EGLANTINE.—If the teeth become loosened, and the gums show a tendency to bleed on slight provocation, use a mouth-wash of tincture of myrrh; add about a teaspoonful of tincture of myrrh to half a tumblerful of water, and rinse out your mouth and wash your teeth with it. The “tincture of myrrh and borax” of the shops is made by mixing tincture of myrrh with glycerine of borax. Both these are pharmacopœial preparations. A JAPANESE GIRL.—In common parlance we use the term “fainting” to express any condition in which a person acutely loses consciousness and falls to the ground. The term therefore includes epilepsy, apoplexy, sunstroke, acute syncope, and the condition which you wish to know about, ordinary fainting fits, or semi-syncope. The fits, as everybody knows, occur chiefly in young women and girls who are anæmic or hysterical. They consist of a momentary weakness of the heart-beat, as the result of which the brain is insufficiently supplied with blood, and the person drops down “in a heap.” This sudden falling lowers the position of the head, and so prevents the brain from becoming anæmic. When a person faints, or feels faint, her head should be lowered; if she is sitting in a chair, her head should be forced down to her knees; if she is standing up, she should be placed upon her back. How often we see kind-hearted persons carrying a fainting girl out of church, taking care to keep her head well raised! Sal volatile, cold water and brandy are sometimes given to fainting girls, but none of these is necessary, and the brandy usually does harm. Though fainting looks very dangerous, it is really very trivial. We have never seen a death during one of these young women’s fainting fits.