No time should be lost in sending for medical aid; indeed, the _hot, dry mouth and skin, and short, hurried breathing_ would be sufficient cause for your procuring _immediate_ assistance. If inflammation of the lungs were properly treated at the _onset_, a child would scarcely ever be lost by that disease. I say this advisedly, for in my own practice, _provided I am called in early, and if my plans are strictly carried out_, I scarcely ever lose a child from inflammation of the lungs. You may ask--What are your plans? I will tell you, in case _you cannot promptly obtain medical advice,_ as delay might be death! _The treatment of Inflammation of the Lungs, what to do._--Keep the child to one room, to his bedroom, and to his bed. Let the chamber be properly ventilated. If the weather be cool, let a small fire be in the grate; otherwise, he is better without a fire. Let him live on low diet, such as weak black tea, milk and water (in equal quantities), and toast and water, thin oatmeal gruel, arrow-root, and such like simple beverages, and give him the following mixture:-- Take of--Wine of Ipecacuanha, three drachms; Simple Syrup, three drachms; Water, six drachms; Make a Mixture. A tea-spoonful of the mixture to be taken every four hours. Be careful that you go to a respectable chemist, in order _that the totality of the Ipecacuanha Wine may be good, as the child's life may depend upon it._ If the medicine produce sickness, so much the better; continue it regularly until the short, oppressed, and hurried breathing has subsided, and has become natural. If the attack be very severe, in addition to the above medicine, at once apply a blister, not the common blister, but _Smith's Tela Vesicatoria_ [Footnote: Manufactured by T. & H. Smith, chemists, Edinburgh, and may be procured of Southalls, chemists, Birmingham.]--a quarter of a sheet. If the child be a year old, the blister ought to be kept on for three hours, and then a piece of dry, soft linen rag should be applied for another three hours. At the end of which time--six hours--there will be a beautiful blister, which must then, with a pair of scissors, be cut, to let out the water, and then let the blister be dressed, night and morning, with simple cerate spread on lint. If the little patient be more than one year, say two years old, let the Tela remain on for five hours, and the dry linen rag for five hours more, before the blister, as above recommended, be cut and dressed. If in a day or two the inflammation still continue violent, let another Tela Vesicatoria be applied, not over the old blister, but let a narrow strip of it be applied on each side of the old blister, and managed in the same manner as before directed.