s of
a baby with stomach-ache are long and loud and passionate; it sheds a
profusion of tears; now stops for a moment, and then begins again,
drawing up its legs to its stomach; and as the pain passes off,
stretches them out again, and with many little sobs passes off into a
quiet sleep. If it has inflammation of the chest it does not cry aloud,
it sheds no tears, but every few minutes, especially after drawing a
deeper breath than before, or after each short hacking cough, it gives a
little cry, which it checks apparently before it is half finished; and
this, either because it has no breath to waste in cries, or because the
effort makes its breathing more painful. If disease is going on in the
head, the child utters sharp piercing shrieks, and then between whiles a
low moan or wail, or perhaps no sound at all, but lies quiet, apparently
dozing, till pain wakes it up again.

It is not, however, by the cry alone, or by any one sign of disease,
that it is possible to judge either of its nature or of its degree, but
the mention of this serves merely as an illustration, which anyone can
understand, of the different meanings that even a baby's cry will convey
to different persons.

When a child is taken ill, be the disease from which it is about to
suffer what it may, there is at once a change from its condition when in
health, such as soon attracts the attention even of the least observant.
The child loses its appetite, is fretful and soon tired, and either very
sleepy or very restless, while most likely it is thirsty, and its skin
hotter than natural. In many instances, too, it feels sick or actually
vomits, while its bowels are either much purged or very bound. If old
enough to talk, it generally complains of feeling ill, or says that it
has pain in some part or other, though it is by no means certain that a
little child has described rightly the seat of its pain; for it very
often says that its head aches or that its stomach aches, just because
it has heard people when ill complain of pain in the head or in the
stomach. Some of these signs of illness are, of course, absent in the
infant, who can describe its feelings even by signs imperfectly; but the
baby loses its merry laugh and its cheerful look; it ceases to watch its
mother's or its nurse's eye as it was used to do, though it clings to
her more closely than ever, and will not be out of her arms even for a
moment; and if at length rocked to sleep in her lap, will y