"DENTITION. 



19 



the full set of twenty milk teeth. The following scheme shows at a glance the ordei 

 <>f Cutting and the number of teeth which a child should possess at different ages : 



Total No. 



Even in healthy children there is some variation in the time of cutting the teeth, 

 ;jnd if the dates above given be taken as the average, we must allow a month or two 

 of latitude in either direction. Some children are very precocious with their teeth, 

 beginning to cut them at three or four months old, and finish by eighteen months. 

 Occasionally we hear tell of children being born with teeth, like Shakespeare's 

 Kichard III. :-- 



" The midwife wondered, and the women cried 

 ' 0, Jcstt bless t<x, hv in born icith teeth ! ' ' 



When children begin to cut the teeth, the gum swells up and becomes tender, and 

 is painful. This makes the child fretful and peevish, and one that was good before 

 becomes troublesome. This is often the cause of much injudicious feeding, and 

 unwholesome things are given to the baby to keep it quiet, or. else it is over-fed, and 

 is allowed its bottle or is nursed whenever it cries. This, we believe, is the cause of 

 many of the troubles of teething, although we do not mean to deny that the period of 

 tooth-cutting is really critical and trying to weak constitutions. It is, and it has for 

 centuries been the custom to give a child something to suck or bite, with the idea, 

 doubtless, of exercising pressure on the gums and so helping the tooth through its 

 tough casing. A coral at least helps to keep a child quiet, and it is of use in this 

 way certainly, and possibly in other ways. Rubbing the gums gently with a knob 

 of sugar until a speck of blood appears will sometimes help the tooth to pierce 

 the gum. 



Before the teeth are actually cut, a white centre can be seen pressing on the 

 swollen gum, and if this point be evidently very tender, and if the child's condition 

 calls for any interference, it is sometimes advisable to lance the gums ; but this is a 

 proceeding which should not be resorted to without good cause. 



Whenever dentition is greatly delayed, the mother should suspect that her child, 

 from some cause or another, is debilitated. Any weakening constitutional condition 

 will cause delay in cutting the teeth, but the most common of all causes is rickets 

 (see Rickets); and it is perhaps not too much to say that nine out of every ten 

 children in whom dentition is greatly delayed are rickety. Tubercular or scrofulous 

 children, or children who have been weakened by diarrhoea or lung disease, also fail 

 to cut their teeth at the proper time. In very rare cases the condition of the 

 gums or jaws is the cause of the delay in the appearance of the teeth ; but such 



