NOTE: - 67 -

209. One must beware of harmful, that is to say, rich and heating foods and drinks.

CHAPTER XXIII. On the Diseases of Young Children.

210. The diseases of young children arise, for the most part, from: 1st, the thick, pitch-black excrement [meconium] formed in the child’s intestines during the first days of birth; 2nd, the turning sour of food in the stomach; 3rd, the difficult cutting of the teeth; 4th, bile and worms. From these causes there occur in children twitching of the nerves [convulsions], epilepsy (palsy), and other such grievous consequences, which prematurely kill children. 211. Although children lack the ability to make their pain understood, yet in their illness there come to light such signs that we are able to understand with what malady they are afflicted. For at the time of a child’s illness, either it throws up from the mouth [matter] like curdled milk; or there is costiveness in the belly; or it purges with griping and of a greenish color; or they drink water beyond measure; or they have the belly distended and hard, and sometimes they start up from their sleep and laugh, contort severely, draw their feet up tight against the belly, sleep little, are restless, fret, sob (hiccup), cough, put their fingers into the mouth, and rub the nose. All these signs, as it were, speak in the child’s stead and make known the causes of the disease, concerning which it is written plainly below.

CHAPTER 24. On Viscous Black Stool* (the evacuated [matter]).

212. In the first days after birth, there is usually expelled from the children’s bowels a sticky, bile-mixed black substance, which

NOTE: * In Latin they call [it] *meconium*: