Many children are lost from teething. The process of dentition often occasions fits. Its symptoms are, swollen and inflamed gums, fever, pain, and heat in the head, sore mouth, etc. Scarification of the gums is often resorted to; but if proper attention be paid to the case in its inception, no such barbarous and injurious method of palliation need be embraced. Bathing the head with diluted spirits, and the feet with warm mustard water; keeping the bowels free and regular by the simplest of herbal laxatives; and placing a plaster (composed of two-thirds flour mustard, one-third flour, and sufficient vinegar to produce the requisite moisture) between the shoulders, will generally obviate all danger and mitigate the pain and suffering. When the sprcckled sore mouth incidental to teething makes its appearance, treat the child as above, but wash the mouth with a mild solution of borax, and use for diet (if the child be weaned) gum-arabic water, and barley or rice water. If the stomach is acid, the bowels are griping, administer mild doses of magnesia. Warm baths are always beneficial to children who are teething; but great care should be taken that the little ones do not catch cold after the baths.

The teeth should appear about the sixth month, though it is often later. The two incisors of the lower jaw are generally the first, and then those of the upper jaw follow. Between the twelfth and sixteenth months the grinders come, and next the eye teeth. The others soon follow, so that by the age of two years, the child has its full set of milk teeth, twenty in number. There are instances of children being born with full sets of teeth, as is recorded of Richard III, and Louis XIV.