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I merely wish to impress the domestic and common sense means, to be used in cases of emergency.

The old custom of giving infants “a little weak toddy” to “bring up the wind and make them sleep,” should henceforth and forever be removed from the midst of a more enlightened people. If it is given weak the effect is to intoxicate at first, and then produce sleep; which may be followed by a fearful attack of purging. If given strong, it may induce constipation and dry colic, the very thing it is intended to relieve. Such a course may also have inculcated a desire for tippling in many of our weak-minded youth. Castor-oil is a well-known sickening purgative, and it does seem to be a wonderful interposition of Providence alone, that so many thousand infants have survived the compulsory dosing with this drug. But a few years ago a lady, aged about sixty-five, came to her end from severe diarrhœa, brought on, as she testified, by taking a “store-bottle of castor-oil at a dose.”

Mothers and nurses should strive to become familiar with all articles of diet; also with the properties and medical uses of all drugs and minerals, and their action upon the animal economy.