_Capricious Appetite._--Sometimes a female is found to have an inordinate desire for some one particular article of diet, which she will eat to excess, but will not touch anything else; this is called _malacia_. Others will have a craving for some article not proper for food;--this is called _Pica_. They will devour chalk, cinders, earth, wood, flies, spiders, charcoal, and various other things, sometimes of the most disgusting kind, though ordinarily they may be quite fastidious in their diet. This unnatural desire is also frequently seen in hysteria and chlorosis, and in several uterine diseases. It does not appear that a moderate indulgence of these unusual tastes is at all injurious, unless the article wished for be of a decidedly hurtful character. On the contrary, it is reasonably conjectured, by many physiologists, that they arise from a real want in the system of the very substances longed for. For instance, there may not be in the mother's blood sufficient _lime_ to form the bones of the child, and this deficiency is intimated by her desire for chalk or plaster; nature having no other mode of making her wants known, or of causing them to be supplied. As a general rule, so long as the indulgence is not obviously improper, it should be allowed to a reasonable extent, both to gratify the patient and to answer to what are probably the demands of nature. It is seldom that interference is needed in these cases, except when there is danger of the patient doing herself harm; we may then try to alter the condition of the stomach, and so change the taste. A gentle emetic will sometimes do this, or a saline purgative. If these fail use a few of the _Carbonate of Iron Pills_, or some good strong bitters, or teas, drunk freely, such as Cammomile, Boneset or Centaury. PYROSIS. This disease is more frequently called _water brash_ and sometimes _heart burn_. It is characterized by the raising of a hot acrid fluid into the throat, causing a sensation of burning from the stomach upward, even to the mouth. It is a very frequent attendant upon many forms of dyspepsia, and is generally experienced more or less by most pregnant females, arising either from improper diet or from mere sympathetic derangement. If it arises only from errors of diet, a reform in that particular is all that is needed, but if it is merely sympathetic nothing can be done beyond palliating it, to give temporary relief. For this purpose the patient must take a spoonful of lime water, in half a tumbler of milk two or three times a day, or some carbonate of soda, or magnesia, with a few drops of laudanum if there be any pain. In those cases which resist such remedies a little of the _compound iron mixture_ may be of service, such as can be obtained at the druggists. A nourishing diet should also be observed, and plenty of exercise should be taken in the open air. DYSPHAGIA.