The hardy Italian peasant children are as regularly brought up on the dish I have just described as the young Scot on oatmeal porridge; and as, unless given all day and every day, both are perfectly suited to young digestions, there is no good reason why both should not take their turn in the nursery cuisine. A great deal that has been said is no doubt equally applicable to temperate climates, but in these healthy children rarely suffer from want of appetite, whereas in the trying time of the year in the Tropics there is often a strong temptation to eat too little to keep up the needs of the system, and hence this exhortation to the adoption for children of a varied and tempting diet is especially applicable to those brought up in hot countries. A separate work would be required to deal adequately with the subject of the present chapter, so that it is impossible to do more than offer a few general hints on the subject, and it accordingly remains only to consider the question of the necessity, or otherwise, of children being sent off to a hill station during the worst part of the tropical year. To do so is often a terrible tax on the financial resources of the parents, and there can be no doubt that the advantages of the hill climates over those of the plains, though no doubt very real, are much over-rated; for the hills have special dangers of their own. Some years ago I had occasion to compare the sick rates of a number of the largest Indian boarding schools, and was much astonished to find that the justly celebrated “La Martiniere,” at Lucknow, had a somewhat smaller sick rate than the great Laurence Military Asylum for soldiers’ children, which was then under my care. Now if the difference in favour of the hill climate were as great as is popularly supposed, this could hardly be the case; as Lucknow is by no means an exceptionally healthy plains station, and the site of the La Martiniere leaves much to be desired. Yet the hill school would have been counted a healthy one anywhere, for in two years we had but two deaths among the whole half-thousand boys and girls. Apart from the mere question of personal comfort, the main advantage of the hill climates are their freedom from malaria, but this ought to be guarded against in the plains by proper metallic gauze protection of the nursery; while, on the other hand, hill climates are extremely treacherous for children during the rains. Assuming the adoption of rational precautions against malaria, I believe that whatever may be the case during the dry, hot season, the majority of children would be better in the plains than on the hills during rains. Part of this is perhaps due to the increased sanitary difficulties; for typhoid fever is endemic in almost all hill stations; but the bulk of it is due to the raw, clammy chills of a sodden atmosphere, and given an equal number of children, it is a matter of common experience with medical officers that the doctor’s visiting book will often show an