(_m_) Chickenpox has neither distressing symptoms nor is it significant as regards danger. It is an eruptive fever which occasionally affects adults, but for the most part children. The eruption is generally preceded by a slight fever and nausea, and appears first on the body and afterwards on the scalp where it is usually more abundant. There always remains healthy white skin between the vesicles, which at first contain a transparent liquid, hence called by the Germans waterpox, which afterward becomes cloudy or opaline. The eruption begins to dry up from the fifth to the seventh day forming granular crusts that are sometimes followed by pitting. The disease is contagious and develops twelve to seventeen days after the exposure. Chickenpox claims no treatment; its only point of interest is its resemblance to varioloid, but as a successful vaccination guarantees against the latter, and as the vesicles of varioloid have a central depression while those of chickenpox have not, the individuality of the affection is readily established. CHAPTER XXXI. EMERGENCY TREATMENT IN SUDDEN ACCIDENTS. IF the author reviews his experience of the last twenty years, he recalls to memory innumerable instances in which the lack of a little special knowledge, in cases of sudden accidents, did not only incur useless physical suffering, but cost lives which otherwise might have been saved. Knowledge of this nature is not intuitive, but must be acquired by study. He therefore offers for the guidance of the intelligent reader, common sense advice on the immediate management of accidents which are liable to occur at almost any moment. If a child falls any considerable distance to the ground, the system receives a shock varying from the slightest functional disturbance to complete insensibility. In the former case there may probably be only slight pallor of the countenance, the ideas become confused, there is a disposition to yawn and a feeling of nausea. Young children have a disposition to sleep, older ones rub their eyes, stare wildly around and even vomit, but after a short time they resume their accustomed employment: these symptoms illustrate a slight concussion of the brain. When the injury is more serious all the above signs become aggravated and it may take several hours before the normal condition is restored. The proper course to pursue in all these accidents is to lay the patient on a sofa or bed, with his head slightly elevated in a darkened chamber free from all noise and confusion and let him fall to sleep. In ordinary cases reaction takes place after a quiet slumber. If however the patient complains of pains in the head and there is irritability of temper, the advice of a competent physician becomes necessary. (_a_) Broken bones or _fractures_ are defined to be a destruction of the continuity of one or more of the bones of the body.