The one thing which still remains to do, especially in the case of children in whom teething is not over, is to examine the mouth and ascertain the state of the gums, since some ailments are caused and others are aggravated by teething. A wise mother or an intelligent nurse will teach the child when well the little trick of putting out its tongue and opening its mouth to show its teeth when told to do so; and though it may sometimes indulge rather out of place in these performances when wished to behave especially prettily before strangers, yet when older it will quickly learn the proprieties of behaviour, and in the meanwhile you profit much by the lesson when illness really comes.
Sometimes, however, infants who when well will open their mouth and allow their gums to be felt without difficulty, refuse to do so when ill; and it is always desirable that the mother or nurse whose duty it is to tend the sick child constantly, should not frighten it, or lose its confidence, by doing forcibly that which the doctor who comes occasionally may yet be quite right in doing. You will, however, generally get a good view of the mouth and throat in young infants by gently touching the lips with your finger: the child opens its mouth instinctively, and then you can run your finger quickly over its tongue, and drawing it slightly forward perfectly see the condition of the throat, feel the gums as you withdraw your finger, and notice the appearance of the tongue. Sometimes it is important to ascertain whether a tooth which was near coming through has actually pierced the gum, and yet the child's fretfulness renders it almost impossible to induce it to open its mouth. If now, while the nurse holds the child in her arms, you go behind her, you can, unseen and unawares, introduce your finger into its mouth and ascertain all you wish to know before the little one has recovered from its surprise.
I have but little to say here about the general signs of brain disease in infancy and childhood, because they will need minute notice afterwards. All that I would at present observe is, that you must not at once conclude that a child's head is seriously affected, because it is heavy and fretful and passionate, and refuses to be amused. The head, as we know by our own experience, suffers by sympathy in the course of almost every ailment, certainly of every acute ailment, at all ages. If the babe is not sick; if its bowels can be acted on by ordinary means; if, though drowsy, it can be roused without difficulty; if, though it may prefer a darkened room, it does not shrink from the light when admitted gradually; if it has no slight twitchings of its fingers or of its wrists; if the head, though hot, is not hotter than the rest of the body; if the large vessels of the neck, or the open part of the head, or fontanelle as it is termed, in an infant in whom the head is not yet closed, are not beating violently; and, above all, _if when it cries it sheds tears_, you may quiet your mind on the score of the child's brain, at any rate until the doctor's visit, and may turn a deaf ear to the nurse or the friend who assures you that the child is about to have convulsions or to be attacked by inflammation of the brain.