The question how far children should be allowed to crack nuts may here be considered. If the child has been brought up on pappy food, and has in consequence brittle and ill-developed teeth, the cracking of hard nuts will be likely to injure them, and this is _a fortiori_ true if any of the teeth are carious or “filled.” And not only nuts but hard food of any kind, such as ship’s biscuits, may in these circumstances injure the teeth, as many of those who went through the recent South African campaign can testify. But if, on the other hand, the child has from the beginning been fed on coarse, hard foods, so that the teeth have been allowed to grow dense and strong, no harm is likely to ensue from cracking such nuts as filberts and Spanish nuts. If a squirrel or a monkey weighing a few pounds can do so with impunity, surely the young human should be able to also. The cracking should, however, be done by the molars, while such hard nuts as Brazils had best not be tackled at all. Animal food does not need the same amount of mastication as vegetable food, since it is not digested in the mouth, though some contend that the mixture of proteid with alkaline saliva facilitates its subsequent peptonisation. Cooked animal food is, however, all the better for some mastication, owing to the coagulation of the proteids, and, in order to insure the efficient mastication of meat, fish, and poultry, Dr. Sim Wallace recommends that they should be given in large pieces cut thin. “Flat pieces about one inch square generally _necessitate_ a certain amount of mastication. It is difficult to swallow large flat pieces of meat without mastication, but when finely minced little or no mastication is called forth.” The younger the child the more underdone should the meat be. EXAMINATION OF THE MOUTH AND ADJACENT PARTS If a child be brought up on the lines indicated and under healthy conditions generally, it is tolerably certain that the maxillary apparatus will develop normally, that the teeth will be strong and well opposed, and show little tendency to disease; but, inasmuch as the methods advocated are but seldom put into practice, disorders of the teeth, more especially caries and irregularities, are common, and hence with a view to promote more efficient mastication it is always advisable to examine our patient’s teeth.