The daily number of evacuations of the bowels natural for a child varies greatly with its age. For the first six weeks there should be three or four movements every twenty-four hours. After this time, up to the end of the second year, two movements a day is the normal average. Subsequently, the frequency is the same as in adults - once per diem - though two or three movements in the same interval may occur, especially after overfeeding or after eating food difficult of digestion, and must be looked upon as conservative rather than as the evidence of ill health.

During the first period the passages have the consistence of thick soup, are yellowish-white or orange-yellow in color, with sometimes a tinge of green; have a faint faecal, slightly sour odor, and are acid in reaction. In the second, they are mushy or imperfectly formed, of uniform consistence throughout, brownish-yellow in color, and have a more faecal odor. The last two characters become more marked as additions are made to the diet. After the completion of the first dentition the motions have the same appearance as in adult life; they are formed, are brownish in color, and have a decidedly faecal odor.

Examples of Variations in Disease. - Many alterations occur in disease. The frequency of the movements may be increased, constituting diarrhoea, or lessened, constituting constipation. In the former condition the consistency is diminished, in the latter, increased. Instead of being uniform throughout, the movement may be mixed, partly liquid, partly solid, indicating imperfect digestion, and curds of milk or pieces of undigested solid food may be mingled with the mass. Flaky, yellowish or yellowish-green evacuations containing whitish, cheesy lumps, are also met with in cases of indigestion. Scanty, lumpy evacuations, dark brown or even black in color, and mixed with mucus, are characteristic of intestinal catarrh. Doughy, grayish, or clay-colored motions show an inactive liver. An intermixture of blood, altered blood clots, and shreds of mucous membrane, indicate ulceration of the intestinal lining, such as occurs in intestinal inflammation, typhoid fever, dysentery and tuberculous disease. Watery, almost odorless passages occur in the later stages of summer complaint; most offensive, carrion-like motions, in both catarrhal and tuberculous ulceration of the intestines, and sour-smelling evacuations in the diarrhoea of sucklings. The discovery of worms in the movements is the only certain evidence of the existence of intestinal parasites.

This mere outline of the changes that may take place will serve to show how much may be learned from the evacuations, and the importance of preserving them for the physician's inspection.