The three most common contagious diseases in the nursery are whooping-cough, measles, and scarlet fever. In infancy the most dreaded disease is whooping-cough. A normal, healthy baby under six months of age can hardly survive this disease; and there is nothing more pitiful than to see the family baby, who has caught this racking ailment from older children, slowly but surely choke up as it becomes too weak even to cough. I regard it as nothing short of criminal to expose a healthy baby to whooping-cough. As many babies die of whooping-cough, in New York City, as from measles, scarlet fever and diphtheria combined. Never allow any child with a cough to come near your baby. The cause of whooping-cough has never been discovered. In older children it consists of terrible paroxysms of coughing, marked with a sound which can be described only by the word “whoop.” The little sufferer struggles for breath, the face turns red, the food is often vomited, and the paroxysm is followed by great prostration. Young infants are not strong enough to whoop, as the doctors express it, but they cough and hold their breath in a most distressing fashion; the face becomes blue, and the baby may have convulsions. No cure for whooping-cough has ever been found; and no mother should administer patent medicines exploited for that purpose. The family physician may prescribe sedatives which will give the little patient relief, but the disease will generally run its course of six to twelve weeks. It is no respecter of seasons, and an epidemic in a certain neighborhood will be just as bad in summer as in winter. The patient should have plenty of fresh air day and night; and should be given regular, nourishing meals, for he will require all the strength he can command to combat the paroxysms of coughing. The child should be quarantined as long as it coughs, and should not be permitted to mingle with other children until the family physician has given his permission. Measles is one of the most contagious of juvenile diseases, and it is carried by clothing, toys, and animals. It appears about ten to fourteen days after exposure. The first symptom is redness and running of the eyes. The child seeks a dark corner, claiming that the light hurts his eyes. There is a discharge from the nose; and the child appears to have a severe cold with a dry cough. He is not hungry; and his temperature may rise from 100° to 104° F. A rash appears on the face and behind the ears about the third or fourth day. It consists of groups of small, dull red, raised spots, accompanied by itching, and lasts about three or four days in the average case.