Two Things with respect to Sickness Parents are to guard against; one is, the Neglect of calling for Help in time; the other, that amazing Attachment to Nurses, and what they call good old Women. I esteem it a Misfortune in a Family, where a Physician or an Apothecary appears as regularly as the Baker; and to prove that I do so, I have said before, that our Food may often be made our Physic; and have pointed out many Ways to prevent Diseases: still it is a Fact, that all Errors are best rectified at the Beginning; and the sooner a Distemper is attacked, the sooner, in all Probability, will it be conquered. Good Women are extremely apt to treat physical People with Contempt; and this chiefly to magnify their own Skill. If they have any Knowledge, as some of them doubtless have, to whom principally do they owe it? Is it not from conversing with physical People, and seeing how they proceed? most certainly. And yet these same good Women shall wonder that any body sends for a Doctor or an Apothecary to a sick Child! What, they cry, do these People know about Children? A good old Woman is better than all of them. She must be a very good old Woman indeed, that knows more than Men who have made the Knowledge of Diseases the whole Study of their Lives. But supposing that Reason and Resolution get the better of this Weakness; Parents have still more to do; it is not enough that Medicines are prescribed, they must be sure that they are taken. For besides the Repugnance in the Child, there is a Difficulty perhaps in the Nurse; and if she thinks it wrong, it will be hard to set her right; and harder still, to prevail on her to give them to the Patient. Parents, in this Case, must either resolve not to ask Advice, or resolve to see the Medicines taken.