If hooping-cough attack a child whilst teething, or from six months to two or three years of age, it is very common for the brain to suffer, and convulsions and water on the head to occur, particularly if the latter disease prevails in the family.  Whenever the paroxysm of cough is increased in violence, the characteristic hoop disappearing, and the face becomes very livid; the hands clenched, and the thumbs drawn into the palms; the head hot, and marked fits of drowsiness and languor; and the child, during sleep, screaming out, or grinding its teeth,—­ something wrong about the head ought to be anticipated.  Of the treatment we have here nothing to say, except that the gums must be carefully examined, and scarified if they require it, and the temperature of the head reduced by cold sponging, or the application of a bag of ice when necessary.  The chief duty, however, of the parent is to be alive to these symptoms, and early to detect the incipient mischief, that by a prompt application of efficient means the accession of so formidable a malady may be prevented.

To specific remedies for this disease it is scarcely necessary to allude, after what has been advanced, except by way of warning.  In the simple form of the complaint such medicines are superfluous, or rather some of them, from their violent properties, most dangerous; in the complicated forms of the disease they are inadmissible.

The indiscriminate use of purgatives, also, a parent should avoid.  Bowel affections are not an infrequent attendant upon hooping-cough, and always aggravate the primary disorder.

Of external applications all that need be said is this, that if they are not violently stimulating they do no harm; if, however, they contain tartar emetic, in addition to their doing no good to the disease, they cause unnecessary suffering to the patient, and are sometimes productive of dangerous and even fatal sores.

Sect.  IX.—­Croup.

This disease is one of the most formidable of childhood; sudden (generally) in its attacks, most active in its progress, and if not met by a prompt and decided treatment, fatal in its termination.  Hence the paramount importance of parents being acquainted with the signs which indicate its approach, that medical aid may be secured at the very onset of the disease.  Upon this early application of suitable remedies every thing depends.

Signs of its approach.—­Croup may appear in one of two ways:  either preceded for two or three days by the symptoms of a common cold, accompanied with hoarseness and a rough cough; or it may attack with the most alarming suddenness, during the night for instance, although the child had been merry and well the previous evening.

Hoarseness, however, is the premonitory and important symptom of croup; for although it is not every hoarseness that is followed by this formidable malady, still this symptom rarely attends a common cold in young children, and therefore always deserves when present the serious attention of the mother, particularly if accompanied by a rough cough.