For the most part, however, it makes its appearance between the fifth and twelfth month; sometimes seeming to be induced by the change of food when the child is weaned, and that even though the weaning may have been wisely managed; at other times showing itself when the irritation of teething begins, and in every instance being aggravated by the approach of each tooth to the surface, and abating in the intervals. It does not occur in all children with equal frequency or severity, and though there is no doubt but that it is often hereditary, and this especially in families some members of which have suffered from gout, yet it is by no means unusual for two or three of the children of the same parents to be affected by it severely, while no trace of it appears in the others. It shows itself in general first on the cheeks and sides of the face, where the skin becomes red and rough, and slightly puffy. On looking very closely--more closely indeed than most persons are wont to do--this appearance will be seen to be produced by innumerable small pimples, smaller than pins' heads, and which itch violently. Now and then, even in the course of a few hours, these pimples disappear, leaving the skin rough, and peeling off in branny scales, while the surface beneath is red and irritable, a condition which also in a few days may subside. This, however, is less frequent than the opposite course of the affection, in which a drop of fluid forms at the top of each tiny pimple, and escaping forms a yellowish, thin, transparent, watery, irritating discharge, which reddens still more the raw and weeping surface of the skin. The fluid when abundant dries at length into yellowish flakes or crusts, which sometimes assume a brownish colour if the surface is made to bleed by irritating or scratching. If the crusts are not removed, the fluid which still continues to be poured out beneath them soon changes into matter or _pus_ as it is called, and this, shut up beneath the hard crust above, increases the irritation, and thickens the deposit. After a time the inflammation lessens of its own accord, the secretion diminishes, the crusts dry up, and at length fall off, leaving the skin red, slightly swollen, and its surface scaling off in flakes, which gradually cease to form, and the skin by degrees becomes quite sound again, and so remains, until perhaps the irritation caused by the approach of a new tooth to the surface, rekindles the old trouble, to go once again through the same stages as before.