Hunger and appetite must not be regarded as synonymous terms. The former is the craving of all the tissues of the body for nutritive material, or food, and is expressed by a sinking or craving sensation in the stomach. The latter, on the other hand, though it is certainly an attendant of hunger, is simply a sensation of the desire for something with a food-taste, having its seat in the mouth and surrounding parts. Appetite having its post, as it were, at the entrance of the stomach, may be regarded as a gate-keeper to supervise everything presented for entrance and to reject all that may be injurious either to the stomach or the general economy.

Like its analogue the gate-keper, the trust-worthiness of the appetite may be destroyed by overindulgence and bad habits. Under the last head come the constant administration of too much or too little food, the use of overrich food and irregularity in meal hours.

A healthy appetite - that is, one that leads a child to consume with enjoyment the food set before him - may be encouraged by muscular and mental exercise; by contentment; by regular habits as to the hours of eating; by the use of plain food only, and by varying the food, in a greater or less degree, according to the age. If the quantity of food consumed at the regular meals does not come up to the parent's standard of sufficiency, it does nothing but harm to resort to too dainty feeding and to an encouragement to eat between meals.

There can be no question that a good appetite is a useful as well as a pleasant faculty for a child to possess, for there is no doubt that food eaten with relish is much better digested and therefore more serviceable in nutrition than that which is simply crowded into the stomach.

Examples of Variations in Disease. - Loss of appetite is encountered in febrile attacks and in acute disorders of the stomach. Inordinate appetite, on the contrary, is usually met with when too strong food has been administered. Here the increased hunger is due to the fact that the food administered, while it may be very rich in nutritive properties, is ill-adapted to the delicate digestive power of early life, and thus, by not being properly prepared for absorption, places the child in the anomalous position of starving in the midst of plenty. In more advanced children gluttony may depend upon gastric irritation, a condition which often leads older and presumably wiser heads to over-indulgence at table.