Some, who are very cautious on these points in regard to adults, never think of their application to children. Often, for example, does the physician find, on entering the sick room, those whom kindness and curiosity have assembled there, talking loudly, while the mother is trying in vain to soothe the troubled child by rocking the cradle as if for a wager. Much, too, is often said in presence of sick children that ought not to be, on the false supposition that they do not understand what is said. Many a child is frightened by horrid stories, and by gloomy comments upon his own case. Visitors stand over him, and besides fretting him by their staring, they say something, perhaps, of this sort. ‘Poor thing! how sick he looks! I don’t believe he can get well.’ And then they go on to tell about some little child, perhaps his playmate, that had died recently, and whom, perhaps, he saw laid in his grave, and utter in his hearing, with all due solemnity and sorrowfulness, the opinion that he is affected much like him, and will probably die in the same way; adding, by way of consolation to the poor mother, that then they will be in heaven together. Children have sensibilities and hopes and fears, like adults, and they understand, even at a very tender age, enough about death to be affected, and often very strongly, by this holding up of its grim visage directly before them. The mind, and the nervous system, by which the mind is connected with the body, are as excitable in the child as in the adult, and the avoidance of unnecessary alarm and excitement is as important in the sickness of the one as in that of the other.