being easily swallowed, and acted upon by the
gastric juice on its arrival in the stomach. That due mastication of
the food is essential to healthy digestion, which will be promoted or
retarded in exact proportion as it approaches or falls short of this
point, is a fact so generally known as scarcely to need comment.
Suffice it to add, that, if food be introduced into the stomach
unmasticated, the gastric juice will only act upon its surface; and
after a number of hours it will be either rejected by vomiting, or pass
on into the intestine, to give rise to cholic, bowel complaints, or
flatulence, and very frequently in children to a serious attack of
convulsions.

THEIR MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION.

IRREGULARITY OF ARRANGEMENT AND POSITION.--Every parent ought to have
the mouth of her child inspected occasionally, during the advance of
the permanent teeth, that any irregularity in their position or
arrangement may be prevented. And it is equally her duty to see to it,
that she choose a competent person to do this, since great mistakes are
not unfrequently made in this matter, and which themselves become the
source of evils far more serious than those they are intended to
obviate. "I have known," says Mr. Bell, "no less than eight or even ten
firm teeth forcibly removed from the jaws of a child at once, when
there was not the slightest reason to apprehend any evil result from
their being left alone." Here there was a most cruel, because
unnecessary, infliction of pain, as well as great hazard incurred of
seriously injuring the permanent teeth by interfering with the
secretion of their enamel. And besides all this there is another and
yet greater evil, for, if the temporary teeth be removed, before the
permanent ones are so advanced as to be ready to occupy their
situation, the arch of the jaw will assuredly contract, and when,
subsequently, the permanent teeth are fully formed, there will not be
room for them to range in their proper situation. Thus the operation
which was intended to prevent irregularity becomes the cause of its
occurrence, and that in its very worst form, producing a want of
accordance between the size of the teeth and that of the jaw.

The eye-teeth generally occasion most anxiety to a parent, from the
prominent position in which they present themselves; but in the
majority of cases nothing but time is required to reduce them to their
proper station. But, whatever may be the peculiarities of