It is astonishing, indeed, with what exclusiveness of understanding, eating is regarded even by intelligent parents as the grand _solatium_ or _panacea_ for all the pains and troubles which afflict the young. If a child falls over a stone and bruises its leg, its cries are immediately arrested by a sugar-biscuit stuffed into its open mouth. If its temper is discomposed by the loss of a toy, it is forthwith soothed by an offer of sweetmeats, the ultimate effect of which is to excite colicky pains in its bowels, which are worse than the original evil, and for which, in their turn, it is presented with “nice peppermint drops,” or some other equally pleasant antidote. Because the mouth is open when the child is crying, and the mouth leads to the stomach, parents jump to the conclusion that it is open for the purpose of being filled, and proceed to cram it accordingly; forgetting all the while that the mouth leads also to the windpipe, and may be open for the admission of air to the lungs as well as of food to the stomach,--and that if they stuff it with cake or pudding when it is open only for the reception of air, they run the risk of suffocating the little innocent when their only wish is to soothe him. Every body must have seen fits of convulsive cough induced by fragments of food being drawn into the windpipe in such circumstances. To confound crying and the expression of pain with the cravings of hunger, is far from being a matter of indifference to the child. If food be given when it wishes only to be relieved from suffering, the offending cause is left in activity, and its effects are aggravated by the additional ill-timed distention of its stomach. But so far is this important truth from being sufficiently impressed on the minds of parents and nurses, that nothing is more common, when the infant refuses to swallow more but still continues to cry, than to toss it in the nurse’s arms, as if on purpose to shake down its food, and then resume the feeding. And in such attempts, it is too true that the perseverance of the nurse often gets the better of the child, and forces it at last to receive the food at which it really loathes.