Every physician has seen the injurious influence of deception upon children. Sometimes it is of a most disastrous character, and occasionally, I have not a doubt, it proves fatal. Deception is more frequently practiced upon children than upon adults, and many seem to think that they have not the same right to candor and honesty in our intercourse with them. But a child can appreciate fair and honest treatment as well as an adult can, and he has as good a right to receive it at our hands. He sometimes claims this right in terms, and by acts not to be mistaken. And when it is taken from him, he shows his sense of the wrong by remonstrances and retaliatory language, and by a system of rebellion to an authority which he despises, as well as fears, for its falsehood. Suppose a mother succeeds in giving a dose of medicine by stratagem, the administration of every dose after it is accompanied with a fearful struggle. The strife which results from the spirit of resistance thus engendered, perhaps in the beginning of a long sickness, and which might in most cases have been avoided by frank and candid treatment, continues through the whole course of the disease to the last hour of life if the case prove fatal, the little creature feebly but obstinately resisting its mother, till the exhaustion of coming death puts an end to its struggles; and, though she plies every art that fondness can devise to win back the lost confidence of her darling child, it is all in vain. If the reader have any adequate idea of the importance of quietness in the management of the sick, I need not spend time to prove, that this resistance of the sick child has an injurious effect upon the disease, and that in those cases where life has but a feeble trembling hold, where the silver cord is worn down almost to its last thread, such a struggle may break that thread by its violence. I have not a doubt that many a child has died under such circumstances, that might otherwise have recovered. Let me not be understood to imply that the resistance made by children to the administration of medicine is invariably the result of deception practised upon them, though this is the cause undoubtedly in quite a large proportion of the cases, and those too of the worst and most unconquerable character. And it may be remarked, that in many cases this may be the cause of the difficulty where it is little suspected. For it is so common a habit to deceive children in this matter, that it is often done unconsciously. But though the parent may not remember it, the child does, and the cruel oppressive act (for so it may be properly called) locked up in the memory of the child, wakes up rebellion in his heart that is not easily quelled. Many a parent has thus in a moment, for the sake of a slight temporary advantage, sown the wind to reap the whirlwind.