Medicine should be given at regular hours, and careful attention should be paid to the directions as to the time when the doses are to be given, as, for instance, before or after meals. The exact quantity ordered should be given, as even a slight error may defeat the results intended. Never give any medicine without looking at the label, being absolutely certain that you have the right one. Never allow a bottle to stand uncorked, for many mixtures lose their strength when exposed to the air. TEMPERATURE AND PULSE We follow Mr. Curran again in his clear statement of the importance of temperature in disease. Every household should have a clinical thermometer to use in taking the temperature of the patient in the event of sickness. The average normal temperature in adults is from 98.4 to 98.6 degrees. There is a daily variation of sometimes 1.5 degrees, the highest point being reached in the evening. Exercise, diet, climate and sleep cause deviation from the standard. Almost every disease, however, carries with it an abnormal variation in temperature. If the rising temperature does not always show what the disease is, it does show what it probably is not. For instance, a rapid rise of three of four degrees above the healthy standard does not mean typhoid fever, but may mean measles or scarlet fever, and in whooping-cough and smallpox, the highest temperature precedes those diseases from two to four days. In diphtheria there is this rise before anyone thinks of looking at the throat. Increase of temperature calls for cooling remedies, external and internal, and degrees of temperature below the standard require warming and sustaining treatment. An increase of temperature beginning each day a little earlier is a bad sign; one beginning later promises well. A decrease of fever beginning each day earlier is a good sign, but if later each day, is a bad one. A very high temperature, say 105 degrees, is dangerous in itself, but more so if it has come on gradually as the last of a series. A fall of temperature below normal is far more dangerous than a much greater corresponding rise. One degree below normal is more an indication of a bad condition than two and one-half above normal. In convalescence if there is no rise of temperature after eating there is no nourishment secured from the food; if there is a sudden or high rise of more than one degree the food was too stimulating or bulky. To be beneficial in convalescence food must increase the temperature a quarter to half a degree and this must almost subside when digestion is over, though leaving a gradual improvement in the average daily temperature.