Let the interested humanitarian visit those families where necessity demands the absence of the parent a part or all of each day, to seek a daily subsistence, leaving the youngest to the care of the eldest, winter or summer, before deciding whether it is a want of stamina, the depressions of the atmosphere, or indirect starvation which causes so great infantile mortality at certain seasons of the year. It is a mistake to suppose that cold milk given to a babe in excessive hot weather will answer as well as if warmed. The human stomach is supplied with heat from the blood and natural fluids, and when a quantity of anything colder than the contents of the organ is poured into it, the process needful to a healthy digestion cannot go on properly. CHAPTER XVII. SECTION I. TEETHING MADE EASY. As a general thing, children begin to get teeth from the ages of five to seven months. The middle, or incisors, in the lower jaw, are the first to appear, one in advance of the other; and, too, these may get through almost unnoticed. It is a custom with many persons to begin poking into a babe’s mouth just as soon as it shows restlessness, or signs of getting teeth; and, perceiving that it bites, as naturally it should, they at once introduce a rubber, or some kind of hard substance, for it to bite upon, to assist the teeth through. This is unnatural, and liable to increase the already feverish and fretful condition of the child. The more artificial friction is applied, the more inflamed will the gums become. Teaching babes to bite on the fingers, rings, dolls, and the like, is but subjecting them to torture which they would gladly repel could they speak. There is really no set time at which babes should get teeth; some begin much younger than others. There are instances recorded of children being born with teeth; this, however, is of rare occurrence; but it is a common thing to see the forms of well-developed teeth through the delicate, transparent cover of the gums at birth. The development of these little bones is really peculiar, and worthy of the most profound study; but I shall only attempt to speak here in reference to the maturing process, or their making ready to come through the gums, hoping, by so doing, much of the seeming anxiety of young mothers and nurses from this cause may be removed.