PREFACE. FOUR large editions of this work have been exhausted, a fifth is now required. I have used my best endeavours to improve the present edition, aided as I have been by more extensive and matured experience. The management of the health, and the treatment of the diseases of children, have always been my favourite study: the writing and revising of the following pages have therefore been to me a recreation and a pleasure. Although this edition is much enlarged and greatly improved, the price is reduced-in order that it may be still more extensively read and studied; as the subject is of vital importance to all mothers; indeed, to the whole community. May HE, from whom all good advice proceeds, continue to bless this book. Priory House, Birmingham, January, 1860. PYE H. CHAVASSE. ADVICE TO A MOTHER. PART I.-INFANCY. PRELIMINARY CONVERSATION. 1. I wish to consult you on many subjects, appertaining to the management of children: will you favour me with your advice and counsel? I shall be happy to accede to your request, and to give you the fruits of my experience in the clearest manner I am able, and in the simplest language I can command, freed from all technicalities. I will endeavour to guide you in the management of the health of your children; I will warn you of approaching danger, in order that you may promptly apply for medical assistance, before illness has gained too firm a footing; I will instruct you in the immediate employment of remedies in case of accidents, where delay may be death; I will tell you how a sick child should be nursed, and how a sick-room should be managed; I will use my best energy to banish injurious practices from the nursery; I will treat of the means to prevent disease, where it be possible; I will show you the way to preserve the health of the healthy, and how to strengthen the delicate; and I will strive to make a Medical man's task more agreeable to himself, and more beneficial to his patient, by dispelling numerous errors and prejudices, and by proving the importance of your strictly adhering to his rules. If I can accomplish any of these objects I shall be amply repaid by the knowledge that I have been of some little service to the rising generation. 2. Then, you consider it important that I should be made acquainted with, and well informed upon, the subjects you have just named? Certainly. I deem it to be your imperative duty to study the subjects well. The proper management of children is a vital question, and the most important that can be brought under the consideration of a mother; and, strange to say, one that has been more neglected than any other. How many mothers undertake the responsible management of children without previous instruction or without forethought; they undertake it, as though it may be learned by intuition, or by instinct, or by affection. The consequence is, that oftentimes they are in a sea of trouble and uncertainty, tossing about without rule or compass; until, too frequently, their hopes and treasures are shipwrecked and lost. Hear what a talented reviewer of one of our medical journals says on the necessity of a diffusion of such knowledge, as I shall endeavour to convey to you in the following conversation "The more well-written books on Common : |