o is not
always rightly understood. It is a time of most active development, a
time of transition from one mode of being to another, in respect of all
those important functions by whose due performance the body is nourished
and built up.

The error which has been committed with reference to this matter,
consists not in overrating the hazard of the time, when changes so
important are being accomplished, but in regarding only one of the
manifestations--though that indeed is the most striking one of the many
important ends which nature is then labouring to bring about. A child in
perfect health usually cuts its teeth at a certain time and in a certain
order, just as a girl at a certain age begins to show signs of
approaching womanhood; and at length attains it with but slight
inconvenience or discomfort. The two processes, however, have this in
common, that during both, constitutional disturbance is more common, and
serious diseases are more frequent than at other times, and the cause in
both lies far deeper than the outward manifestation.

The great changes which nature is constantly bringing about around us
and within us are the result of laws operating silently but unceasingly;
and hence it is that in her works we see little of the failure which
often disappoints human endeavours, or of the dangers which often attend
on their accomplishment. Thus when her object is to render the child no
longer dependent on the mother for its food, she begins to prepare for
this long beforehand. The first indication of it is furnished by the
greatly increased activity of the salivary glands, which during the
first few months of existence have scarcely begun to perform their
function, a fact which accounts for the tendency to dryness of the
tongue of the young infant under the influence of very trivial ailments.
About the fourth or fifth month, this condition undergoes a marked
alteration; the mouth is now found continually full of saliva, and the
child is constantly drivelling; but no other indication appears of the
approach of the teeth to the surface, except that the ridge of the gums
sometimes becomes broader than it was before. No further change may take
place for many weeks; and it is generally near the end of the seventh
month before the first teeth make their appearance. The middle cutting
teeth of the lower jaw are in most instances the first to pierce the
gum; next the middle cutting teeth of the upper jaw; then usually the
s