_What to do_.--If the child be at the breast, keep him to it, and let him have nothing else for dysentery is frequently caused by improper feeding. If your milk be not good, or it be scanty, _instantly_ procure a healthy wet-nurse. _Lose not a moment;_ for in dysentery, moments are precious. But, suppose that you have no milk, and that no wet-nurse can be procured: what then? Feed him entirely on cow's milk--the milk of _one_ healthy cow; let the milk be unboiled, and be fresh from the cow. Give it in small quantities at a time, and frequently, so that it may be retained on the stomach. If a table-spoonful of the milk make him sick, give him a dessert-spoonful; if a dessert-spoonful cause sickness, let him only have a tea-spoonful at a time, and let it be repeated every quarter of an hour. But, remember, in such a case the breast milk--the breast milk alone--is incomparably superior to any other milk or to any other food whatever. If he be a year old, and weaned, then feed him, as above recommended, on the cow's milk. If there be extreme exhaustion and debility, let fifteen drops of brandy be added to each table-spoonful of new milk, and let it be given every half hour. Now with regard to medicine. I approach this part of the treatment with some degree of reluctance,--for dysentery is a case requiring opium--and opium I never like a mother of her own accord to administer. But suppose a medical man cannot be procured in time, the mother must then prescribe, or the child will die! _What then is to be done?_ Sir Charles Locock considers "that, in severe dysentery, especially where there is sickness, there is no remedy equal to pure Calomel, in a full dose without opium." [Footnote: Communicated by Sir Charles Locock to the Author.] Therefore, at the very _onset_ of the disease, let from three to five grains (according to the age of the patient) of Calomel, mixed with an equal quantity of powdered white sugar, be put dry on the tongue. In three hours after let the following mixture be administered:-- Take of--Compound Powder of Ipecacuanha, five grains; Ipecacuanha Wine, one drachm; Simple Syrup, three drachms; Cinnamon Water, nine drachms; To make a Mixture, A tea-spoonful to be given every three or four hours, first _well_ shaking the bottle. Supposing he cannot retain the mixture--the stomach rejecting it as soon as swallowed--what then? Give the opium, mixed with small doses of mercury with chalk and sugar, in the form of powder, and put one of the powders _dry_ on the tongue, every three hours:-- Take of--Powdered Opium, half a grain; Mercury with chalk, nine grains; Sugar of Milk, twenty-four grains; Mix well in a mortar, and divide into twelve powders.