fact that the child vomits its food, or of
the milk so vomited being rejected in a coagulated state, which proves
that the stomach is disordered, but it is the fact of firmly coagulated
milk being rejected with much pain, and after the lap