acute nettle-rash it is important to attend to the condi tion of the digestive organs. If there be any nausea, a mild emetic, such as a dose of ipecacuanha wine, should be administered ; and the child should live plainly for a day or two, without sweets or excess of starches in his diet. For medicine, an aperient close of rhubarb and soda will usu ally put a speedy end to the attack. The itching, while the eruption con tinues, will be greatly relieved by dabbing the surface with a solution of cyanide of potassium (one drachm to the pint), or with the lotion referred to by Si Thomas Watson, composed of a drachm of carbonate of ammonia and the same quantity of acetate of lead dissolved in eight ounces of water. A warm bath at bedtime in some cases is found very soothing.
In chronic urticaria excess of fermentable food is to be avoided ; but the most careful dieting will often produce no beneficial effect upon the eruption. In the majority of cases, whatever be the cause of the persist ence of the disorder, it will be found to yield readily to full closes of qui nine. I have used this remedy for many years, and have not yet met with
an instance of its failure to put an immediate end to the complaint. The dose should be large, and may be roughly calculated at one grain and a half for each year of the child's age. The remedy is administered once in the day, at bedtime. As an illustration of the prompt action of the alka loid so administered, I may quote the case of a little girl, two years and ten months old, who had suffered from chronic urticaria for two years. The rash had varied in intensity from time to time, but had never disap peared entirely ; and the child was said to be in a state of constant suffer ing from the distressing itching to which it gave rise. A few powders, each containing three grains of quinine, were ordered ; one to be taken every night on going to bed. After two or three powders the rash com pletely disappeared, and two years afterwards I heard that it had never returned.