For delicate children or for sick children, the diet must be prescribed in detail and in writing.

During acute illness, at this period the food must consist solely of milk, and it is always well to give the milk diluted with a third or a fourth of its bulk of water or of lime-water.

When the condition is primarily gastro-intcstinal, even milk must be temporarily withheld. In these cases immediate treatment is purgative and stimulant, associated in most cases with gastric lavage and hypodermic saline injection. Water is the essential dietetic constituent here; the dietetic ladder must be slowly climbed, rung by rung, and in many cases no milk should be given until the temperature is approximately normal. In the serious condition of mucous colitis some form of milk poor in curd is often useful, and Nestle's milk (1 dram in 4 ounces water) given frequently in small quantities is a satisfactory form.

When the primary condition, on the other hand, is non-gastro-intestinal, milk diluted about one-third can, as a rule, be given almost from the commencement. It is inadvisable to give more than 1 1/2 pints of milk in the twenty-four hours to an infant of two years old, but frequent drinks of water are beneficial. Theoretically, milk in these cases should always be peptoniscd, but this is often quite unnecessary: this procedure should, however, always be carried out when for any reason in the past history, weakness of the digestive powers is to be feared, and, of course, immediately it is suspected that non-peptonised milk is unsuited to the infant. Of chronic illnesses at this period, gastro-intestinal conditions are very common, and are to be treated along the lines already laid down. This is the time of life when rickets occurs, and the rachitic child requires careful dietetic treatment. He requires regulation of his feeding times, he almost certainly requires restriction of the amount of carbohydrate food which he is receiving, and he usually requires more milk and less of whatever form of improper food it has been his attendant's pleasure to give him. As a rule, the digestive processes in these children are disturbed to a greater or less extent, and caution in the diet is the first indication. Along with reduction of the carbohydrate clement in the food and elimination of improper forms of food, gradual digestive improvement occurs, fat in the form of cream, butter, and eggs should be increased in amount, and the protein element in the food well sustained.

Excess of carbohydrate in the food, and more particularly of starch, is the chief cause of rickets. The presence of abnormal amounts of this foodstuff interferes with the digestion of fat, and though lack of fat in the food frequently causes rickets, yet very often rickets occurs although there is an ample amount of fat present in the milk-mixture, and in these cases the condition is usually due to carbohydrate excess. In treating the case, then, while it is extremely important that an ample supply of fat be given, care must also be taken that the amount of carbohydrate is strictly limited.

For many cases of anemia occurring at this period dietetic treatment is all-important, and, in most, dietetic errors succeeded bygastro-intestinal disorders lie at the root of the evil.

To detail the treatment in these cases, therefore, would signify recapitulation of the rules already laid down as applicable to infant-feeding in general.

To no one foodstuff alone can the condition be ascribed. The whole environment, method of life, and dietetic history must be carefully considered, and it has to be remembered that an important factor in the causation of the condition may have been a dietetic error in connection with any of the food constituents.

Finally, this is the period of life when the earliest, or it may be only the premonitory, signs and symptoms of tuberculous infection disclose themselves, and this, consequently, must be the time when most strenuous measures are undertaken to counteract the infection. Of such measures, not the least important is a plentiful supply of fat in the diet, and cream, butter, eggs, and cod-liver oil must be given to the verge of the child's capacity to utilise them satisfactorily.