=Constipation= in the newborn may come from many causes. The amount of food may be so inadequate that no residue is left, and the bowels move only once in forty-eight hours. Over-stimulation of the bowel by castor oil or colonic flushings in the early weeks of life to correct colic may diminish its sensitiveness and produce atonic constipation. In the artificially fed infant too much fat in the food is a very common cause of the trouble. _Treatment._—Correct the amount of fat in the milk. If the child is breast-fed, the mother’s diet should be non-nitrogenous and vegetables should preponderate. Drugs should not be given until all else has been tried. Gluten suppositories will furnish a mild irritation to the rectum. Orange juice and prune juice may be given, or Mellin’s food or oatmeal water added to the milk. Milk of magnesia ½ to 1 teaspoonful, or Husband’s magnesia, in same dosage, may be given daily. Senna is also efficacious. =Diarrhœa= is generally significant of an error in diet which is usually a plain indigestion, though there may be too much sugar in the food. The stools are more frequent and always softer than usual, possibly fluid. Diarrhœa means increased intestinal action due to irritation from _something_. It may be due to indigestion, to the presence of hard curds, to acidosis, or it may accompany almost any disease of infancy as a symptom merely. The odor is due to gases formed in the canal by bacterial action. There is but little odor in fermentation, but much in putrefaction. Mucus appears either as balls or strings. The balls come from the small intestine, strings from colon. Blood indicates ulceration at some point in the bowel, or an erosion just above the sphincter. [Illustration: Fig. 127.—Proper position for introduction of a suppository. (Grulee.)] Fatty curds may be either white, granular, sand-like masses, or small, soft, and yellow. The protein curd is large and smooth, or white and bean-like. Both occur only when the artificially fed infant is given raw milk (Brenneman). If the milk is boiled for two minutes these masses will not form. The cause must be determined. The frequent stools, however, are exhausting, and may have to be checked with opiates or mechanical astringents. When due to indigestion, all food by mouth may be stopped for two or three days and only barley water administered. In a breast-fed child, diarrhœa is sometimes checked by diluting the milk with a little barley water, given just before nursing. With these infants, not much change in the sugar content can be made by alterations of the maternal diet, but where artificial food is used, the amount of sugar is easily reduced to a satisfactory degree.