It is becoming a widespread custom to send a little girl or boy to a druggist’s to purchase some advertised baby medicine or food. The patent cough syrups, or those kept on hand in shops, I deem unsafe in the hands of the inexperienced. Most, if not all of them, contain some sleep-producing ingredient, whereby they may check a cough by paralyzing, as it were, the little nerves of sensation in the air-tubes; thus giving opportunity for the phlegm to collect in great quantities, with no possible way of escape. Doubtless in this way suffocation is frequently induced, in whooping-cough, bronchitis, or croup. Several years ago, in the city of Boston, a mother returned from work, and found her baby, which she had left alone, a corpse. Her explanation, as it appeared in the daily papers, was to the effect that she had given the child the rinsings of the vial that contained laudanum, to keep it quiet. People are getting much wiser nowadays; laudanum and paregoric cannot be easily obtained without a recipe. But they can yet buy and give large doses of “Patent Soothing Syrups.” In all cases of difficult breathing or signs of croup, with or without hot skin, a soft flannel cloth should be wrung out of hot water, and laid over the entire chest, close up under the chin and ears; and if the bowels are bound, it may extend to the belly, the whole being covered with a dry, warm flannel. By this means the force of a cold can be broken, the breathing relieved, and in a majority of cases it is all that is required to be done. Even in severe cases of lung fever, warm water applications are invaluable; acting as an absorbent through the medium of the pores of the skin. If a paste of flaxseed meal is used, it should be applied in the same way. If the applications are to be warm, they should be kept warm, and if they are to be cold, should be kept cold, until relief is obtained. I may have digressed somewhat, as pneumonia seldom develops in the first month of infancy. At all events, external applications are in place till medical aid is secured. I do not wish to be understood as usurping the power of other physicians; each has his or her own method of procedure. I merely wish to impress the domestic and common sense means, to be used in cases of emergency.