Hi Cathy, I recall - reading somewhere - a long time ago - that there were medications given to children who were teething - sometimes alcohol or something similar was rubbed on the gums etc. I did a Google search - and found the following [not the item I had originally read] ,Snip>http://www.gober.net/victorian/reports/opium.html Children Children in the nineteenth-century were also subjected to the opium problem. Parents with teething children, mostly poor parents, used opium-based cures for the pain. According to the parliamentary papers, item 38, reports that deaths by poison, between the years 1836-1839 numbered more than 30 (11). These are the deaths that are directly related to the ingestion of opium, as opposed to some children's prolonged use and subsequent death by starvation due to lack of food ,Snip> http://www.bignell.uk.com/glossary_of_old_names.htm <snip>http://www.sedgleymanor.com/diseases/diseases_p-t.html Teething.The entire process which results in the eruption of the teeth. Nineteenth-century medical reports stated that infants were more prone to disease at the time of teething. Symptoms were restlessness, fretfulness, convulsions, diarrhoea, and painful and swollen gums. The latter could be relieved by lancing over the protruding tooth. Often teething was reported as a cause of death in infants. Perhaps they became susceptible to infections, especially if lancing was performed without antisepsis. Another explanation of teething as a cause of death is that infants were often weaned at the time of teething; perhaps they then died from drinking contaminated milk, leading to an infection, or from malnutrition if watered-down milk was given.<Snip> Cheers, Stella At 03:40 PM 2/21/2006, you wrote: >Yes > >Babies do not die from 'teething' - I expect it was a bacteria or virus they >cought while teething? Teething infants are a bit low par so may be a bit >more susceptible to anything goung around? > >cathy > > > >==== BEDFORD Mailing List ==== >Bedfordshire at Rootsweb >http://www.rootsweb.com/~engbdf/