,' time is lost and danger
not anticipated till too late for remedy.

The application of two, three, or four leeches at the very outset of
these cases is often of great service, and sometimes cuts short symptoms
which had seemed very threatening. The doctor, of course, must be the
judge of its expediency, but I refer to it because I have known parents
raise objections to it, and beg to have milder means tried first. It
must be borne in mind then, that whenever leeches are of use it is at
the beginning of an attack, and that the opportunity once let slip does
not return. Purgatives, cold to the head, saline medicines, and perhaps
some carefully selected sedative, are the measures which will probably
be employed in most cases, but success will in great measure depend on
the minute care with which all the details which I dwelt on in the
introduction, are carried out.

It is not always, indeed, that active treatment is desirable, and
gentle measures then suffice; but nothing except close and frequent
watching can enable the doctor to steer safely between the two opposite
dangers of too little and too much.

When I come to speak of the eruptive fevers, I shall have to mention the
convulsions and other signs of most serious brain disturbance, which
sometimes occur at their outset, and which are due to the condition of
the blood charged with the fever poison.

A somewhat similar set of symptoms, attributed with reason to the
overheated state of the blood, occurs in cases of _sunstroke_. It is
true that sunstroke, with the formidable characters that it presents in
hot countries, is not seen in England, but even here the mere exposure
of an infant or young child to an overheated atmosphere, is by no means
unattended with risk, and I refer to it here, because mothers are by no
means aware of the danger, and believe that it suffices to guard the
child from the direct rays of the sun.

Alarm, restlessness, and fretfulness, alternating with drowsiness,
hurried, irregular breathing, intense heat of skin, violent beating of
the open part of the head, twitching of the limbs, and starting of the
tendons of the wrists, with a pulse too rapid to be counted, are the
symptoms when the attack is severe. Convulsions are rare, though they
sometimes occur. Sickness is almost invariable, the stomach rejecting
everything, and the bowels are almost invariably relaxed, severe
diarrh[oe]a or dysentery sometimes coming on, as the brain disturban