Children of all ages are liable to gastric disturbances. These are sometimes, but not always, due to the food. Infants are very sensitive to atmospheric changes: heat, cold, damp, bad ventilation, and noxious gases easily upset them, and they are prone to catarrh of the stomach and bowels from these causes. Moreover, their stomachs are very liable to irritation by improper food or irregularity in the time of feeding. Breast-fed children are less often subjected to irritation from this cause than bottle-fed children. But it has been shown again and again that a temporary deficiency in the quality of the mother's milk or irregularity in feeding may cause acute indigestion. Bottle-fed children are very liable to have their stomachs upset by irregularities in the quantity or quality of the food. The indigestion thereby induced is very prone to end in an attack of acute or chronic catarrh of the stomach and bowels. Indeed, this is the most common disorder of the digestive system in children. They are very prone to such attacks during the period of teething. As the children get older gastro-intestinal disorders are less frequent, and when they do occur they assume more and more the type of disease which occurs in adults.

The most prominent symptoms of this disease in young children are vomiting and purging, the former being the most prominent symptom when the stomach is chiefly attacked, and the latter when it principally affects the bowels; but in many cases a considerable portion of the gastro - intestinal tract is affected, and therefore both symptoms are present. In the purely gastric form of the disease, the infant vomits the food as soon as it is taken. It is returned in an undigested form with a watery fluid, consisting partly of whey and partly of gastric secretion. The tongue is red or coated with a white fur. The bowels are confined, the motions are hard, deficient in bile, and clay-coloured. The child cries owing to the occurrence of griping or spasmodic pains. The abdomen is swollen and tender. And the temperature shows that the general condition is more or less febrile. In the intestinal form the motions are loose and contain undigested food - e.g., curds of milk, and mucus, and smell badly. In the combined gastro-intestinal variety of catarrh, diarrhea replaces the constipation.

The treatment of this disease in bottle-fed babies and older children consists of rest of the stomach, and the administration of albumin - water (white of egg and lemon-water), barley-water and cream, with, perhaps, a little milk, lime-water and milk, rice-water, and other mucilaginous drinks. It is sometimes necessary to abstain entirely from giving milk for a few days, but whey or buttermilk can be given. The former can easily be prepared by using junket tablets to set the milk, afterwards breaking it up and straining off the whey through a piece of muslin or butter-cloth. Buttermilk is usually only obtainable from a dairy farm. It is less difficult to prepare a mixture of milk albumin from commercial preparations such as albulactin, a teaspoonful of which may be given, with an equal quantity of sugar and a sprinkle of salt, in half a teacupful of boiled water, at the temperature of the blood. The child should be given a small quantity of any of these liquids every half-hour. They will quench the thirst, soothe the irritable mucous membrane, check the vomiting and purging, and materially assist in curing the disease. If the child is more than six months old we can now try the effects of some Benger's Food in addition to the foregoing, If these agree with the patient we may gradually build up a dietary of milk, Benger's Food, lightly boiled eggs, a small amount of scraped meat, some raw meat juice and veal broth. The return to the ordinary diet, even in older children, must be very gradual, and indiscretions in feeding must be carefully avoided.