← catalogue

The Young Mother: Management of Children in Regard to Health

by William A. Alcott · English · Gutenberg #10482 · 430,975 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Young Mother: Management of Children in Regard to Health
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Young Mother: Management of Children in Regard to Health

Author: William A. Alcott


        
Release date: December 1, 2003 [eBook #10482]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10482

Credits: Produced by Stan Goodman and PG Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG MOTHER: MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN IN REGARD TO HEALTH ***

THE YOUNG MOTHER, OR

MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN IN REGARD TO HEALTH.

BY WM. A. ALCOTT


1836



ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.

The present edition has been much enlarged. The author has added a
section on the conduct and management of the mother herself, besides
several other important amendments and additions. The whole has also
been carefully revised, and we cannot but indulge the hope that no
popular work of the kind will be found more perfect, or more worthy of
the public confidence.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I. THE NURSERY.

General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
blindness.


CHAPTER II. TEMPERATURE.

General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.


CHAPTER III. VENTILATION.

General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
destroys people. Impurity of the air arising from lamps and candles.
Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.


CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD'S DRESS.

General principles--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us from cold; 3. from
injury.

SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._

Buffon's remarks. Transforming children into mummies. Use of a belly-band.
Evils produced by having it too tight. Cripples sometimes made. Absurdity
of confining the arms. Infants should be made happy.

SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._

Curious suggestion of a London writer. Advantages of his plan. Killing
with kindness. Dr. Buchan's opinion. Conformity to fashion. Tight-lacing
the chest. Its effects--dangerous. Physiology of the chest. Its motions.
An attempt to make the subject intelligible. Serious mistakes of some
writers. Appeal to facts. Color of females. Their breathing. Their
diseases. Customs of Tunis. Our own customs little less ridiculous.

SEC. 3. _Material._

Flannel in cold weather. Its use--1. As a kind
of flesh brush; 2. As a protection against taking cold; 3. As means of
equalizing the temperature. Clothing should be kept clean--often
changed--color--lightness--softness. Cotton apt to take fire. Silk
expensive. Linen not warm enough. Flannel under-clothes.

SEC. 4. _Quantity._

The power of habit, in this respect. Opinion that no clothing is
necessary. Anecdote of Alexander and the Scythian. Argument from
analogy. Begin right, in early life. We generally use too much
clothing. Should clothing be often varied?--objections to it. Avoid
dampness.

SEC. 5. _Caps._

How caps produce disease. Nature's head-dress. Miserable apology for
caps. What diseases are avoided by going with the head bare. Judicious
remarks of a foreign writer. Covering the "open of the head." Wetting
the head with spirits.

SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._

Hats usually too warm. No covering needed in the house; and but little
in the sun or rain. Is it dangerous to go with the head always bare?

SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._

The feet should be well covered. Why. Rule of medical men. No garters.
Objections to covering the feet considered. Shoes useful. Not too thick.
Thick soles. Mr. Locke's opinion.

SEC. 8. _Pins._

These ought not to be used. Why. Substitutes. Practice of Dr. Dewees.
Needles--their danger. Shocking anecdote.

SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._

Changing wet clothing. Monstrous error--its evils. Clean as well as dry.
A lame excuse for negligence. No excuse sufficient but poverty.

SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._

Every restraint of body or limb injurious. Tight jackets. Stiff stocks
and thick cravats. Boots. Evils of having them too tight. A painful
sight.

SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._

Clothing should be loose for girls or boys. Girls to be kept warmer than
boys. Few girls comfortable, at home or abroad. Going out of warm rooms
into the night air. How it promotes disease.


CHAPTER V. CLEANLINESS.

Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.


CHAPTER VI. BATHING.

Practice of savage nations. Rather dangerous. Mistake of Rousseau.
Plunging into cold water at birth may produce immediate death. Hundreds
injured where one is benefited. Spirits added to the water. First
washings of the child--should be thorough. Rules in regard to the
temperature of both the water and the air. Washing an introduction to
bathing. Hour for bathing changes with age. Temperature of the water.
Size of a bathing vessel. Unreasonable fears of the warm bath. How they
arose. A list of common whims. Apology for opposing cold baths. Dr
Dewees' eight objections to them. Does cold water harden? Cold bath
sometimes useful under the care of a skilful physician. Its danger in other
cases. Rules for using the cold bath, if used at all. Securing a glow after
it. General management. Proper hour. Coming out of the bath. Dressing.
Singing. Bathing after a meal. Local bathing. Tea-spoonful of water in the
mouth. Its use. The shower bath. Vapor bath. Medicated bath. Sponging.
Conveniences for bathing indispensable to every family. General neglect
of bathing. Attention of the Romans to this subject. We treat domestic
animals better than children.


CHAPTER VII. FOOD.

SEC. 1. _General Principles._

The mother's milk the only appropriate food of infants. Unreasonableness
of some mothers. The tendency to ape foreign fashions. Nursing does not
weaken the mother.

SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._

Much depends on the mother. Opinions of medical societies. Mothers
sometimes make children drunkards. The general fondness for excitements.
Hints to those whom it concerns. Caution to mothers. Opinions of Dr.
Dewees. Slavery of mothers to strong drink and exciting food. Opinions
of the Charleston Board of Health.

SEC. 3. _Nursing, how often._

Children should never be nursed to quiet them. Stomach must have time
for rest. Regular seasons for nursing. Once in three hours. Difference
of constitution. Indulgence does not strengthen. Feeble children require
the strictest management. Nothing should be given between meals.

SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._

Errors. Repetition of aliment. Variety. Children over-fed. Appetite not
a safe guide. Training to gluttony. Illustrations of the principle.
Mankind eat twice as much as is necessary.

SEC. 5. _How long should Milk be the only Food?_

First change in diet. Objections of mothers. Choice bits. Ignorance of
the nature of digestion. What digestion is. Food which the author of
nature assigned.

SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._

When feeding before teething is necessary. Diet of mothers. Substitute
for the mother's milk. How prepared. Variety not necessary to the
infant. Milk best from the same cow. Vessels in which it is used should
be clean. Sweet milk not heated too much. Not frozen. Disgusting
practices. Pure water. If not pure, boil it. Best of sugar. Is sugar
injurious? When the state of the mother's health forbids nursing. Use of
sucking-bottles. Feeding should in all cases be slow. Jolting children
after eating. Tossing. Sucking-bottle as a plaything. Evils of using it
as such. Dirty vessels. Poisonous ones. Character of nurses. Nursing at
both breasts. Age of the nurse. Parents should have the oversight, even
of a nurse.

SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._

Proper age for weaning. Cullen's opinion. Proper season of the year.
When the teeth have fairly protruded. First food given. New forms of
food. Animal broth.

SEC. 8. _During the Process of Weaning._

The spring the best time for weaning. Should not be too sudden. The
process--how managed. Exciting an aversion to the breast. What solid
food should first be given. Buchan's opinion. Health of the mother. She
should--if possible--avoid medicine.

SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._

Views of Dr. Cadogan. Half the children that come into the world go out
of it before they are good for anything. Why? Owing chiefly to errors in
nursing, feeding, and clothing. Simplicity of children's food. Picture
of a modern table. Every dish tortured till it is spoiled. Plain, simple
food, generally despised. How bread is now regarded. How it ought to be.
Mr. Locke's opinion in favor of bread for young children, and against
the use of animal food. Does not differ materially from that of most
medical writers. Vegetable food generally preferred to animal. What is
true of youth, in this respect, is true of every age, with slight
exceptions. Who require most food. Mere bread and water not best. Bread
the staple article of diet. Best kind of bread. Objections to it. How
groundless they are. Fondness, for hot, new bread not natural. Fondness
of change. What it indicates. How it is caused. Train up a child in the
way he should go. We can like what food we please. Second best kind of
bread. Other kinds. Plain puddings. Indian cakes. Salt may be used, in
moderate quantity, but no other condiments. Of butter, cheese, milk, &c.
Potatoes, turnips, onions, beets, and other roots. Beans, peas, and
asparagus. No fat or gravies should be used.

SEC. 10. _Remarks on Fruit._

Diversity of opinion. The cholera. Fruits useful. Seven plain rules in
regard to them. Other rules. A mistake corrected. Fruit before
breakfast. Four arguments in its favor. Particular fruits. Apples. Why
fruits brought to market are generally unfit to be eaten. Are good, ripe
fruits difficult of digestion? Cooking the apple? A man who lives
entirely on apples. Cutting down orchards. Pears, peaches, melons,
grapes. Mixing improper substances with summer fruits.

SEC. 11. _Confectionary._

Confectionary sometimes poisonous. Case in New York. All, or nearly
all confectionaries injurious. Physical evils attending their use.
Intellectual evils. Moral evils. The last most to be dreaded. Slaves
to confectionary are on the road to gluttony, drunkenness, or
debauchery--perhaps all three.

SEC. 12. _Pastry._

Dr. Paris's opinion of pastry. Various forms of it. Hot flour bread a
species of it. Produces, among other evils, eruptions on the face.
Appeal to mothers.

SEC. 13. _Crude, or Raw Substances._

Salads, herbs, &c.--raw--cooked. Nuts, spices, mustard, horseradish,
onions, cucumbers, pickles, &c. None of these should be used, except as
medicine.


CHAPTER VIII. DRINKS.

Infants need little drink. Adults, even, generally drink to cool
themselves. Simple water the best drink. Opinions of Dr. Oliver and Dr.
Dewees. Animal food increases thirst. Only one real drink in the world.
The true object of all drink. Tea, coffee, chocolate, beer, &c. Milk
and water, molasses and water, &c. Cider, wine, and ardent spirits. Bad
food and drink the most prolific sources of disease. Children naturally
prefer water. Danger of hot drinks. Cold drinks. Mischiefs they produce.
Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.


CHAPTER IX. GIVING MEDICINE.

"Prevention" better than "cure." Nine in ten infantile diseases caused
by errors in diet and drink. Signs of failing health. Causes of a bad
breath. Flesh eaters. Gormandizers. General rule for preventing disease.
When to call a physician.


CHAPTER X. EXERCISE.

SEC. 1. _Rocking in the Cradle._

Objections to the use of cradles. Under what circumstances they are
least objectionable.

SEC. 2. _Carrying in the Arms._

Carrying in the arms a suitable exercise for the first two months of
life. Danger of too early sitting up. Improper position in the arms.
Mothers must see to this themselves. Motion in the arms should be
gentle. No tossing, running, or jumping. Infants should not always be
carried on the same arm.

SEC. 3. _Creeping._

Creeping useful to health. Why. Go-carts and leading strings prohibited.
The longer children creep, the better. Their progress in learning to
stand. Let it be slow and natural. Let it be, as much as possible, by
their own voluntary efforts.

SEC. 4. _Walking._

Walking in the nursery. Walking abroad. Hoisting children into carriages.
Walks should not become fatiguing.

SEC. 5. _Riding in Carriages._

Carriages useful before children can walk. Their construction. Should be
drawn steadily. Position of the child in them: Falling asleep. How long
this exercise should be continued.

SEC. 6 _Riding on Horseback._

Never safe for infants. Riding schools. Objections to riding on
horseback, while very young. Tends to cruelty and tyranny.


CHAPTER XI. AMUSEMENTS.

Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
pictures.


CHAPTER XII. CRYING.

Its importance. Danger of repressing a tendency to cry. Anecdote from
Dr. Rush. Physiology of crying. Folly of attempting wholly to suppress
it.


CHAPTER XIII. LAUGHING.

"Laugh and be fat." Laughing is healthy. A common error. Monastic
notions yet too prevalent on this subject.


CHAPTER XIV. SLEEP.

General remarks. A prevalent mistake. A hint to fathers. Few Catos.
Everything left to mothers.

SEC. 1. _Hour for Repose._

Night the season of repose, generally. Infants require all hours.
Sleeping in dark rooms. Excess of caution. Habit of sleeping amid noise.

SEC. 2. _Place._

Where the infant should sleep. Why alone. Poisoning by impure air.
Illustration. Proofs. Friedlander. Dr. Dewees. Destruction of children
by mothers. Anecdote. Moral reasons for having children sleep alone.
Sleeping with the aged. Sleeping with cats and dogs.

SEC. 3 _Purity of the Air._

Nurseries. Windows open during the night. Lowering them from the top.
Habit of Dr. Gregory. Going abroad in the open air.

SEC. 4. _The Bed._

No feathers should be used. They are too warm. Their effluvia
oppressive. Other objections to their use. Mattresses. Air beds. Beds of
cut straw. Soft beds. Testimony of physicians. The pillow. Dampness.
Curtains. Warming the bed. Beds recently occupied by the sick.

SEC. 5. _The Covering._

Light covering. Mistakes of some mothers. Covering the head with bed
clothes.

SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._

As little dress during sleep as possible. No caps. No stockings. Loose
night shirt. No tight articles of nightdress. Frequent exchanging of
clothes.

SEC. 7. _Posture of the Body._

Sleeping on the back--on the sides. Position of the head. The infant's
bedstead. Sir Charles Bell. Darkening the room.

SEC. 8. _State of the Mind._

Mental quiet favorable to sleep. Crying to sleep. A good father. All
anxiety should be avoided.

SEC. 9. _Quality of Sleep._

Soundness of our sleep. Nightmare. How produced. Late reading. Late
suppers. Influence of religion on sleep. Different opinions about sleep.
Truth midway between extremes. Effect of silence and darkness on our
sleep. Of sleep before midnight. Light unfavorable to sleep.

SEC. 10. _Quantity._

Infants need to sleep nearly the whole time. Number of hours required
for sleep. Opinions of eminent men. The author's own opinion. Statements
of Macnish. Estimates on the loss of time by over-sleeping. Hint to
young mothers.


CHAPTER XV. EARLY RISING.

All children naturally early risers. Evils of sitting up late at night.
Excitements in the evening. The morning, by its beauties, invites us
abroad. Example of parents. Forbidding children to rise early. Keeping
them out of the way. Burning them up. "Lecturing" them. What is an early
hour?


CHAPTER XVI. HARDENING THE CONSTITUTION.

Mistakes about hardening children. Their clothing. Much cold enfeebles.
The Scotch Highlanders. The two extremes equally fatal--over-tenderness
and neglect. An interesting anecdote from Dr. Dewees.


CHAPTER XVII. SOCIETY.

Duty of mothers in this matter. Children prefer the society of parents.
Importance of other society. Necessity of society. Early diffidence.
Selecting companions. Moral effects of society on the young. Parents
should play with their children.


CHAPTER XVIII. EMPLOYMENTS.

Influence of mothers over daughters. Anecdote of Benjamin West. Anecdote
of a poor mother. Of set lessons and lectures. Daughters under the
mother's eye. Disliking domestic employments. Miserable housewives--not
to be wondered at. Mistake of one class of men. Mr. Flint's opinion.


CHAPTER XIX. EDUCATION OF THE SENSES.

Extent to which the senses can be improved. Case of the blind. The
Indians. Julia Brace. Tailors, painters, &c.

SEC. 1. _Hearing._

Injury done by caps. Syringing the ears. Anecdote of deafness from
neglect. Means of improving the hearing.

SEC. 2. _Seeing._

Importance of seeing. Near-sighted people--why so common. Heat of our
rooms. Very fine print. Spectacles. Reading when tired. Rubbing the
eyes. Cold water to the eyes.

SEC. 3. _Tasting and Smelling._

Benumbing the senses. How this has often been done. The teeth. How to
preserve them.

SEC. 4. _Feeling._

Corpulence and slovenliness. Sense of touch. The blind--how taught to
read. Hint to parents. The hand. Neglecting the left hand. Physiology of
the hand and arm. Evils of being able to use but one hand. Both should
be educated.


CHAPTER XX. ABUSES.

Bad seats for children at table and elsewhere. Why children hate Sunday.
Seats at Sabbath school--at church--at district schools. Suspending
children between the heavens and the earth. Cushions to sit on. Seats
with backs. Children in factories. Evils produced. Bodily punishment.
Striking the heads of children very injurious. Beating across the middle
of the body. Anecdote of a teacher. Concluding advice to mothers.


       *       *       *       *       *


PREFACE.

There is a prejudice abroad, to some extent, against agitating the
questions--"What shall we eat? What shall we drink? and Wherewithal
shall we be clothed?"--not so much because the Scriptures have charged
us not to be over "anxious" on the subject, as because those who pay the
least attention to what they eat and drink, are supposed to be, after
all, the most healthy.

It is not difficult to ascertain how this opinion originated. There are
a few individuals who are perpetually thinking and talking on this
subject, and who would fain comply with appropriate rules, if they knew
what they were, and if a certain definite course, pursued a few days
only, would change their whole condition, and completely restore a
shattered or ruined constitution. But their ignorance of the laws which
govern the human frame, both in sickness and in health, and their
indisposition to pursue any proposed plan for their improvement long
enough to receive much permanent benefit from it, keep them,
notwithstanding all they say or do, always deteriorating.

Then, on the other hand, there are a few who, in consequence of
possessing by nature very strong constitutions, and laboring at some
active and peculiarly healthy employment, are able for a few, and
perhaps even for many years, to set all the rules of health at defiance.

Now, strange as it may seem, these cases, though they are only
exceptions (and those more apparent than real) to the general rule, are
always dwelt upon, by those who are determined to live as they please,
and to put no restraint either upon themselves or their appetites. For
nothing can be plainer--so it seems to me--than that, taking mankind by
families, or what is still better, by larger portions, they are most
free from pain and disease, as well as most healthy and happy, who pay
the most attention to the laws of human health, that is, those laws or
rules by whose observance alone, that health can be certainly and
permanently secured.

But these families and communities are most healthy and happy, not
because they live in a proper manner, by fits and starts, but because
they have, from some cause or other, adopted and persevered in HABITS
which, compared with the habits of other families, or other communities,
are preferable; that is, more in obedience to the laws which govern the
human constitution. Not that even _they_ are "without sin" or error on
this subject--gross error too--but because their errors are fewer or
less destructive than those of their neighbors.

Now is it possible that any intelligent father or mother of a family,
whose diet, clothing, exercise, &c. are thus comparatively well
regulated, would derive no benefit from the perusal of works which treat
candidly, rationally, and dispassionately, on these points? Is there a
mother in the community who is so destitute of reason and common sense
as not to desire the light of a broader experience in regard to the
tendency of things than she has had, or possibly can have, in her own
family? Is there one who will not be aided by understanding not only
that a certain thing or course is better than another, but also WHY it
is so?

It is by no means the object of this little work to set people to
watching their stomachs from meal to meal, in regard to the effects of
food, drink, &c.; for nothing in the world is better calculated to make
dyspeptics than this. It is true, indeed, that some things may be
obviously and greatly injurious, taken only once; and when they are so,
they should be avoided. But in general, it is the effect of a habitual
use of certain things for a long time together--and the longer the
experiment the better--which we are to observe.

A book to guide mothers in the formation of early good habits in their
offspring, should be the result of long observation and much experiment
on these points, but more especially of a thorough understanding of
human physiology. It should not consist so much of the conceits of a
single brain--perhaps half turned--as of the logical deductions of
severe science, and facts gleaned from the world's history.

Here is a nation, or tribe of men, bringing up children to certain
habits, from generation to generation--and such and such is their
character. Here, again, is another large portion of our race, who, under
similar circumstances of climate, &c. &c., have, for several hundred
years, educated their children very differently, and with different
results. A comparison of things on a large scale, together with a close
attention to the constitution and relations of the human system, affords
ground for drawing conclusions which are or may be useful. If this book
shall not afford light derived from such sources, it were far better
that it had never been written. If it only sets people to watching over
the effects of things taken or used only for a single day, instead of
leading them from early infancy to form in their children such habits as
will preclude, in a great measure, the necessity of watching ourselves
daily, then let the day perish from the memory of the writer, in which
the plan of bringing it forth to the world was conceived. But he is
confident of better things. He does not believe that a work which, to
such an extent, GIVES THE REASON WHY, will be productive of more evil
than good. On the contrary, it must, if read, have the opposite effect.

I do not deny that even after the formation of the best habits, there
will be a necessity of paying some attention to what we eat and what we
drink, from day to day, and from hour to hour; but only that the
tendency of this work is not to increase this necessity, but on the
contrary, to diminish it. In my own view; these occasions of inquiry in
regard to what is right, _physically_ as well as _morally_, are one part
of our trials in this world--one means of forming our characters. We are
constantly tempted to excess and to error, in spite of the most firm
habits of self-denial which can be formed. If we resist temptation, our
characters are improved. And it is by self-denial and self-government in
these smaller matters, that we are to hope for nearly all the progress
we can ever make in the great work of self-education. Great trials of
character come but seldom; and when they come, we are often armed
against them; but these little trials and temptations, coming upon us
every hour--these it is, after all, that give shape to our characters,
and make us constantly growing either better or worse, both in the sight
of God and man. But, as I have repeatedly said, the object of this work
is to diminish rather than to increase the frequency of these trials,
useful though they may be, if duly improved, in the formation of
virtuous, and even of holy character.

There is a sense in which every infant may be said to be born healthy,
so that we may not only adopt the language of the poet, Bowring, and
say

                   --"a child is born;
  Take it, and make it a bud of _moral_ beauty,"

but we may also add--Take it and make it beautiful _physically_. For
though a hereditary predisposition undoubtedly renders some individuals
more susceptible than others to particular diseases, yet when the bodily
organization of an infant is complete, and the degree of vitality which
nature gives it is sufficient to propel the machinery of the frame, it
can scarcely be regarded as in any other state than that of health.

Now if it be the intention of divine Providence (and who will doubt that
it is?) that the animal body should be capable of resisting with
impunity the impressions of heat, cold, light, air, and the various
external influences to which, at birth, it is subjected, it may be
properly asked why this primitive state of health cannot be maintained,
and diseases, and medicines, and even PREVENTIVES wholly avoided.

But the reason is obvious. Civilized society has placed the human race
in artificial circumstances. Instead of listening to the dictates of
reason, making ourselves acquainted with the nature of the human
constitution, and studying to preserve it in health and vigor, we yield
to the government of ignorance and presumption. The first moment, even,
in which we draw breath, sees us placed under the control of individuals
who are totally inadequate to the important charge of preserving the
infant constitution in its original state, and aiding its progress to
maturity. And thus it is that though infants, as a general rule, may be
said to be born healthy, few actually remain so. Seldom, indeed, do we
find a person who has arrived at maturity wholly free from disease, even
in those parts of our country which are reckoned to have the most
healthy climate.

It is indeed commonly said, that a large proportion, both of children
and adults, among the agricultural portion of our population, are
healthy. But it is not so. There is room for doubt whether, on the
whole, the farmers of this country are healthier than the mechanics, or
much more so than the manufacturers; or the whole mass of the country
population healthier than that of the crowded city. The causes of
disease are sufficiently numerous, in all places and conditions; and
this will continue to be the fact, not merely until parents and teachers
shall become more enlightened, but until many generations have been
trained under their enlightened influence.

If the children and adults among our agricultural population derive from
their employments in the open air a more ruddy appearance than those
either of the city or country who are confined more to their rooms; or
to a vitiated atmosphere, and to numerous other sources of disease, and
if they _appear_ more favored with health, I have learned, by accurate
observation, that these appearances are somewhat deceptive. Their active
sports and employments in the open air give them a stronger appetite
than any other class of people; and the indulgence of this appetite, not
only with articles which are heating or indigestible in their nature,
but with an unreasonable quantity even of those which are considered
highly proper, is almost in an exact proportion. And it is hence
scarcely possible for the causes of disease and premature death to be
more operative in factories and in cities than in farm houses and the
country. Indeed it may be questioned whether the abuses of the ANIMAL
part of man--more common in some of their forms in country than in
city--though they may be less conspicuous, are not more certainly and
even more immediately destructive than those abuses which, in city life,
and bustle, and competition, affect more the MORAL nature.

Be that as it may, however--for this is not the place for the grave
discussion of so broad a question--one thing, to my mind, is perfectly
clear, namely, that until physical education shall receive more
attention from all those who hold the sacred office of instructors of
the young, humanity can neither be much elevated nor improved. Mothers
and schoolmasters especially--they who, as Dr. Rush says, plant the
seeds of nearly all the good or evil in the world--must understand, most
deeply and thoroughly, the laws which regulate the various provinces of
the little world in which the soul resides, and which, like so many
states of a great confederacy, have not only their separate interests
and rights, but certain common and general ones; as well as those laws
by which the human constitution is related to and connected with the
objects which everywhere surround, and influence, and limit, and extend
it.

This book contains little, if anything, new to those who are already
familiar with anatomy and physiology. Indeed, whatever may be its
claims, its merits or its demerits, it disclaims novelty. It is, indeed,
in one point of view, _original_;--I mean in its form, manner, and
arrangement. What I have written is chiefly from my own resources--the
results of patient study and observation, and careful reflection; but
that study and observation of human nature, and this reflection, have
been greatly aided by reading the writings of others.

In the prosecution of the task which I had assigned myself, no work has
been of more service to me than an octavo volume of 548 pages, by Dr.
Wm. P. Dewees, of Philadelphia, entitled, "A Treatise on the Physical
and Medical Treatment of Children." It is one of the most valuable works
on Physical Education in the English language, as is evident from the
fact that notwithstanding its expense--three or four dollars--it has, in
nine years, gone through five editions. If it were written in such a
style, and published at such a price as would bring it within reach of
the minds and purses of the mass of the community, its sale would have
been, I think, much greater still; and the good which it has
accomplished would have been increased ten-fold.

If the "YOUNG MOTHER" should be favorably received by the American
community, and prove extensively useful, it will undoubtedly be owing to
the fact that it presents so large a collection of facts and principles
on the great subject of physical education, in a manner so practical,
and at a price which is very low. To accomplish an object so desirable
is by no means an easy task. It was once said by the author of a huge
volume, that he wrote so large a work because he had not time to prepare
a smaller one. And however unaccountable it may be to those who have not
made the trial, it may be safely asserted, that to present, within
limits so small, anything like a system of Physical Education for the
guidance of young mothers, requires much more time, and labor, and
patience, than to prepare a work on the same subject twice as large.

Nor is it to be expected, after all, that the work is, in all respects,
perfect. I have indeed done what I could to render it so; but am
conscious that future inquiries may lead to the discovery of errors.
Should such discoveries be made, they will be cheerfully acknowledged
and corrected; truth being, as it should be, the leading object.


       *       *       *       *       *


THE YOUNG MOTHER.



CHAPTER I.

THE NURSERY.

General remarks. Importance of a Nursery--generally overlooked. Its
walls--ceiling--windows--chimney. Two apartments. Sliding partition.
Reasons for this arrangement. Objections to carpets. Furniture, &c.
Feather beds. Holes or crevices. Currents of air. Cats and dogs.
"Sucking the child's breath." Brilliant objects. Squinting. Causes of
blindness.


It is far from being in the power of every young mother to procure a
suitable room for a nursery. In the present state of society, the
majority must be contented with such places as they can get. Still there
are various reasons for saying what a nursery should be. 1. It may be of
service to those who _have_ the power of selection. 2. Information
cannot injure those who _have not_. 3. It may lead those who have wealth
to extend the hand of charity in this important direction; for there
are not a few who have little sympathy with the wants and distresses of
the adult poor, who will yet open their hearts and unfold their hands
for the relief of suffering _infancy_.

Among those who have what is called a nursery, few select for this
purpose the most appropriate part of the building. It is not
unfrequently the one that can best be spared, is most retired, or most
convenient. Whether it is most favorable to the health and happiness of
its occupants, is usually at best a secondary consideration.

But this ought not so to be. A nursery should never, for example, be on
a ground floor, or in a shaded situation, or in any circumstances which
expose it to dampness, or hinder the occasional approach of the light of
the sun. It should be spacious, with dry walls, high ceiling, and tight
windows. The latter should always be so constructed that the upper sash
can be lowered when we wish to admit or exclude air. It should have a
chimney, if possible; but if not, there should be suitable holes in the
ceiling, for the purposes of ventilation.

The windows should have shutters, so that the room, when necessary, can
be darkened--and green curtains. Some writers say that the windows
should have cross bars before them; but if they do not descend within
three feet of the floor, such an arrangement can hardly be required.

It is highly desirable that every nursery should consist of two rooms,
opening into each other; or what is still better, of one large room,
with a sliding or swinging partition in the middle. The use of this is,
that the mother and child may retire to one, while the other is being
swept or ventilated. They would thus avoid damp air, currents, and dust.
Such an arrangement would also give the occupants a room, fresh, clean
and sweet, in the morning, (which is a very great advantage,) after
having rendered the air of the other foul by sleeping in it.

In winter, and while there is an infant in the nursery, just beginning
to walk, it is recommended by many to cover the floor with a carpet. The
only advantage which they mention is, that it secures the child from
injury if it falls. But I have seldom seen lasting injury inflicted by
simple falls on the hard floor; and there are so many objections to
carpeting a nursery, since it favors an accumulation of dust, bad air,
damp, grease, and other impurities, that it seems to me preferable to
omit it. Many physicians, I must own, recommend carpets during winter,
though not in summer; and in no case, unless they are well shaken and
aired, at least once a week.

No furniture should be admissible, except the beds for the mother and
child, a table, and a few chairs. With the best writers and highest
authorities on the subject, I am decidedly of opinion that all feather
beds ought effectually and forever to be excluded from nurseries. The
reasons for this prohibition will appear hereafter.

Every nursery should, if possible, be free from holes or crevices;
otherwise the occupants will be exposed to currents of air, and their
sometimes terrible and always injurious consequences. The room may, in
this way, be kept at a lower medium temperature--a point of very great
importance.

Cats and dogs, I believe, are usually excluded from the nursery; if not,
they ought to be. For though the apprehension of cats "sucking the
child's breath," is wholly groundless, yet they may be provoked by the
rude attacks of a child to inflict upon it a lasting injury. Besides,
they assist, by respiration, in contaminating the air, like all other
animals.

If there are, in the nursery, objects which, from the vivacity or
brilliancy of their colors, attract the attention of the child, they
should never be presented to them sideways, or immediately over their
heads. The reason for this caution is, that children seek, and pursue
almost instinctively, bright objects; and are thus liable to contract a
habit of moving their eyes in an oblique direction, which _may_
terminate in squinting.

Many parents seem to take great pleasure in indulging the young infant
in looking at these bright objects; especially a lamp or a candle. If
the child is naturally strong and vigorous, no immediate perceptible
injury may arise; but I am confident in the opinion that the result is
often quite otherwise. For many weeks, if not many months of their early
existence, they should not be permitted to sit or lie and gaze at any
bright object, be it ever so weak or distant, unless placed exactly
before their eyes; and even in the latter case, it were better to avoid
it.

Heat is also injurious to the eyes of all, and of course not less so to
children than to adults. But when a strong light and heat are conjoined,
as is the case of sitting around a large blazing fire--the former custom
of New England--it is no wonder if the infantile eyes become early
injured. No wonder that the generation now on the stage, early subjected
to these abuses, should be found almost universally in the use of
spectacles.

This may be the most proper place for observing that great care ought to
be taken, at the birth of the child, to prevent a too sudden exposure of
the tender organ of vision to the light. We believe this caution is
generally omitted by the American physician, though it is one which
accords with the plainest dictates of common sense. Who of us has not
experienced the pain of emerging suddenly from the darkness of a cellar
to the ordinary light of day? The strongest eyes of the adult are
scarcely able to bear the transition. How much more painful to the
tender organs of the new-born infant must be the change to which it is
so frequently subjected? And how easy it is to prevent the pain and
danger of the change, by more effectually darkening the room into which
it is introduced!

But we have testimony on this point. A distinguished German physician
states that he has known many cases of permanent blindness from this
very cause to which we have referred. The Principal of the Institution
for the Blind, at Vienna, says he is confident that most children who
appear to be born blind, are actually made blind by neglecting this same
precaution.




CHAPTER II.

TEMPERATURE.

General principle--"Keep cool." Our own sensations not always to be
trusted. Thermometer. Why infants require more external heat than
adults. Means of warmth. Air heated in other apartments. Clothes taking
fire. Stove--railing around it. Excess of heat--its dangers.


There is one general principle, on this subject, which is alike
applicable to all persons and circumstances. It is, to keep a little too
cool, rather than in the slightest degree too warm. In other words, the
lowest temperature which is compatible with comfort, is, in all cases,
best adapted to health; and a slight degree of coldness, provided it
amount not to a chill, and is not long continued, is more safe than the
smallest unnecessary degree of warmth.

But the application of this rule to those over whom we have control, is
not without its difficulties. Our own sensations are so variable,
independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all
times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real
state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a
thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one. It should be
placed, however, in such a situation as to indicate the real temperature
of the atmosphere, and not where it will give a false result.

No mother should forget that the infant, at birth, has not the power of
generating heat, internally, to the extent which it possesses afterward.
The lungs have as yet but a feeble, inefficient action. The purification
of the blood, through their agency, is not only incomplete, but the heat
evolved is as yet inconsiderable. In the absence of internal heat, then,
there is an increased demand externally. If 60º be deemed suitable for
most other persons, the new-born infant may, for a few days, require 65º
or even 70º.

Much may and should be done in preserving the child in a proper
temperature by means of its clothing. On this point I shall speak at
length, in another part of this work. My present purpose is simply to
treat of the temperature of the nursery.

The best way of warming a nursery--or indeed any other room, where MERE
warmth is demanded--is by means of air heated in other apartments, and
admitted through openings in the floor or fire-place. The air is not
only thus made more pure, but every possibility of accidents, such as
having the clothes take fire, is precluded. This last consideration is
one of very great importance, and I hope will not be much longer
overlooked in infantile education.

Next to that, in point of usefulness and safety, is a stove, placed near
or IN the fire-place, and defended by an iron railing. Most people
prefer an open stove; and on some accounts it is indeed preferable,
especially where it is desirable to burn coal. Still I think that the
direct rays of the heat, and the glare of light from open stoves and
fire-places, particularly for the young, form a very serious objection
to their use.

One of the strongest objections to open stoves and fire-places in the
nursery is, the increased exposure to accidents. I know it is said that
this evil may be avoided by laying aside the use of cotton, and wearing
nothing but worsted or flannel. This is indeed true; but I do not like
the idea of being compelled to dress children in flannel or worsted, at
all times when the least particle of fire is demanded; for this would be
to wear this stimulating kind of clothing, in our climate, the greater
part of the year.

Besides, I write for many mothers who are compelled to use cotton, on
account of the expense of flannel. And if the stove be a close one, and
well defended by a railing, cotton will seldom expose to danger. Still,
as has been already said, the introduction of heated air from another
apartment, whenever it can possibly be afforded, is incomparably better
than either stoves or fire-places.

Dr. Dewees is fully persuaded that the excessive heat of nurseries has
occasioned a great mortality among very young children. "In the first
place," he says, "it over-stimulates them; and in the second, it renders
them so susceptible of cold, that any draught of cold air endangers
their lives. They are in a constant perspiration, which is frequently
checked by an exposure to even an atmosphere of moderate temperature."
If this is but to repeat what has been already said, the importance of
the subject seems to be a sufficient apology.




CHAPTER III.

VENTILATION.

General ignorance of the constitution of the atmosphere. The subject
briefly explained. Oxygen gas. Nitrogen. Carbonic acid. Fires, candles,
and breathing dependent on oxygen. Danger from carbonic acid. How it
destroys people. Impurity of the air by means of lamps and candles.
Other sources of impurity. Experiment of putting the candle under the
bed-clothes. Covering the heads of infants while sleeping--its dangers.
Proportions of oxygen and nitrogen in pure and impure air. No wonder
children become sickly. Particular means of ventilating rooms. Caution
in regard to lamps. Washing, ironing, cooking, &c., in a nursery. Their
evil tendency. Fumigation--camphor, vinegar.


Few people take sufficient pains to preserve the air in any of their
apartments pure; for few know what the constitution of our atmosphere
is, and in how many ways and with what ease it is rendered impure.

It is not my purpose to go into a learned, scientific account in this
place, or even in this work, of the constitution of the atmosphere. A
few plain statements are all that are indispensable. The atmosphere
which we breathe is composed of two different airs or gases. One of
these is called oxygen, [Footnote: Oxygen gas is the chief supporter of
combustion, as well as of respiration. It is the vital part, as it were,
of the air. No animal or vegetable could long exist without it. And yet
if alone, unmixed, it is too pure and too refined for animals to
breathe. Nitrogen gas, on the contrary, while alone, will not support
either respiration or combustion; mixed, however, with oxygen, it
dilutes it, and in the most happy manner fits it for reception into the
lungs.] and the other nitrogen. There is another gas usually found with
these two, in smaller quantity, called carbonic acid gas; but whether it
is necessary, in a very small quantity, to health, chemists, I believe,
are not agreed. One thing, however, is certain--that if any portion of
it is healthful, it must be very little--not more, certainly, than
one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of the whole mass.

It is by means of the oxygen it contains, that air sustains life and
combustion. Were it not for this, neither fires nor candles would burn,
and no animal could breathe a single moment. Breathing consumes this
oxygen of the air very rapidly. When the oxygen is present in about a
certain proportion, combustion and respiration go on well, but when its
natural proportion is diminished, the fire does not burn so well,
neither does the candle; and no one can breathe so freely.

Not only are breathing and combustion impeded or disturbed by the
diminution of oxygen in the atmosphere, but just in proportion as oxygen
is diminished by these two processes, or either of them, carbonic acid
is formed, which is not only bad for combustion, but much worse for
health. If any considerable quantity of it is inhaled, it appears to be
an absolute poison to the human system; and if in _very large quantity_,
will often cause immediate death.

It is this gas, accumulated in large quantities, that destroys so many
people in close rooms, where there is no chimney, nor any other place
for the bad air to escape. But it not only kills people outright--it
partly kills, that is, it poisons, more or less, hundreds of thousands.

In a nursery there is the mother and child, and perhaps the nurse, to
render the air impure by breathing, the fire and the lamp or candle to
contribute to the same result, besides several other causes not yet
mentioned. One of these is nearly related to the former. I allude to the
fact that our skins, by perspiration and by other means, are a source of
much impurity to the atmosphere; a fact which will be more fully
explained and illustrated in the chapter on Bathing and Cleanliness. It
is only necessary to say, in this place, that it is not the matter of
perspiration alone which, issuing from the skin, renders the air
impure; there are other exhalations more or less constantly going off
from every living body, especially from the lungs; and carbonic acid gas
is even formed all over the surface of the skin, as well as by means of
the lungs.

One needs no better proof that carbonic acid is formed on the surface of
the body, than the fact that after the body has been closely covered all
night, if you introduce a candle under the bed-clothes into this
confined air, it will be quickly extinguished, because there is too
much carbonic acid gas there, and too little oxygen.

We may hence see at once the evil of covering the heads of infants when
they lie down--a very common practice. The air, when pure, contains a
little more than 20 parts of oxygen, and a little less than 80 of
nitrogen. Breathing this air, as I have already shown, consumes the
oxygen, which is so necessary to life and health, and leaves in its
place an increase of nitrogen and carbonic acid gas, which are not
necessary to health, and the latter of which is even positively
injurious. But when the oxygen, instead of forming 20 or more parts in
100 of the atmosphere of the nursery, is reduced to 15 or 18 parts only,
and the carbonic acid gas is increased from 1 or 2 parts in 100, to 5,
6, 8 or 10--when to this is added the other noxious exhalations from the
body, and from the lamp or candle, fire-place, feather bed, stagnant
fluids in the room, &c., &c.--is it any wonder that children, in the
end, become sickly? What else could be expected but that the seeds of
disease, thus early sown, should in due time spring up, and produce
their appropriate fruits?

It is sometimes said that fire in a room purifies it. It undoubtedly
does so, to a certain extent, if fresh air be often admitted; but not
otherwise.

I have classed feather beds among the common causes of impurity. Dr.
Dewees also condemns them, most decidedly; and gives substantial reasons
for "driving them out of the nursery."

In speaking of the structure of the room used for a nursery, I have
adverted to the importance of having a large or double room, with
sliding doors between, in order that the occupants may go into one of
them, while the other is being ventilated. But whatever may be the
structure of the room, the circumstances of the occupants, or the state
of the weather, every nursery ought to be most thoroughly ventilated,
once a day, at least; and when the weather is tolerable, twice a day. If
there is but one apartment, and fear is entertained of the dampness of
the fresh air introduced, or of currents, and if the mother and babe
cannot retire, there is a last resort, which is for them to get into
bed, and cover themselves a short time with the clothing. For though I
have prohibited the covering of the face with the bed-clothes for any
considerable length of time together, yet to do so for some fifteen or
twenty minutes is an evil of far less magnitude than to suffer an
apartment to remain without being ventilated, for twenty-four hours
together--a very common occurrence.

When a lamp is kept burning in a nursery during the night, it should
always be placed at the door of the stove, or in the chimney place, that
its smoke, and the bad airs or gases which are formed, may escape. But
it is better, in general, to avoid burning lamps or candles during the
night. By means of common matches, a light may be produced, when
necessary, almost instantly; especially if you have a spirit lamp in the
nursery, or what is still better, one of spirit gas--that is, a mixture
of alcohol and turpentine.

It is highly desirable that all washing, ironing, and cooking should be
avoided in the nursery. They load the air with noxious effluvia or
vapor, or with particles of dust; none of which ought ever to enter the
delicate lungs of an infant.

Fumigations with camphor, vinegar, and other similar substances, have
long been in reputation as a means of purifying the air in sick-rooms
and nurseries; but they are of very little consequence. Fresh air, if it
can be had, is always better.




CHAPTER IV.

THE CHILD'S DRESS

General principles. SEC. 1. Swathing the body--its numerous evils.--SEC.
2. Form of the dress. Fashion. Tight lacing--its dangers. Structure and
motion of the chest. Diseases from tight lacing.--SEC. 3. Material of
dress. Flannel--its uses. Cleanliness. Cotton--silk--linen.--SEC. 4.
Quantity of dress. Power of habit. Anecdote. Begin right. Change.
Dampness.--SEC. 5. Caps--their evils. Going bare-headed.--SEC. 6. Hats
and bonnets.--SEC. 7. Covering for the feet. Stockings. Garters.
Shoes--thick soles.--SEC. 8. Pins--their danger. Shocking
anecdote.--SEC. 9. Remaining wet.--SEC. 10. Dress of boys. Tight
jackets. Stocks and cravats. Boots.--SEC. 11. Dress of girls--should be
loose. Temperature. Exposure to the night air.


Dress serves three important purposes:--1. To cover us; 2. To defend us
against cold; 3. To defend our bodies and limbs from injury. There is
one more purpose of dress; in case of deformity, it seems to improve the
appearance.

In all our arrangements in regard to dress, whether of children or of
adults, we should ever keep in mind the above principles. The form,
fashion, material, application, and quantity of all clothing,
especially for infants, ought to be regulated by these three or four
rules.

The subject of this chapter is one of so much importance, and embraces
such a variety of items, that it will be more convenient, both to the
reader and myself, to consider it under several minor heads.


SEC. 1. _Swathing the Body._

Buffon, in his "Natural History," says that in France, an infant has
hardly enjoyed the liberty of moving and stretching its limbs, before it
is put into confinement. "It is swathed," says he, "its head is fixed,
its legs are stretched out at full length, and its arms placed straight
down by the side of its body. In this manner it is bound tight with
cloths and bandages, so that it cannot stir a limb; indeed it is
fortunate that the poor thing is not muffled up so as to be unable to
breathe."

All swathing, except with a single bandage around the abdomen, is
decidedly unreasonable, injurious and cruel. I do not pretend that the
remarks of M. Buffon are fully applicable to the condition of infants in
the United States. The good sense of the community nowhere permits us to
transform a beautiful babe quite into an Egyptian mummy. Still there
are many considerable errors on the subject of infantile dress, which,
in the progress of my remarks, I shall find it necessary to expose.

The use of a simple band cannot be objected to. It affords a general
support to the abdomen, and a particular one to the _umbilicus_. The
last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a
rupture at this part of the body--a tendency which very often exists in
feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying,
coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate
the evil, if not produce serious consequences.

But, in order to afford a support to the abdomen in the best manner, it
is by no means necessary that the bandage should be drawn very tight.
Two thirds of the nurses in this country greatly err in this respect,
and suppose that the more tightly a bandage is drawn, the better. It
should be firm, but yet gently yielding; and therefore a piece of
flannel cut "bias," as it is termed, or, obliquely with respect to the
threads of which it is composed, is the most appropriate material.

If the attention of the mother were necessary nowhere else, it would be
indispensable in the application of this article. If she do not take
special pains to prevent it, the erring though well meaning nurse may
so compress the body with the bandage as to produce pain and uneasiness,
and sometimes severe colic. Nay, worse evils than even this have been
known to arise. When a child sneezes, or coughs, or cries, the abdomen
should naturally yield gently; but if it is so confined that it cannot
yield where the band is applied, it will yield in an unnatural
proportion below, to the great danger of producing a species of rupture,
no less troublesome than the one which such tight swathing is designed
to prevent.

But besides the bandage already mentioned, no other restraint of the
body and limbs of a child is at all admissible. The Creator has kindly
ordained that the human body and limbs, and especially its muscles, or
moving powers, shall be developed by exercise. Confine an arm or a leg,
even in a child of ten years of age, and the limb will not increase
either in strength or size as it otherwise would, because its muscles
are not exercised; and the fact is still more obvious in infancy.

There is a still deeper evil. On all the limbs are fixed two sets of
muscles; one to extend, the other to draw up or bend the limb. If you
keep a limb extended for a considerable time, you weaken the one set of
muscles; if you keep it bent, you weaken the other. This weakness may
become so great that the limb will be rendered useless. There are cases
on record--well authenticated--where children, by being obliged to sit
in one place on a hard floor, have been made cripples for life. Hundreds
of others are injured, though they may not become absolutely crippled.

I repeat it, therefore, their dress should be so free and loose that
they may use their little limbs, their neck and their bodies, as much as
they please; and in every desired direction. The practices of confining
their arms while they lie down, for fear they should scratch themselves
with their nails, and of pinning the clothes round their feet, are
therefore highly reprehensible. Better that they should even
occasionally scratch themselves with their nails, than that they should
be made the victims of injurious restraint. Who would think of tying up
or muffling the young lamb or kid? And even the young plant--what think
you would be the effect, if its leaves and branches could not move
gently with the soft breezes? Would the fluids circulate, and health be
promoted: or would they stagnate, and a morbid, sickly and dwarfish
state be the consequence?

Those whose object is to make infancy, as well as any other period of
existence, a season of happiness, will not fail to find an additional
motive for giving the little stranger entire freedom in the land
whither he has so recently arrived, especially when he seems to enjoy
it so much. Who can be so hardened as to confine him, unless compelled
by the most pressing necessity?


SEC. 2. _Form of the Dress._

On this subject a writer in the London Literary Gazette of some eight or
ten years ago, lays down the following general directions, to which, in
cold weather, there can be but one possible objection, which is, they
are not _alamode_, and are not, therefore, likely to be followed.

"All that a child requires, so far as regards clothing, in the first
month of its existence, is a simple covering for the trunk and
extremities of the body, made of a material soft and agreeable to the
skin, and which can retain, in an equable degree, the animal
temperature. These qualities are to be found in perfection in fine
flannel; and I recommend that the only clothing, for the first month or
six weeks, be a square piece of flannel, large enough to involve fully
and overlap the whole of the babe, with the exception of the head, which
should be left totally uncovered. This wrapper should be fixed by a
button near the breast, and left so loose as to permit the arms and legs
to be freely stretched, and moved in every direction. It should be
succeeded by a loose flannel gown with sleeves, which should be worn
till the end of the second month; after which it may be changed to the
common clothing used by children of this age."

The advantages of such a dress are, that the movements of the infant
will be, as we have already seen, free and unrestrained, and we shall
escape the misery of hearing the screams which now so frequently
accompany the dressing and undressing of almost every child. No chafings
from friction, moreover, can occur; and as the insensible perspiration
is in this way promoted over the whole surface of the body, the sympathy
between the stomach and skin is happily maintained. A healthy sympathy
of this kind, duly kept up, does much towards preserving the stomach in
a good state, and the skin from eruptions and sores.

But as I apprehend that christianity is not yet very deeply rooted in
the minds and hearts of parents, I have already expressed my doubts
whether they are prepared to receive and profit by advice at once
rational and physiological. Still I cannot help hoping that I shall
succeed in persuading mothers to have every part of a child's dress
perfectly loose, except the band already referred to; and that should be
but moderately tight.

Common humanity ought to teach us better than to put the body of a
helpless infant into a _vise_, and press it to death, as the first mark
of our attention. Who has not been struck with a strange inconsistency
in the conduct of mothers and nurses, who, while they are so exceedingly
tender towards the infant in some points as to injure it by their
kindness, are yet almost insensible to its cries of distress while
dressing it? So far, indeed, are they from feeling emotions of pity,
that they often make light of its cries, regarding them as signs of
health and vigor.

There can be no doubt, I confess, that the first cries of an infant, if
strong, both indicate and promote a healthy state of the lungs, to a
certain extent; but there will always be unavoidable occasions enough
for crying to promote health, even after we have done all we can in the
way of avoiding pain. They who only draw the child's dress the tighter,
the more it cries, are guilty of a crime of little less enormity than
murder.

"Think," says Dr. Buchan, "of the immense number of children that die of
convulsions soon after birth; and be assured that these (its cries) are
much oftener owing to galling pressure, or some external injury, than to
any inward cause." This same writer adds, that he has known a child
which was "seized with convulsion fits" soon after being "swaddled,"
immediately relieved by taking off the rollers and bandages; and he says
that a loose dress prevented the return of the disease.

I think it is obvious that the utmost extent to which we ought to go, in
yielding to the fashion, as it regards form, is to use three pieces of
clothing--the shirt, the petticoat and the frock; all of which must be
as loose as possible; and before the infant begins to crawl about much,
the latter should be long, for the salve of covering the feet and legs.
At four or five years of age, loose trowsers, with boys, may be
substituted for the petticoat; but it is a question whether something
like the frock might not, with every individual, be usefully retained
through life.

I wish it were unnecessary, in a book like this, to join in the general
complaint against tight lacing any part of the body, but especially the
chest. But as this work of torture is sometimes begun almost from the
cradle, and as prevention is better than cure, the hope of preventing
that for which no cure appears yet to have been found, leads me to make
a few remarks on the subject.

As it has long been my opinion that one reason why mothers continue to
overlook the subject is, that they do not understand the structure and
motion of the chest, I have attempted the following explanation and
illustration.

I have already said, that if we bandage tightly, for a considerable
time, any part of the human frame, it is apt to become weaker. The more
a portion of the frame which is furnished with muscles, those curious
instruments of motion, is used, provided it is not _over_-exerted, the
more vigorous it is. Bind up an arm, or a hand, or a foot, and keep it
bound for twelve hours of the day for many years, and think you it will
be as strong as it otherwise would have been? Facts prove the contrary.
The Chinese swathe the feet of their infant females; and they are not
only small, but weak.

I have said their feet are smaller for being bandaged. So is a hand or
an arm. Action--healthy, constant action--is indispensable to the
perfect development of the body and limbs. Why it is so, is another
thing. But so it is; and it is a principle or law of the great Creator
which cannot be evaded. More than this; if you bind some parts of the
body tightly, so as to compress them as much as you can without
producing actual pain, you will find that the part not only ceases to
grow, but actually dwindles away. I have seen this tried again and
again. Even the solid parts perish under pressure. When a person first
wears a false head of hair, the clasp which rests upon the head, at the
upper part of the forehead, being new and elastic, and pressing rather
closely, will, in a few months, often make quite an indentation in the
cranium or bone of the head.

Now is it probable--nay, is it possible--that the lungs, especially
those of young persons, can expand and come to their full and natural
size under pressure, even though the pressure should be slight? Must
they not be weakened? And if the pressure be strong, as it sometimes is,
must they not dwindle away?

We know, too, from the nature and structure of the lungs themselves,
that tight lacing must injure them. Many mothers have very imperfect
notions of what physicians mean, when they say that corsets impede the
circulation, by preventing the full and undisturbed action of the lungs.
They get no higher ideas of the _motion_ of the _chest_, than what is
connected with bending the body forward and backward, from right to
left, &c. They know that, if dressed too tightly, _this_ motion is not
so free as it otherwise would be; but if they are not so closely laced
as to prevent that free bending of the body of which I have been
speaking, they think there can be no danger; or at least, none of
consequence.

Now it happens that this sort of motion is not that to which physicians
refer, when they complain of corsets. Strictly speaking, this bending of
the whole body is performed by the muscles of the back, and not those
of the chest. The latter have very little to do with it. It is true,
that even _this_ motion ought not to be hindered; but if it is, the evil
is one of little comparative magnitude.

Every time we breathe naturally, all the ribs, together with the breast
bone, have motion. The ribs rise, and spread a little outward,
especially towards the fore part. The breast bone not only rises, but
swings forward a little, like a pendulum. But the moment the chest is
swathed or bandaged, this motion must be hindered; and the more, in
proportion to the tightness.

On this point, those persons make a sad mistake, who say that "a busk
not too wide nor too rigid seems to correspond to the supporting spine,
and to assist, rather than impede the efforts of nature, to keep the
body erect."

Can we seriously compare the offices of the spine with those of the
ribs, and suppose that because the former is fixed like a post, at the
back part of the lungs, therefore an artificial post in front would be
useful? Why, we might just as well argue in favor of hanging weights to
a door, or a clog to a pendulum, in order to make it swing backwards and
forwards more easily. We might almost as well say that the elbow ought
to be made firm, to correspond with the shoulders, and thus become
advocates for letting the stays or bandages enclose the arm above the
elbow, and fasten it firmly to the side. Indeed, the consequences in the
latter case, aside from a little inconvenience, would not be half so
destructive to health as in the former. The ribs, where they join to the
back bone, form hinges; and hinges are made for motion. But if you
fasten them to a post in front, of what value are the hinges?

If mothers ask, of what use this motion of the lungs is, it is only
necessary to refer them to the chapter on Ventilation, in which I trust
the subject is made intelligible, and a satisfactory answer afforded.

But I might appeal to facts. Let us look at females around us generally.
Do their countenances indicate that they enjoy as good health as they
did when dress was worn more loosely? Have they not oftener a leaden
hue, as if the blood in them was darker? Are they not oftener
short-breathed than formerly? As they advance in life, have they not
more chronic diseases? Are not their chests smaller and weaker? And as
the doctrine that if one member suffers, all the other members suffer
with it, is not less true in physiology than in morals, do we not find
other organs besides the lungs weakened? Surgeons and physicians, who,
like faithful sentinels, have watched at their post half a century,
tell us, moreover, that if these foolish and injurious practices to
which I refer are tolerated two centuries longer, every female will be
deformed, and the whole race greatly degenerated, physically and
morally.

Those with whom no arguments will avail, are recommended to read the
following remarks from the first volume of the Library of Health, p.
119:

"It is related, on the authority of Macgill, that in Tunis, after a girl
is engaged, or betrothed, she is then _fattened_. For this purpose, she
is cooped up in a small room, and shackles of gold and silver are placed
upon her ancles and wrists, as a piece of dress. If she is to be married
to a man who has discharged, despatched, or lost a former wife, the
shackles which the former wife wore are put on the new bride's limbs,
and she is fed till they are filled up to a proper thickness. The food
used for this custom worthy of the barbarians is called _drough_, which
is of an extraordinary fattening quality, and also famous for rendering
the milk of the nurse rich and abundant. With this and their national
dish, _cuscasoo_, the bride is literally crammed, and many actually die
under the spoon."

We laugh at all this, and well we may; but there are customs not very
far from home, no less ridiculous.

"There is a country four or five thousand miles westward of Tunis,
where the females, to a very great extent, are emaciated for marriage,
instead being fattened. This process is begun, in part, by shackles--not
of gold and silver, perhaps, but of wood--but instead of being put on
loosely, and causing the body or limbs to fill them, they are made to
compress the body in the outset; and as the size of the latter
diminishes, the shackles are contracted or tightened. As with the
eastern, so with the western females, many of them die under the
process; though a far greater number die at a remote period, as the
consequence of it."


SEC. 3. _Material._

I have already committed myself to the reader as favoring the use of
soft flannel in cold weather, especially for children who are not yet
able to run about freely in the open air. The advantages of an early use
of this material, at least for under-clothes, are numerous. The
following are a few of them.

1. Flannel, next to the skin, is a pleasant flesh brush; keeping up a
gentle and equable irritation, and promoting perspiration and every
other function which it is the office of the skin to perform, or assist
in performing.

2. It guards the body against the cooling effects of evaporation, when
in a state of profuse perspiration.

3. By preventing the heat of the body from escaping too rapidly, it
keeps up a steadier temperature on the surface than any other known
substance. The importance of the last consideration is greater, in a
climate like our own, than elsewhere.

But there are limits to the use of this article of clothing. Whenever
the temperature of the atmosphere is so great, even without artificial
heat, that we no longer wish to retain the heat of the body by the
clothing, then all flannel should be removed at once, and linen should
be substituted; taking care to replace the flannel whenever the
temperature of the atmosphere, as indicated by the thermometer, or by
the child's feelings, may seem to require it.

It should also be kept clean. There is a very general mistake abroad on
this subject. Many suppose that flannel can be worn longer without
washing than other kinds of cloth. On the contrary, it should be changed
oftener than cotton, or even linen, because it will absorb a great deal
of fluid, especially the matter of perspiration, which, if long
retained, is believed to ferment, and produce unhealthy, if not
poisonous gases. For this reason, too, flannel for children's clothing
should be white, that it may show dirt the more readily, and obtain the
more frequent washing; although it is for this very reason--its
liability to exhibit the least particles of dirt--that it is commonly
rejected.

One caution more in regard to the use of flannel may be necessary. With
some children, owing to a peculiarity of constitution, flannel will
produce eruptions on the skin, which are very troublesome. Whenever this
is the case, the flannel should be immediately laid aside; upon which
the eruptions usually disappear.

If parents would take proper pains to get the lighter, softer kinds of
flannel for this purpose, and be particular about its looseness and
quantity, I should prefer, as I have already intimated, to have very
young children, in our climate, wear this material the greater part of
the year, excepting perhaps July and August.

My reasons for this course would be, first, that I like the stimulus of
soft flannel on the skin, if changed sufficiently often, better than
that of any other kind of clothing. Secondly, cotton is so liable to
take fire, that its use in the nursery and among little children seems
very hazardous. Thirdly, silk is not quite the appropriate material, as
a general thing, besides being too expensive; and fourthly, linen is
not warm enough, except in mid-summer.

Except, therefore, in July and August, and in cases of idiosyncracy,
such as have just been alluded to, I would use flannel for the
under-clothes of young children, throughout the year. But whenever they
acquire sufficient strength to walk and run, and play much in the open
air, I would gradually lay aside the use of all flannel, even in winter.
Great attention, however, must be paid to the _quantity_. The parent
who, guided by this rule, should keep on her child the same amount of
flannel, and of the same thickness, from January to June 30th, and then,
on the first of July, should suddenly exchange it for thin linen, in
moderate quantity, might find trouble from it. It is better to make the
changes more gradually; otherwise, whatever may be the material of the
dress, the child will be likely to suffer.


SEC. 4. _Quantity._

The quantity of clothing used by different individuals of the same age,
in the same climate, possessing constitutions nearly alike, and
following similar occupations, is so different as to strike us with
surprise when we first observe the fact.

One will wear nothing but a coarse linen or cotton shirt, coarse coat,
waistcoat, and pantaloons, and boots, in the coldest weather. He never,
unless it be on the Sabbath, puts on even a cravat, and never in any
case stockings or mittens.

Another, in similar circumstances in all respects, constantly wears his
thick stockings, flannel wrapper and drawers, and cravat; and seldom
goes out, in cold weather, without mittens and an overcoat. He is not a
whit warmer: indeed he often suffers more from the cold, than his
neighbor who dresses in the manner just described.

Why all this difference? It is no doubt the result of habit. Any
individual may accustom himself to much or little clothing. And the
earlier the habit is begun, the greater is its influence.

Some persons, observing how little clothing one may accustom himself to
use and yet be comfortable, have told us, that so far as mere
temperature is concerned, we need no clothing at all. They relate the
story of the Scythian and Alexander. Alexander asked the former how he
could go without clothes in such a cold climate. He replied, by asking
Alexander how he could go with his face naked. "Habit reconciles us to
this;" was the reply. "Think me, then, _all_ face," said the Scythian.

But admitting that certain individuals, and even a few rude tribes,
have gone without clothing; did they therefore follow, in this respect,
the intentions of nature? The greatest stickler for adhering to nature's
plan, cannot prove this. Analogy is against it. Most of the other
animals, even in hot climates, are furnished with a hairy covering from
the first; and in cold climates, the Author of their being has even
provided them with an increase of clothing for the winter. Their fur, on
the approach of cold weather, not only becomes whiter, and therefore
conducts the heat away from the body more slowly, but, as every dealer
in furs well understands, it becomes softer and thicker. And yet the
blood of the furred animals of cold countries is as warm as ours, if not
warmer.

The inferences which it seems to me we ought to make from this are, that
if other animals require clothing, and even a change of clothing, so
does man; and that as the Creator has left him to provide, by his own
ingenuity, for a great many of his wants, instead of furnishing him with
instinct to direct him, so in relation to dress. And even if it could be
proved that dress were naturally unnecessary, with reference to
temperature, I should still defend its use on other principles. The few
speculative minds, therefore, that in the vagaries of their fancy, but
never in their practice, reject it, are not to be regarded.

The principle laid down in the commencement of the chapter on
Temperature, is the great principle which should guide us in regard to
dress. But although we should always keep a little too cool rather than
a little too warm, it is by no means desirable to be cold. Any degree of
chilliness, long continued, interrupts the functions which the skin
ought to perform, and thus produces mischief.

The same rules, in this respect, apply to eating, as well as to dress.
It is better to eat a little less than nature requires, than a little
more. It is a generally received opinion, however, that mankind
frequently, at least in this country, eat about twice as much as health
requires. This is owing to habit; and perhaps the power of the latter is
as great in this respect as in regard to dress.

The great point in regard to food or dress is, to _begin_ right, and,
observing what nature requires--studying at the same time the testimony
of others--to endeavor to keep within the bounds she has assigned. It
has already been more than intimated, that if the nursery be kept in a
proper temperature, a single loose piece of dress is, for some time, all
that is required. In pursuance of this principle, through life, I
believe few persons would be found who would need more at one time than
a single suit of woollen clothes, even in the severest winters of our
northern climate.

I have always observed that they who wear the greatest amount of
clothing, are most subject to colds. There are obvious reasons why it
should be so. This, then, if a fact, is one of the strongest reasons in
favor of acquiring a habit of going as thinly clad as we possibly can,
and not at the same time feel any inconvenience.

But after all, whether it be winter or summer, we must vary our clothing
with the variations of the weather, as indicated by the thermometer, and
our own feelings. Sometimes, in our ever-changing and ever-changeable
climate, it may be necessary to vary our dress three or four times a
day. Some cry out against this practice as dangerous, but I have never
found it so. I have known persons who made it a constant practice; and I
never found that they sustained any injury from it, except the loss of a
little time; and the increase of comfort was more than enough to
compensate for that. There is one thing to be avoided, however, whether
we change our clothing--our linen especially--twice a day, or only twice
a week--which is, _dampness_.


SEC. 5. _Caps._

The practice of putting caps on infants is happily going by; and perhaps
it may be thought unnecessary for me to dwell a single moment on the
subject. But as the practice still prevails in some parts of the
country, it may be well to bestow upon it a few passing remarks.

Many mothers have not considered that the circulation of the blood in
young infants is peculiarly active; that a large amount of blood is at
that period carried to the head; that in consequence of this, the head
is proportionably hotter than in adults; and that from this source
arises the tendency of very young children to brain-fever, dropsy in the
head, and other diseases of this part of the system. But these are most
undoubted facts.

Hence one reason why the heads of infants should be kept as cool as
possible; and though a thin cap confines less heat than a thick head of
hair does when they are older, yet they are less able to bear it. The
truth is, that nature furnishes a covering for the head, just about as
fast as a covering is required, and the child's safety will permit.

At the present day, few persons will probably be found, who will defend
the utility of caps, any longer than till the hair is grown. The
general apology for their use after this period, and indeed in most
instances before, is, that they look pretty. "What would people say to
see my darling without a cap?"

But when the head is kept, from the first, totally uncovered, the hair
grows more rapidly, dandruff and other scurfy diseases rarely attack the
scalp; catarrh, snuffles, and other similar complaints, and above all,
dropsy in the head, seldom show themselves; and the period of cutting
teeth, that most dangerous period in the life of an infant, is passed
over with much more safety.

"Nothing but custom," says a foreign writer, "can reconcile us to the
cap, with all its lace and trumpery ornaments, on the beautiful head of
a child; and I would ask any one to say candidly, whether he thinks the
children in the pictures of Titian and Raffaelle would be improved by
having their heads covered with caps, instead of the silken curls--the
adornment of nature--which cluster round their smiling faces. If there
were no other reason for disusing caps for infants, but the improvement
which it produces in the _appearance_ of the child, I would maintain
that this is a sufficient inducement." And I concur with him fully.

As to the notion--now I hope nearly exploded--that it is necessary to
cover up the "open of the head," as it is called, nothing can be more
idle. This part of the head requires no more covering than any other
part; and if it did, all the dress in the world could not affect it in
the least, except to retard the growth of the bones, which, in due time,
ought to close up the space; and this effect, anything which keeps the
head too hot might help to produce. Of the folly of wetting the head
with spirits, or any other medicated lotions, and of making daily
efforts to bring it into shape, it is unnecessary to speak in the
present chapter.


SEC. 6. _Hats and Bonnets._

The hats worn in this country are almost universally too warm. But if it
is a great mistake in adults to wear thick, heavy hats, it is much more
so in the case of children.

The infant in the nursery, as we have already seen, needs no covering of
the kind. It is absolutely necessary that the head should be kept as
cool as possible; and absolutely dangerous to cover it too warmly. At a
later period, however, the danger greatly diminishes, because the
circulation of the blood becomes more equal, and does not tend so much
towards the brain.

Still, however, the head is hotter than the limbs, especially the hands
and feet; and I cannot help thinking that the hair is the only covering
which is perfectly safe, either in childhood or age; except in the
sunshine or in the storm. There may be--there probably is--some danger
in going without hat or bonnet in the hot sun; though I have known many
children, and some grown persons, who were constantly exposed in this
way, and yet appeared not to suffer from it.

But this may be the proper place to state that we are ever in great
danger of deceiving ourselves on this subject. If the individuals who
follow practices usually regarded as pernicious, while their habits in
other respects are just like those of other persons around them who have
similar strength, &c. of constitution,--if these individuals, I say,
were wholly to escape disease, through life, or if they were to be so
much more free from it, and live to an age so much greater than others
as to constitute a striking and obvious difference in their favor, we
might then safely argue that the practices which they follow are at
least without dangers, if not of obvious advantage. But when we see them
beset with ills, like other people, it is not safe to pronounce their
habits favorable to health, since it is impossible to know whether some
of the ills which they suffer are not produced by them.

These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head
in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this
practice from early infancy,[Footnote: I say, from early infancy;
because we may adopt the best habits in mature years, after our
constitutions have been broken up by error and vice, without effecting
anything more than to keep us from actually sinking at once. Indeed, in
most cases we ought not to expect more.] subject to as many diseases as
those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat
different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our
errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty
that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.

I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light
hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be
exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we
cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as
it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive
of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that
it is better to wear than to omit them.

But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound
philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats
as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said
before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine;
but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so
oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser
evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the
practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage
nations, can never be very great.


SEC. 7. _Covering for the Feet._

The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in
early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For
just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance,
and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion
is it sent to the feet in too _small_ a quantity, leaving these parts
liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the
feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially
while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.

So long, therefore, as children are young, and unable to exercise their
feet, stockings ought to be used, both in summer and winter; but I
prefer to have them short, unless long ones can be used without garters.
Everything in the shape of a garter or ligature round the limbs, body,
or neck of a child, except a single body-band, already mentioned in
another chapter, ought forever to be banished.

It has often been objected, I know, that stockings will make the feet
tender. But as no child was ever hardened by _continued_ and severe cold
applied to any part of the body, but the contrary, so no one was ever
made more tender by being kept moderately warm. Excess of heat, like
excess of cold, will alike weaken either children or adults; but there
is little danger of heating the feet and legs of infants too much during
the first year of infancy.

It is also said that stockings are apt to receive and retain wet. But as
I shall show in another place that wet clothes should be frequently
changed, this objection would be equally strong against wearing coats
and diapers.

As to shoes, there is some variety of opinion among medical men. A few
hold that they cramp the feet, and prevent children from learning to
walk as early as they otherwise would. If it were best for children
that they should learn to walk as early as possible, the last objection
might have weight. But it seems to me not at all desirable to be in
haste about their walking. Indeed, I greatly prefer to retard their
progress, in this respect, rather than to hasten it.

As to the first objection, that shoes cramp the feet too much, nearly
its whole force turns upon the question whether they are made of proper
materials or not. There is no need of making them of cow-hide, or any
other thick leather. The soles are the most important part. These will
defend the feet against pins, needles, and such other sharp substances
as are usually found on the floor; and the upper part of the shoe, so
long as the wearer remains in the nursery, may be made of the softest
and most yielding material--even of cloth. Infants' shoes should always
be made on two lasts, one for each foot.

The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their
shoes ought to be "so that they might leak and let in water, whenever
they came near it." There may be and probably is, no harm in having a
child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry
stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go
too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after
they have been using much active exercise. I am in favor of good,
substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions,
and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound
economy and the laws of the human constitution.


SEC. 8. _Pins._

The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children,
ought by all means to be set aside. They not only often wound the skin,
but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the
joints of the limbs. So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and
where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their
sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is,
that it is quite time the practice were abolished.

Do you ask what can be substituted?--The following mode is adopted by
Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the "Physical
and Medical Treatment of Children," at page 86.

"The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is
used in their adjustment. The little shirt, which is always made much
larger than the infant's body, is folded on the back and bosom, and
these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the
petticoat: so far not a pin is used. The diaper requires one, but this
should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of
holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in
its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen
depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper,
by the same pin.

"Should an extraordinary display of best 'bib and tucker' be required
upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the
well-sitting of the 'frock' waist in front;--this last pin, however, is
applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child's
body is very small, even if it should become displaced."

The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen
needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose
life was well nigh destroyed in this manner. It underwent months of ill
health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its
trouble was suspected. Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing
but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the
least relief. At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician,
near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two
inches long. The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping
into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the
child's body. It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer
had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost
everything but death,--fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating
pain,--it soon recovered.

This shocking circumstance is enough, one would think, to deter every
mother or nurse, who becomes acquainted with it, from using needles in
infants' clothes. Happy would it be, if, in banishing needles, they
would contrive to banish pins also, and adopt either the plan of Dr.
Dewees, or one still more rational.


SEC. 9. _Remaining Wet._

On the subject of changing the wet clothing of a child, there is a
strange and monstrous error abroad; which is, that by suffering them to
remain wet and cold, we harden the constitution. The filthiness of this
practice is enough to condemn it, were there nothing else to be said
against it.

It is insisted on by many, I know, that as water which is salt, when it
is applied to the skin, and suffered to remain long, while it secures
the point of hardening the child, prevents all possibility of its taking
cold, it hence follows, that wet diapers are not injurious. But this is
a mistake. Every time an infant is allowed to remain wet, we not only
endanger its taking cold, but expose it to excoriations of the skin, if
not to serious and dangerous inflammation. In short, if frequent changes
are not made, whatever some mothers and nurses may think, they may rest
assured, that the health of the child must sooner or later suffer as the
consequence.

Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is
dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be
told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a
certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth
having, is the result of toil. Nothing but absolute poverty affords the
shadow of an excuse for neglecting anything which will promote the
health, or even the comfort of the tender infant.

Of the impropriety and danger of suffering wet clothes to dry upon us, I
shall speak elsewhere; as well as of the evil of suffering children to
remain dirty,--their skins or their clothing.


SEC. 10. _Remarks on the Dress of Boys._

Whatever tends to disturb the growth of the body, or hinder the free
exercise of the limbs, during the infancy and childhood of both sexes
is injurious. And as every mother has the control of these things, I
have thought it desirable to append to this chapter a few thoughts on
the particular dress of each sex. I begin with that of boys.

"Nothing can be more injurious to health," says a foreign writer, "than
the tight jacket, buttoned up to the throat, the well-fitted boots, and
the stiff stock." And his remarks are nearly as applicable to this
country as to England. The consequences of this preposterous method of
dressing boys, are diminutive manhood, deformity of person, and a
constitution either already imbued with disease, or highly susceptible
of its impression.

No part of the modern dress of boys is more absurd, than the stiff
stock, or thick cravat. It is not only injurious by pressing on the
_jugular_ veins, and preventing the blood from freely passing out of the
head, but, by constantly pressing on the numerous and complex muscles of
the neck, at this period of life, it prevents their development; because
whatever hinders the action of the muscular parts, hinders their growth,
and makes them even appear as if wasted.

It would be a great improvement, if this part of dress were wholly
discarded; and when is there so appropriate a time for setting it aside,
as _before we began to use it_; or rather while we are under the more
immediate care of our mothers?

The use of jackets buttoned up to the throat, except in cold weather, is
objectionable; but this is very fortunately going out of fashion.

Boots, if used at all, should fit well; to this there can be no possible
objection. What the writer, whom I have quoted, referred to, was
probably the tight boot, worn to prevent the foot from being large and
unseemly; but producing, as tight boots inevitably do, an injurious
effect upon the muscles, a constrained walk, and corns.

What can be more painful, than to see little boys--yes, _little_
boys--boys neither fifteen, nor twenty, nor twenty-five, walk as if they
were fettered and trussed up for the spit; unable to look down, or turn
their heads, on account of a thick stock, or two or three cravats piled
on the top of each other--and only capable of using their arms to dangle
a cane, or carry an umbrella, as they hobble along, perhaps on a hot
sun-shiny day in July or August?

But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power
to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over
your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the
least, you can prevent it for a time--the most important period, too--by
your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to
do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.


SEC. 11. _On the Dress of Girls._

The same general principles which should guide the young mother in
regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the
management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang
loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of
it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only
great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to
true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.

There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of
girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame
requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as
well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.

But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter
are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk,
many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their
limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find
a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.

Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were
to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their
daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should
probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too,
without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball
rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and
churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin
unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,--that active exercise which
health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to
inspire,--should unwarily be committed.

The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at
sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only
add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, the liver,
the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and
perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal
organs of the body _are_ active, they act at a great disadvantage. The
blood which they "work up," is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the
lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of
diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very
difficult of removal.

What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from
school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from
the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with
carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a
leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting,
frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it
would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a
picture.




CHAPTER V.

CLEANLINESS.

Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.


No mother will ever pay that attention to cleanliness which its
importance to health and happiness demands, till she perceives its
necessity. And she will never perceive that necessity till she has
studied attentively the machinery of the human frame--and especially its
wonderful covering.

The skin is pierced with little openings or _pores_, so numerous that
some have reckoned them at a million to every square inch. At all
events, they are so small that the naked eye can neither distinguish nor
count them; and so numerous, that we cannot pierce the skin with the
finest needle without hitting one or more of them.

When we are in perfect health, and the skin clean, a gentle moisture or
mist continually oozes through these pores. This process is called
_perspiration_; and the moisture which thus escapes, the _matter_ of
perspiration.

Perspiration may be checked in two ways. 1. by filth on the skin; 2. by
what is commonly called taking cold--for taking cold essentially
consists in chilling the skin to such a degree as to stop, for some
time, the escape of this moisture. Most persons have doubtless observed,
that in the first stages of a cold, they frequently have a very dry
skin. Whereas, when we are in health, the skin usually feels moist.

Our health is not only endangered, and a foundation laid for fevers,
rheumatisms, and consumptions, by stopping the pores of the skin with
dirt, or anything else, but there is also danger from another and a very
different source.

The blood, in its circulation through the body, is constantly becoming
impure; and as it thus comes back impure to the heart, is as constantly
sent to the lungs, where it comes in close contact with the air which we
breathe, and is purified. But this same purifying process which goes on
in the lungs, goes on, too, if the skin is in a pure, free, healthy
condition, all over the surface of the body. If it is not--if the skin
cannot do this part of the work--an additional burden is thus laid on
the lungs, which in this way soon become so overworked, that they
cannot perform their own proportion of the labor. And whenever this
happens, the health must soon suffer.

The strange belief, that "dirt is healthy," has much influence on the
daily practice of thousands of those who are ignorant of the human
structure, and the laws which govern and regulate the animal economy. It
has probably originated in the well-known fact, that those children who
are allowed to play in the dirt, are often as healthy--and even _more_
healthy--than those who are confined to the nursery or the parlor.

Now, while it is admitted that this is a very common case, it is yet
believed that the former class of children would be still more vigorous
than they now are, if they were kept more cleanly, or were at least
frequently washed. It is not the dirt which promotes their health, but
their active exercise in the open air; the advantages of which are more
than sufficient to compensate for the injury which they sustain from the
dirt. That is to say, they retain, in spite of the dirt, better health
than those who are denied the blessings of pure air and abundant
exercise, and subjected to the opposite extreme of almost constant
confinement.

There is something deceitful, after all, in the ruddy, blooming
appearance of those children who are left by the busy parent to play in
the road or field, without attention to cleanliness. If this were not
so, how comes it to pass that they suffer much more, not only from
chronic, but from acute diseases, than children whose parents are in
better circumstances?

I am the more solicitous to combat a belief in the salutary tendency of
an unclean skin, because I know it prevails to some extent; and because
I know also, both from reason and from fact, that it is a gross error.

It is, however, true, that years sometimes intervene, before the evil
consequences of dirtiness appear. The office of the vessels of the skin
being interrupted, an increase of action is imposed on other parts,
especially on those internal organs commonly called glands, which action
is apt to settle into obstinate disease. Hence, at least when aided by
other causes, often arise, in later life, after the source of the evil
is forgotten, if it were ever suspected, rheumatism, scrofula, jaundice,
and even consumption.

There is a strange notion abroad, that the _smell_ of the earth is
beneficial, especially to consumptive persons. I honestly believe,
however, that it is more likely to create consumption than to cure it.
Besides, in what does this smell consist? Do the silex, the alumine, and
the other earths, with their compounds, emit any odor? Rarely, I
believe, unless when mixed with vegetable matter. But no gases
necessary to health are evolved during the decomposition of vegetable
matter; on the contrary, it is well known that many of them tend to
induce disease.

I am thoroughly persuaded that too much attention cannot be paid to
cleanliness; and the demand for such attention is equally imperious in
the case of those who cultivate the earth, or labor in it, or on stone,
during the intervals of their useful avocations, as in the case of those
individuals who follow other employments.

I must also protest against the doctrine, that the smell or taste of the
earth, much less a coat of it spread over the surface, and closing up,
for hours and days together, thousands and millions of those little
pores with which the Author of this "wondrous frame" has pierced the
skin, can have a salutary tendency.

The opinion has been even maintained, that uncleanly habits are not only
unfavorable to health, but to morality. There can be no doubt that he
who neglects his person and dress will be found lower in the scale of
morals, other things being equal, than he who pays a due regard to
cleanliness.

Some have supposed that a disposition to neglect personal cleanliness
was indicative of genius. But this opinion is grossly erroneous, and
has well nigh ruined many a young man.

I am far from recommending any degree of fastidiousness on this subject.
Truth and correct practice usually lie between extremes. But I do and
must insist, that the connection between cleanliness of body and purity
of moral character, is much more close and direct than has usually been
supposed.

But to return to the more immediate effects of cleanliness on health.
There is one class of diseases in particular which, in an eminent
degree, owe their origin to a neglect of cleanliness. I refer to the
bowel complaints so common among children during summer and autumn.
Except in case of teething, the use of unripe fruits, or the _abuse_ of
those which are in themselves excellent, it is probable that more than
half of the bowel complaints of the young are either produced or greatly
aggravated by a foul skin.

The importance of washing the whole body in water will be insisted on in
the chapter on Bathing; it is therefore unnecessary to say anything
farther on that subject in this place, except to observe that whether
the washings of the body be partial or general, they should be thorough,
so far as they are carried. There are thousands of children who, in
pretending to wash their hands and face, will do little more than wet
the inside of their hands, and the tips of their noses and ears unless
great care is taken.

Few things are more important than suitable changes of dress. There are
those, who, from principle, never wear the same under-garment but one
day without washing, either in summer or winter; and there are others
who, though they may wear an article without washing two or three
successive days, take care to change their dress at night--never
sleeping in a garment which they have worn during the day.

It is a very common objection to suggestions like these, that they will
do very well for those who have wealth, but not for the poor;--that
_they_ have neither the time nor the means of attending to them. How can
they change their clothes every day? we are asked. And how can they
afford to have a separate dress for the night?

There must be retrenchment in some other matters, it is admitted. In
order to find time for more washing, or money to pay others for the
labor, the poor must deny themselves a few things which they now
suppose, if they have ever thought at all on the subject, are conducive
to their happiness--but which are in reality either useless or
injurious. Something may be saved by a reasonable dress, as I have
already shown. Other items of expense, which might be spared with great
advantage to health and happiness, and applied to the purpose in
question, will be mentioned in the chapter on Food and Drink.




CHAPTER VI.

ON BATHING.

Danger of savage practices. Rousseau. Cold water at birth. First washing
of the child. Rules. Temperature. Bathing vessels. Unreasonable fears.
Whims. Views of Dr. Dewees. Hardening. Rules for the cold bath. Securing
a glow. Coming out of the bath. Local baths. Shower bath. Vapor bath.
Sponging. Neglect of bathing. The Romans. Treatment of children compared
with that of domestic animals.


Some of the hardy nations of antiquity, as well as a few savage tribes
of modern times, have been accustomed to plunge their new-born infants
into cold water. This is done for the two-fold purpose of washing and
hardening them.

To all who reason but for a moment on this subject, the danger of such a
practice must be obvious. So sudden a change from a temperature of
nearly 100º of Fahrenheit to one quite low, perhaps scarcely 40º, must
and does have a powerful effect on the nervous system even of an adult;
but how much more on that of a tender infant? We may form some idea of
this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden
contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its
palpitating heart and difficult breathing.

Every one's experience may also remind him, that what produces at best a
momentary pain to himself, cannot otherwise than be painful to the
infant. In making a comparison between adults and infants, however, in
this respect, we should remember that the lungs of the infant do not get
into full and vigorous action until some time after birth; and that, on
this account, the hold they have on life is so feeble, that any powerful
shock, and especially that given by the cold bath, is ten times more
dangerous to them than to adults, or even to infants themselves, after a
few months have elapsed.

It is surprising to me that so sensible a writer as Rousseau generally
is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and
still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should
persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse,
and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote:
Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking
nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been
prescribed by higher authority,--I mean the physician. There are cases
of this kind, where it requires all the resolution which a father,
uninterrupted, can summon to his aid, to administer a dose or perform a
task, on which he knows the existence of his child may be depending: but
when the thoughtless entreaties of the mother or nurse are interposed,
it makes his condition most distressing. Mothers, in such cases, ought
to encourage rather than remonstrate. They who _do not_, are guilty of
cruelty, and--perhaps--of infanticide.]

A child plunged into cold water at birth, by those whose theories carry
them so far as to do it even in the coldest weather, has sometimes been
twenty-four hours in recovering, notwithstanding the most active and
judicious efforts to restore it. In other instances the results have
been still more distressing. Dr. Dewees is persuaded that he has "known
death itself to follow the use of cold water," in this way--I believe he
means _immediate_ death--and adds, with great confidence, that he has
"repeatedly seen it require the lapse of several hours before reaction
could establish itself; during which time the pale and sunken cheeks and
livid lips declared the almost exhausted state" of the infant's
excitability.[Footnote: "Dewees on children" p. 72.]

We need not hesitate to put very great confidence in the opinion here
expressed; for besides being a close and just observer of human nature,
Dr. D. has had the direction and management, in a greater or less
degree, of several thousands of new-born infants.

Nothing, indeed, in the whole range of physical education, seems better
proved, than that while some few infants, whose constitutions are
naturally very strong, are invigorated by the practice in question,
others, in the proportion of hundreds for one, who are _less_ robust,
are injured for life; some of them seriously.

Nor will spirits added to the water make any material difference. I am
aware that there is a very general notion abroad, that the injurious
effects of cold water, in its application both internally and
externally, are greatly diminished by the addition of a little spirit;
but it is not so. Does the addition of such a small quantity of spirit
as is generally used in these cases, materially alter the temperature?
Is it not the application of a cold liquid to a heated surface, still?
Can we make anything else of it, either more or less?

I do not undertake to say, that the cold bath may not be so managed in
the progress of infancy, as to make it beneficial, especially to strong
constitutions. It is its indiscriminate application to all new-born
children, without regard to strength of constitution, or any other
circumstances, that I most strenuously oppose. Of its occasional use,
under the eye of a physician, and by parents who will discriminate, I
shall say more presently.

Our first duty on receiving a new inhabitant of the world is, to see
that it is gently but thoroughly washed, in moderately warm soft water,
with fine soap. Special attention should be paid to the folds of the
joints, the neck, the arm pits, &c. For rubbing the body, in order to
disengage anything which might obstruct the pores, or irritate or fret
the skin, nothing can be preferable to a piece of soft sponge or
flannel. Though the operation should be thorough, and also as rapid as
the nature of circumstances will permit, all harshness should be
avoided. When finished, the child should be wiped perfectly dry with
soft flannel.

While the washing is performed, the temperature of the room should be
but a few degrees lower than that of the water; and the child should not
be exposed to currents of cold air. If the weather is severe, or if
currents of air in the room cannot otherwise be avoided, the dressing,
undressing, washing, &c., may be done near the fire. And I repeat the
rule, it should always be done with as much rapidity as is compatible
with safety.

Here will be seen one great advantage of simplicity in the form of
dress. If the more rational suggestions of our chapter on that subject
are attended to, it will greatly facilitate the process of washing, and
the subsequent daily process of bathing, which I am about to recommend
to my readers.

This washing process is also an introduction to bathing. For it should
be repeated every day; but with less and less attention to the washing,
and more and more reference to the bathing. How long the child should
stay in the bath, must be left to experience. If he is quiet, fifteen
minutes can never be too long; and I should not object to twenty. If
otherwise, and you are obliged to remove him in five minutes, or even in
three, still the bathing will be of too much service to be dispensed
with.

Nothing should be mixed with the water, if the infant is healthy, except
a little soap, as already mentioned. Some are fond of using salt; but it
is by no means necessary, and may do harm.

The proper hour for bathing is the early part of the day, or about the
middle of the forenoon. This season is selected, because the process,
manage it as carefully as we may, is at first a little exhausting. As
the child grows older, however, and not only becomes stronger, but
appears to be actually refreshed and invigorated by the bath, it will be
advisable to defer it to a later and later hour. By the time the babe is
three months old, particularly in the warm season, the hour of bathing
may be at sunset.

The degree of heat must be determined, in part, by observing its effect
on the child; and in part by a thermometer. For this, and for other
purposes, a thermometer, as I have already more than hinted, is
indispensable in every nursery. Our own sensations are often at best a
very unsafe guide. There is one rule which should always be
observed--never to have the temperature of the bath below that of the
air of the room. If the thermometer show the latter to be 70º, the bath
should be something like 80º; perhaps with feeble children, rather more.

Great care ought always to be taken to proportion the air of the room
and the water of the bath to each other. If, for example, the
temperature of the room have been, for some time, unusually warm, that
of the water must not be so low as if it had been otherwise. On the
contrary, if the room have been, for a considerable time, rather cool,
the bath may be made several degrees cooler than in other circumstances.
But in no case and in no circumstances must a _warm_ bath--intended as
such, simply--be so warm or so cold, as to make the child uncomfortable;
whether the temperature be 70º, 80º, or 90º.

It is hardly necessary to add, that in bathing a young child, the vessel
used for the purpose should be large enough to give free scope to all
the motions of its extremities. Most children are delighted to play and
scramble about in the water. I know, indeed, that the contrary sometimes
happens; but when it does, it is usually--I do not say _always_--because
the countenances of those who are around express fear or apprehension;
for it is surprising how early these little beings learn to decipher our
feelings by our very countenances.

Some of our readers may be surprised at the intimation that there are
mothers and nurses who have fears or apprehensions in regard to the
effects of the warm bath; but others--and it is for such that I write
this paragraph--will fully understand me. I have been often surprised at
the fact, but it is undoubted, that there is a strong prejudice against
warm bathing, in many parts of the country. In endeavoring to trace the
cause, I have usually found that it arose from having seen or heard of
some child who died soon after its application. I have had many a parent
remonstrate with me on the danger of the warm bath; and this, too, in
circumstances when it appeared to me, that the child's existence
depended, under God, on that very measure. Perhaps it is useless in such
cases, however, to reason with parents on the subject. The medical
practitioner must do his duty boldly and fearlessly, and risk the
consequences.

But as I am writing, not for persons under immediate excitement, but for
those that may be reasoned with, it is proper to say, that in medicine,
the warm bath is so often used in extreme cases, and as a last resort,
even when death has already grasped, or is about to fix his grasp on the
sufferer, that it would be very strange if many persons _did not_ die,
just after bathing. But that the bathing itself ever produced this
result, in one case in a thousand, there is not the slightest reason for
believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the
general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is _chiefly_
owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway.
On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance,
indolence, and parsimony.]

There are many more whims connected with bathing, as with almost
everything else, which it were equally desirable to remove. Some nurses
and mothers think that if the child's skin is wiped dry after bathing,
it will impair, if not destroy, the good effects of the operation.
Others still, shocking to relate, will even put it to bed in its wet
clothes; this, too, from principle. Not unlike this, is the belief, very
common among adults, that if we get our clothes wet--even our
stockings--we must, by all means, suffer them to dry on us; a belief
which, in its results, has sent thousands to a premature grave--and,
what is still worse, made invalids, for life, of a still greater number.

I am aware, that in rejecting the indiscriminate cold bathing of
infants, I am treading on ground which is rather unpopular, even with
medical men; a large proportion of whom seem to believe that the
practice may be useful. But I am not _wholly_ alone. Dr. Dewees--of
whose large experience I have already spoken--and some others, do not
hesitate to avow similar sentiments.

The objections of Dr. Dewees to cold bathing are the following. 1. There
often exists a predisposition to disease, which cold bathing is sure to
rouse to action. Or if the disease have already begun to affect the
system, the bath is sure to aggravate it. 2. Some children have such
feeble constitutions that they are sure to be permanently weakened by
it, rather than invigorated. 3. To those in whom there is the tendency
of a large quantity of blood to the head, lungs, liver, &c., it is
injurious. 4. In some, the shock produces a species of syncope, or
catalepsy. 5. The _reaction_, as shown by the heat which follows the
cold bath, is, in some cases, so great as to produce a degree of fever,
and consequent debility. 6. It never answers the purposes of
cleanliness--one great object of bathing--so well as the warm bath. 7.
It is always unpleasant or painful to the child; especially at first. 8.
It sometimes produces severe pain in the bowels.

This is a very formidable list of objections; and certainly deserves
consideration. There is one statement made by Dr. D. in the progress of
his remarks on this subject, in which I do not concur. He says--"The
object of all bathing is to remove impurities arising from dust,
perspiration, &c., from the surface; that the skin may not be obstructed
in the performance of its proper offices."

But the object of cold bathing, with many, is to _harden_; consequently
it is not true that cleanliness is the _only object_. If he means, even,
that cleanliness is the only _legitimate_ object of all bathing, I shall
still be compelled to dissent.

If the cold bath could be used, always, by and with the direction of a
skilful physician, I believe its occasional use might be rendered
salutary. And although as it is now commonly used, I believe its effects
are almost anything but salutary, I do not deny that if its use were
cautiously and gradually begun, and judiciously conducted, it might be
the means of making children who are already robust, still more hardy
and healthy than before, and better able to resist those sudden changes
of temperature so common in our climate, and so apt to produce cold,
fever, and consumption.

Cold bathing, in the hands of those who are ignorant of the laws of the
human frame--and such unfortunately and unaccountably most fathers and
mothers are--I cannot help regarding as a highly dangerous weapon; and
therefore it is, that in view of the whole subject, I cannot recommend
its general and indiscriminate use.

If there are individuals, however, who are determined to employ it, in
the case of their more vigorous children, and without the advice or
direction of their family physician, I beg them to attend to the
following rules or principles, expressed as briefly as possible.

In no ordinary case whatever, is the cold bath useful, unless it is
succeeded by that degree of warmth on the surface of the body which is
usually called a _glow_. This is a leading and important principle. The
contrary, that is, the injurious effects of cold bathing--its
_immediate_ bad effects, I mean--are shown by the skin remaining pale
and shrivelled after coming out of the bath, by its blue appearance, and
by its coldness, as well as by a sunken state of the eyes, and much
general languor.

To secure this point--I mean the GLOW--it is indispensably important to
begin the use of cold water gradually; that is, to use it at first of
so high a temperature as to produce only a slight sensation of cold, and
to take special care that the skin be immediately wiped very dry, and
the temperature of the room be quite as high as usual. Afterward the
water may be cooled gradually, from week to week, though never more than
a degree or two at once.

It will probably be unsafe to commence this practice of cold
bathing--even in the case of the most robust children--until they are at
least six months of age.

The appropriate season will be the middle of the forenoon, the hour when
the system is usually the most vigorous, and at which we shall be most
likely to secure a reaction. At first, twice or three times a week are
as often as it will be safe to repeat it. Some writers recommend it
twice a day; but once is enough, under any ordinary circumstances.

The method at first is, to give the infant a single plunge. Afterward,
when he becomes older, and more inured to it, he may be plunged several
times in succession.

On taking him out of the bath, the skin should be wiped perfectly dry,
as in the case of the warm bath, and with the same or an increased
degree of attention to other circumstances--the temperature of the
room, the avoiding currents of air, &c. He should next be put in a soft,
warm blanket, and be kept for some time in a state of gentle motion; and
after a little time, should be dressed.

I have already mentioned the importance of avoiding the manifestation of
fear, when we bathe a child; and the caution is particularly necessary
in the administration of the cold bath. Some writers even recommend,
that during the whole process of undressing, bathing, exercising, and
dressing, singing should be employed. There is philosophy in this
advice, and it is easily tried; but I cannot speak of it from
experience.

There is one thing which may serve to calm our apprehensions--if we have
any--of danger; which is, that though the child's lungs are feeble at
first, from their not having been, like the heart, accustomed to
previous action, yet when they get fairly into motion and action, and
the child is a few months old, they are probably as strong, if not
stronger, in proportion, than those of adults.

Bathing in cold water should never be performed immediately after a full
meal. Neither is it desirable to go to the contrary extreme, and bathe
when the stomach has been long empty; nor when the child's mental or
bodily powers are more than usually exhausted by fatigue.

Although I have given these rules for those who are determined to use
the cold bath with their children, yet, for fear I shall be
misunderstood, I must be suffered to repeat, in this place, that,
uninformed as people generally are in regard to physiology, I cannot
advise even its moderate use. On the contrary, I would gladly dissuade
from it, as most likely, in the way it would inevitably be used, to do
more harm than good.

There is no sort of objection to what might be called local bathing with
cold water. If the child's head is hot at any time, the temples, and
indeed the whole upper part of the head, may be very properly wet with
moderately cold water--taking care to avoid wetting the clothes. But
avoid, by all means, the common but foolish practice of putting spirits
in the water.

A tea-spoonful of cold water cannot be too early put into the mouth of
the infant. The object is to cleanse or rinse the mouth; and the process
may be aided by wiping it out with a piece of soft linen rag. If a part
or all of the water should be swallowed, no harm will be done. This
practice, commenced almost as soon as children are born, has saved many
a sore mouth.

There are other forms of bathing besides those already mentioned; among
which are the shower bath, the vapor bath, and the medicated bath. The
shower bath--for which purpose the water is commonly used cold--is but
poorly adapted to the wants of infants. The shock is much greater than
the common cold bath, and more apt to frighten; and fear is unfavorable
to reaction, or the production of a genial glow.

The vapor bath is much better; and probably has quite as good an effect
as the common warm bath. The trouble and expense of procuring the
necessary apparatus is somewhat greater, however, as a mere bathing tub
costs but little, and can be made by every father who possesses common
ingenuity. But whatever may be the expense, it is indispensable in every
family; and whenever the pores of the skin are obstructed, a vapor
bathing apparatus is equally desirable.

The medicated vapor bath is sometimes used; but I am not now treating of
infants who are sick, but of those who are in a state of health.

The common warm bath is sometimes medicated by putting in salt. This, of
course, renders the water more stimulating to the skin; but except when
the perspiration is checked, or the skin peculiarly inactive from some
other cause--in other words, unless we are sick--it is seldom expedient
to use it.

There is one substitute for the bathing tub, in the case of the cold
bath. I refer to the use of a wet cloth or sponge, applied rapidly to
the whole surface of the body. When this is done, the skin should be
wiped thoroughly dry immediately afterwards, as in the case of complete
immersion.

The application of either a cloth or a sponge, filled with warm water,
to the skin, in this manner, even if continued for several minutes
together, is less efficacious than a continuous immersion. I repeat
it--no family ought to be without conveniences for bathing in warm water
daily. I speak now of every member of the family, young and old, as well
as the infant; and I refer particularly to the summer season: though I
do not think the practice ought to be wholly discontinued during the
winter.

It will still be objected that this care of, and attention to the young,
in reference to health--this provision for bathing daily, and care to
see that it is performed--can never be afforded by the laboring portion
of the community. But I shall as strenuously insist on the contrary; and
trust I shall, in the sequel, produce reasons which will be
satisfactory.

The great difficulty is, to convince parents that these things are
vastly more productive of health and happiness to their children--more
truly necessaries--than a great many things for which they now expend
their time and money. There is, and always has been--except, perhaps,
among the Jews, in the earliest periods of the history of that wonderful
nation--a strange disposition to overlook the happiness of the young. It
is not necessary to represent this dereliction as peculiar to modern
times, for we find traces of the same thing thousands of years ago.

The Roman emperors--Dioclesian in particular--could make provision for
bathing, to an extent which now astonishes us; but for whom? For whom, I
repeat it, was incurred the enormous expense of fitting up and keeping
in repair accommodations for bathing at once 18,000 people? For adults;
and for adults alone. I do not say that children were not admitted, in
any case; but I say they were not contemplated in these arrangements.
Nothing was done--not a single thing--that would not have been done, had
there been no child under ten years of age in the whole empire.

And what better than this do WE, now? We make provision for the
happiness of the adult. The most indigent person will find time and
money to spend for the gratification of his own senses, his pride, or
his curiosity; but his children--they may be overlooked! Or, if he has
an eye to the future happiness of his child, he conceives that he is
promoting it in the best possible degree, by endeavoring to lay up a few
dollars for his use, after his character is formed--at a period, as it
too often happens, when money will do him little good, since it can
neither purchase health, peace of mind, nor reputation.

Far be it from me to say, that the poor--ground into the dust as they
are, by the force of circumstances operating with their own concurrence,
to make them ignorant, vicious, or miserable--can do for their children
all that is desirable. By no means. But they have it in their power to
do much more than they are at present doing. They have it in their
power, at least, to use the same good sense in the management of the
human being that they do in that of a pig, a calf, or a colt, or even a
young vegetable. No parent, let him be ever so poor, is found in the
habit of neglecting either of these in proportion to its infancy, and of
exerting himself only in proportion as it grows older. Common sense
tells him that the contrary is the true course; that however poor he may
be, he will be still poorer, if he do not take special pains with the
young animal, to rear it and with the young vegetable, to give it the
right direction, by keeping down the weeds, and pruning and watering it.
And I say again, that however deserving of censure the wealthy of a
Christian community may be in not directing the ignorant and vicious
into the right path, and in not expending more of their wealth on those
who are poor, in elevating their minds and their manners, and promoting
their health, still the latter are inexcusable for their present neglect
of their infant offspring, while they would not think of neglecting, on
the same principle, the offspring of their domestic animals.




CHAPTER VII.

FOOD.

SEC. 1. General principles.--SEC. 2. Conduct of the mother.--SEC. 3.
Nursing--rules in regard to it.--SEC. 4. Quantity of food. Errors.
Over-feeding. Gluttony.--SEC. 5. How long should milk be the child's
only food?--SEC. 6 Feeding before teething. Cow's milk. Sucking bottles.
Cleanliness. Nurses.--SEC. 7. Treatment from teething to weaning.--SEC.
8. Process of weaning-rules in regard to it.--SEC. 9. First food to be
used after weaning. Importance of good bread. Other kinds of food.--SEC.
10. Remarks on fruit.--SEC. 11. Evils and dangers of confectionary.--SEC.
12. Mischiefs of pastry.--SEC. 13. Crude and raw substances.


SEC. 1. _General Principles._

The mother's milk, in suitable quantity, and under suitable regulations,
is so obviously the appropriate food of an infant during the first
months of its existence, that it seems almost unnecessary to repeat the
fact. And yet the violations of this rule are so numerous and constant,
as to require a few passing remarks.

There are some mothers who seem to have a perfect hatred of children;
and if they can find any plausible apology for neglecting to nurse them,
they will. Few, indeed, will publicly acknowledge a state of feeling so
unnatural; but there are some even of such. On the latter, all argument
would, I fear, be utterly lost. Of the former, there may, be hope.

They tell us--and they are often sustained by those around them--that it
is very inconvenient to be so confined to a child that they cannot leave
home for a little while. Can it be their duty--for in these days, when
virtue and religion, and everything good, are so highly complimented, no
people are more ready to talk of _duty_ than they who have the least
regard to it--can it be their duty, they ask, to exclude themselves from
the pleasures and comforts of social life for half or two thirds of
their most active and happy years? Ought they not to go abroad, at least
occasionally? But if so, and their children have no other source of
dependence, must they not suffer? Is it not better, therefore, that they
should be early accustomed to other food, for a part of the time?
Besides, they may be sick; and then the child must rely on others; and
will it not be useful to accustom it early to do so?

Perhaps few mothers are conscious that this train of reasoning passes
through their minds. But that something like it is often made the
occasion of substituting food which is less proper, for that furnished
by Divine Providence, there cannot be a doubt. And the mischief is, that
she who has gone so far, will not scruple, ere long, to go farther. And,
strange and unnatural as it may seem, that mothers should turn over
their children to be nursed wholly by others, in order to get rid of the
inconvenience of nursing them at their own bosoms, it is only carrying
out to its fullest extent, and reducing to practice, the train of
reasoning mentioned above.

Nor is it necessary that I should stop here to denounce a course of
conduct so unchristian and savage. I know it is very common in some
countries; and those American mothers who ape the other eastern
fashions, or countenance their sons and daughters in doing it, will not
be slow to imitate this also--especially as it is a very _convenient_
fashion. And I question whether I shall succeed in reasoning them out of
it. Habit, both of thought and action, is exceedingly powerful. I will,
therefore, confine myself chiefly to those efforts at prevention, from
which much more is to be hoped, in the present state of society, than
from direct attempts at cure.

It will be soon enough to leave a child with another person, when the
mother is actually sick, or unavoidably absent; or when some other
adequate cause is known to exist. We are to be governed, in these and
similar cases, by general rules, and not by exceptions. The general
rule, in the present case, is, that mothers can nurse their own
children; and, if they have the proper disposition, that they can do it
uninterruptedly.

But those who are so ready to become counsellors on these occasions,
will tell us, perhaps, that the child must be "fed to spare the mother."
That is to say, nursing weakens the mother, and the child must be taken
away, a part of the time, to save her strength.

Now it may safely be doubted whether the process of nursing, in itself
considered, does weaken, at all. The Author of nature has made provision
for the secretion (formation) of the milk, whether the child receives it
or not. If it is not taken by the child, or drawn off in some other way,
one of two things must follow;--either it must be taken up by what are
called absorbent vessels, and carried into the circulation, and chiefly
thrown out of the system as waste matter, or it will prove a source of
irritation, if not of inflammation, to the organs themselves which
secrete it. In both cases, the strength of the mother is quite as likely
to be taxed, as if the child received the milk in the way that nature
intended.

Besides, on this very principle, the plan of saving a mother's strength
by requiring another to nurse for her, is but saying that we will weaken
one person to save another. Or if we feed the child, to "spare its
mother," what is this, in practice, but to say that the works of the
Creator are very imperfect; and that he has thrown upon the mass of
mankind a task to which they are not equal? For the mass of mankind are
poor; and the poor, having neither the means nor the time to escape the
duties in question, must submit to them, while their more wealthy
neighbors escape.

But it is idle to defend customs so monstrous. They admit of no defence
that has the slightest claim to solidity. The general rule then is, that
mothers should nurse their own children.


SEC. 2. _Conduct of the Mother._

Originally it was not my intention to give directions, in this volume,
in regard to the food, drink, &c., of the mother while nursing; but
repeated solicitations on this point, have led me to the conclusion that
a few general principles may be very properly introduced.

The future health, and even the moral well-being of the child, depend
much more on the proper management of the mother herself than is usually
supposed. How, indeed, can it be other wise? How can the mother's blood
be constantly irritated with improper food and drink, without rendering
the milk so? And how can a child draw, daily and hourly, from this
feverish fountain, without being affected, not only in his physical
frame, but in his very temper and feelings?

It is not enough that we adopt the principles already insisted on by
some of our wisest medical men, and even by one or two medical
societies,[Footnote: Those of Connecticut and New Hampshire.] that
children in this way often acquire a propensity for exciting drinks,
that may end in their downright intemperance. What if it should not, in
every case, proceed quite so far as to make the child a drunkard? If it
but lays the foundation of a constitutional fondness for _excitements_,
it tends to disease. Indeed that, in itself, is a disease; and one, too,
which is destroying more persons every year than the cholera, or even
the consumption. Consumption has at most only slain her tens of
thousands [Footnote: About 40,000 a year, in the United States, as nearly
as it can be estimated.] a year; but a fondness for exciting food and
drink--innocent and harmless as it is often supposed to be, and
therefore only the more dangerous a foe--does not fail to slay every
year, directly or indirectly, its hundreds of thousands. At least this
is my own opinion.

Why, where can you find the individual who is not a slave to this
perpetual rage within--this perpetual cry, "Who will show us any"
physical "good"? Who, in this land of abundance, will eat or drink plain
things? Who will eat simple bread, meat, potatoes, rice, pudding,
apples, &c. or drink simple water? A few instances may be found, of
late, in which people confine themselves to simple water for drink; but
they are rather rare. And no wonder. They _must_ be rare so long as an
unnatural thirst is kept up everywhere by the most exciting and most
strange mixtures of food. Where, I again ask, is the person who will eat
and relish plain bread, plain meat, plain puddings, &c.? Certainly not
in the nursery. No young mother--scarcely one I mean--will, for a single
meal, confine herself to a piece of bread, the sweetest and best food in
the whole world, unless it is hot, or toasted, or soaked, or buttered. A
natural, healthy appetite, is as rare a thing on our planet, almost, as
an inhabitant of the sun or moon.

I have seen more than one mother made sick by using, while nursing,
improper food and drink. I have known milk punch, taken by
stealth--(because how could the mother, it was said, ever have a supply
of food for her poor child without it!)--to kindle a fever that came
very near burning up the mother and child both. And yet, if I have once
or twice succeeded in convincing the mother that she was only suffering
the natural punishment of her own transgressions, I have never, so far
as I now recollect, succeeded in making her believe that her iniquities
were visited upon her unoffending infant.

There is everywhere the most painful apathy on this most painful
subject. We see little children of all ages, everywhere, the victims of
debility, and pain, and suffering, and disease and death, and yet we
very seldom seem to search for one moment for the causes of this
premature destruction. In fact most parents--even many intelligent
mothers--at once stare, if you attempt to inquire into the causes of
their child's death, as if it was either a kind of sacrilege, or an
impeachment of their own parental affection. Diseases, even at this day,
with the sun of science blazing in meridian splendor, they seem to
regard as the judgments of heaven; and to think of tracing out the
causes of the early death of half our race, is, in their estimation, not
only idle, but wicked.

Yet this is obviously one of the first steps, every, where, which
philanthropy demands; to say nothing of the demands of christianity. It
is the first step for the physician, the first step for the educator,
the first step for the parent, and above all, the mother. Nay; more--we
must not suppress so great and important a truth--it is the first step
for the legislator and the minister. What sense is there in continuing,
century after century, and age after age, to expend all our efforts in
merely _mending_ the diseased half of mankind, when those same efforts
are amply sufficient, if early and properly applied, not only to
continue the lives of the whole, but to make them _whole beings_,
instead of passing through life mere _fragments_ of humanity?

But I must not forget that this is merely a small manual, not intended
for those who make it their profession to teach the laws of God and man,
but simply for young mothers. For the sake of erring humanity, would
that I could, but for one moment, divest myself of the idea, that in
writing for the young mother I am not writing for legislators and
ministers! Would that I could banish from my mind the deep conviction
that the mother is everywhere far more the law-giver to her infant--far
more the arbiter of the present and eternal destiny of her child--than
he who is more commonly regarded as such.

Every mother owes it, not only to herself--for on this part she is not
_wholly_ forgetful--but to her offspring, to abstain, during the period
of nursing at least, from all causes which tend to produce a feverish
state of her fluids. Among these are every form of premature exertion,
whether in sitting up, laboring, conversing, or even thinking. It is of
very great importance that both the body and the mind should be kept
quiet; and the more so, the better.

Among the particular causes of fever to the young mother, Dr. Dewees
enumerates spirits, wine, and other fermented liquors, a room too much
heated, closed curtains, confined air, too much exposure, and too much
company; and during the early period of confinement, broths and animal
food.

There is nothing which he insists on more strongly, than the importance
of fresh air. Indeed, the practice of confining a nursing woman in a
space scarcely six feet square, and excluding the air surrounding her by
curtains and closed windows, and subjecting her to the necessity of
breathing twenty times the air that has already been as often
discharged, filled with poison, from her lungs, is not too strongly
reprobated by Dr. Dewees, or anybody else. But I have spoken of these
things in the chapter which treats on "The Nursery." I would only
observe, on this point, that if I were asked what one thing is most
indispensable to the health of the nursing woman, I would reply, Fresh
air; and if asked what were the second and third most important things,
I would still repeat--in imitation of the orator of old, in regard to
another subject--Fresh air, Fresh air.

This important ingredient in human happiness, and especially in the
happiness of the young mother and her tender infant, can usually be had
within doors, if pains enough be taken. But if the weather is fine and
in every respect favorable, a woman who is in tolerable health may
venture abroad a little in about three weeks after her confinement, and
sometimes even in two. Whether her exercise be without or within doors,
however, she should be effectually protected against chills, and against
the influence of currents of cold air.

It has been incidentally stated, that Dr. Dewees objects to the mother's
use, during her early period of nursing, of broths and animal food. This
is about as much as we could reasonably expect from one who belongs to a
profession whose members are, almost without exception, enslaved to the
practice of flesh-eating. But even this advice of his, if duly followed,
would be a great advance upon the practice which generally prevails.
There is so universal a belief among females that they demand, at this
period of their existence, not only a larger quantity of food than
usual, but also that which is more stimulating in its quality, as almost
to forbid the hopes of making much impression upon their minds. Many
young mothers seem to consider themselves as licensed, during a part of
their lives, not only to eat immoderately, and even to gluttony, but
also to swallow almost every species of vile trash which a vile world
affords.

How long will it be, ere the mother can be induced to take as much pains
to select the most appropriate and most healthy aliment for herself and
her child, as she now does that which is demanded by a capricious
appetite, without the smallest reference to fitness or digestibility!
How long will it be ere the mother can be brought to believe and feel
that, in every step she takes, she is forming the habitation of an
immortal spirit--a spirit, too, whose character and destiny, both
present and eternal, must depend, in no small degree, upon the character
of the dwelling it occupies while passing through this stage of earthly
existence! How long will it be, before mothers can be made to believe
even these two simple truths, that the nourishment, which the human
being actually receives, is not always in exact proportion to the
quantity of nutritious food which he throws into his stomach, and that
the diet is always best for both mother and child, which is least
exciting.

The Charleston Board of Health, during the existence of cholera in that
city in 1836, publicly announced that the "best food is the least
exciting," and this great truth is just as true in all other places and
circumstances on the globe as it was then in South Carolina. And though
I am far from believing that health depends more on food and drink than
on all other things put together, as many seem to suppose, yet I am
entirely of opinion that he who should devote himself successfully to
the work of applying this truth, in all its bearings, to the dietetic
practice of all mankind, would do more for their reformation--yes, and
their salvation too--than has yet been done by any merely _human_ being,
since the first day of the creation.


SEC. 3. _Nursing--how often._

Many lay it down, as an invariable rule, that no system can be pursued
with a child till it is six months old; and it must be admitted by all,
that for several months after birth there are serious difficulties in
the way of determining, with any degree of precision, how often a child
should be nursed or fed. Still, there are a few rules of universal
application; some of which are here presented.

1. A child should never be nursed, merely to quiet it; for if this be
done, it will soon learn to cry, whenever it feels the slightest
uneasiness, not only from hunger, but from other causes; merely to be
gratified with nursing. Besides, if its cries should happen to be from
illness, it is ten to one but the reception of anything into the stomach
will do harm instead of good.

2. The stomach, like every other organ in the body which is muscular,
must have time for rest; and this in the case of children as well as
adults. But to nurse them too frequently is in opposition to this rule,
and therefore of evil tendency.

3. For reasons which may be seen by the last rule, there should be
regular seasons for nursing, and these should be adhered to, especially
by night. When very young, once in three hours may not be too frequent;
I believe that it is seldom proper to nurse a child more frequently than
this. But whenever three hours becomes a suitable period by day, once in
four hours will be often enough by night. I will not undertake to say at
what precise age children should be nursed at intervals of three and
four hours each; because some children are older, _constitutionally_, at
three months, than others are at four.

There is one grand mistake, however, against which I must caution young
mothers; which is, not to indulge the vain expectation that feeble
infants will become robust, in proportion to their indulgence. On the
contrary, it is the more necessary to be strict with feeble children,
_because_ they are feeble. To keep them hanging at the breast to
invigorate them, is the very way to counteract our own intentions, and
defeat our own purpose. Seasons of entire rest are even more important
to their stomachs than to those of other persons.

4. But in order to secure intervals of rest, both to the strong and the
feeble, we must avoid the pernicious habit of giving infants pap, and
other delicacies, "between meals." Many a child's health is ruined by
this practice. Nothing should be put into their stomachs for many
months--if they are in health--but the mother's milk.

"This," says Dr. Dunglison, "is the sole food of the infant, and is
consequently sufficiently nutrient to maintain life, and to minister to
the growth, during the earliest periods of existence." [Footnote:
Elements of Hygiene, page 271.] In another place, he says, "Milk is an
appropriate nourishment at all ages, and is more so the nearer to
birth."


SEC. 4. _Quantity of Food._

"We all know," says Dr. Dewees, "how easily the stomach may be made to
demand more food than is absolutely required; first, by the repetition
of aliment, and secondly, by its variety;--therefore both of these
causes must be avoided. The stomach, like every other part, can, and
unfortunately does, acquire habits highly injurious to itself; and that
of demanding an unnecessary quantity of aliment is not one of the least.
It should, therefore, be constantly borne in mind, that it is not the
quantity of food taken into the stomach, that is available to the proper
purposes of the system; but the quantity which can be digested, and
converted into nourishment fit to be applied to such purposes."

There is a great deal of truth in these remarks; and especially in the
closing one, that not all which is taken into the stomach is digested.
It is highly probable, that the least quantity which is usually given to
an infant is more than sufficient for the purposes of digestion; and
that nearly every child in the arms of its mother, is over-fed.

I know it has been said, by some physicians--and by those who are
sensible men, in other respects, too--that the child's stomach is a
pretty correct guide in regard to quantity. If we give it too much, say
they, it will reject it;--as if that were an end of the matter.

But it is not so. It is by no means harmless to fill the child's stomach
as full as is possible without overflowing. Such a process, though it
should not create disease directly, would produce a gluttonous habit.
The stomach, being muscular, may be increased in size by use, like all
other muscular organs. The hands, the arms, the legs, the feet, the
fleshy portions of the face, even, may be disproportionally enlarged by
constant use. Thus a sailor, who uses his hands and arms much more than
his legs and feet, has the former unusually large; one who is much
accustomed to walking, has large feet; and in a tailor, who from
childhood uses his lower limbs comparatively little, they are both small
and slender. On the same principle, the stomach, by inordinate use, and
by carrying unreasonable loads, may be made nearly twice as large as
nature intended, and may demand twice as much food. And I have no doubt
that the bulk of mankind, young and old, eat about twice as much as
nature, unperverted, would require.

If the suggestions of our last section are duly attended to, one of the
causes which lead the stomach to demand an unreasonable quantity of food
will be avoided--I mean the too frequent "repetition of aliment." And if
we never depart from the general rule, already laid down, not to give
the infant anything but its mother's milk, we shall escape the evils
incident to variety.


SEC. 5. _How long should milk be the only food._

On this point, there is a great diversity of opinion. Perhaps the most
approved role, of universal application, is, that the first change
should be made in the child's diet, when the teeth begin to appear.

This period, it is well known, cannot be fixed to any particular age,
but varies from the fifth to the twelfth month.

Some mothers, who have borne with me patiently to this place, will
probably here object. "What child," they will ask, "would ever have any
strength, brought up so?" Not only a little pap and gruel is, in their
estimation, necessary, long before this period, but even many choice
bits of meat.

Now I am very sure, that these choice bits--whatever they may be--given
to a child before it has teeth, not only do no good, but actually do
mischief. Indeed, that which does no good in the stomach must do harm,
of course; since it is not only in the way, but acts like a foreign body
there, producing more or less of irritation.

I ought to state, in this place, that many people--mothers among the
rest--have very inadequate ideas of digestion. They appear to have no
farther notion of the digestive process than that it consists in
reducing to a pulp the substances which are swallowed; and hence,
whatever is reduced to a pulp, they regard as being digested. Whereas
nothing is better known to the anatomist and physiologist, than that
this--the formation of _chyme_ in the stomach--constitutes only a very
small part of the digestive process. The chyme must pass into the
duodenum and other portions of intestine beyond the stomach, and be
retained there for some time, before it will form perfect chyle.

This is a more important part of the work of digestion than even the
former. For, suppose the chyme to be perfect, though even this may be
mere pulp, rather than chyme, and suppose it pass quietly along into the
duodenum and other small intestines. All this process, thus far, may go
on naturally enough, and yet the chyle may not be well formed, and the
chymous mass may find its way out of the system without answering any of
the purposes of nutrition. For no matter how well the food is dissolved
in the stomach, if it do not become good and proper chyle, the blood
which is formed will not be good and perfect blood; or, lastly, if it
_seem_ to make good blood, it may still be faulty, so that the
particles which should be applied to build up or repair the system, are
either not used, or if used, answer the purpose but imperfectly.

We hence see how little prepared a large proportion of the community,
are, to judge of the digestibility or fitness of a substance for
infants, by their own observation and experience merely; and how much
more wisely they act, in contenting themselves with giving them--at
least until they have teeth--such food only as the Author of nature
seems to have assigned them; especially when thus course, is precisely
that which is recommended or sanctioned by nearly every judicious
physician, as well as by almost all our writers on health.


SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._

Having laid down the general rule, that until the appearance of teeth,
the sole food of an infant should be the milk of its own mother, I
proceed to speak of some of the more common exceptions to it.

EXCEPTION 1.--The first of these is when the supply furnished by the
mother is scanty. There may be two causes of the scantiness of this
supply; 1st, the want of suitable nourishment by the mother; and, 2dly,
a feeble constitution, or bad health. In the former case, it should be
her first object, as it undoubtedly will be that of her physician, to
improve the quality of her diet; and in the latter, to restore her
health, or at least invigorate her constitution.

In regard to the proper diet of a _mother_, as such, as well as the
general management which her case requires, a volume might be written
without exhausting the subject. But I have already said as much on this
subject, in another place, as my limits will permit.

But we cannot wait for the mother's health to improve, and allow the
infant to suffer, in the mean time, for a due supply of food. The
appropriate question now is, How shall such a supply be furnished?

This should be done by means of an article resembling in its properties,
as closely as possible, the mother's milk. For this purpose, we have
only to mix with a suitable quantity of new cow's milk, one third of
water, and sweeten it a little with loaf sugar. This is to be given to
the child, at suitable intervals, and in proper quantities, by means of
a common sucking bottle. It is, indeed, sometimes given with the spoon;
but the bottle is better.

To the question, whether the child should be confined to this, till the
period of weaning, Dr. Dewees answers, No. I am surprised at this; and
my surprise is increased, when I find him, almost in the very next
breath, urging with all his might, numerous reasons against the very
common notion, that children in early life require a variety of food. He
even insists on the importance of confining the child to a single
article of food when it is practicable. Yet he has not given us so much
as one reason why it is not practicable in the case before us; but has
gone on to speak of barley water, gum arabic water, rice water,
arrowroot, &c. I venture, therefore, to dissent from him, and to answer
the foregoing question in the affirmative. When one good and substantial
reason can be given for _change_, the decision will, however, be
reconsidered.

I have already stated the general rule for preparing this substitute for
the mother's milk. But there are several minor directions, which may be
useful to those who are wholly without experience on the subject.

If possible, the milk used should not only be just taken from the cow,
but should always be from the _same_ cow; for it is well known, that the
quality of milk often differs very materially, even among cows feeding
in the same pasture, or from the same pile of hay; and the stomach
becomes most easily reconciled to the mixture when it is uniform in its
qualities. Great care should also be taken to see that the cow whose
milk is used is young and healthy.

The mixture should not be prepared any faster than it is wanted, and
should always be prepared in vessels perfectly clean and sweet, and
given as soon as possible after it is prepared, to prevent any degree of
fermentation. It is never so well to heat it by the fire. If taken from
the cow just before it is used, and if the water to be added is warm
enough, the temperature will hardly need to be raised any higher.

When it is impracticable, in all cases, to take milk for this purpose
immediately from the cow, it should be kept, in winter, where it will
not freeze; and in summer, where there will be no tendency to acidity.

Some mothers and nurses are addicted to the practice of passing the food
through their own mouths, before they give it to the child--with a view,
no doubt, to see that it is at a proper temperature. This practice is
not only wholly unnecessary, but altogether disgusting, and even
ridiculous. A thermometer would answer every purpose; and save even the
trouble of another disgusting practice--that of blowing it with the
breath.

The most proper season for giving the child this preparation, is
immediately after it has been nursing. It is better for both mother and
child, that the latter should nurse just as often as though the supply
of food was adequate to his wants. And when his first supply is
exhausted, then let him make up his meal from the sucking bottle. The
great advantage of this plan is, that he will not be so likely in this
way to be over-fed. If he is really needy, he will accept the bottle,
even if he do not like it quite so well; if he refuse it, let him go
without till he is hungry enough to receive it.

In regard to the water used in the preparation, only one thing needs to
be said; which is, that it should be pure. If it is not, it should by
all means be boiled. The sugar used should be of the very best kind; and
the quantity not large; since if the preparation be too sweet, it
readily becomes acid in the stomach.

There has been, and still is, a controversy going on among medical men,
whether sugar is or is not hurtful to the young. "Who shall decide, when
doctors disagree?" has often been asked. Without undertaking the task
myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that I cannot see any reason
why a substance so pure, and so highly nutritious as sugar--if given in
very small quantity only--should prove injurious: though I do not regard
the reasoning of Dr. Dewees as very conclusive on the subject, when, in
reply to Dr. Cadogan, he has the following language--"If sugar be
improper, why does it so largely enter into the composition of the early
food of all animals? It is in vain that physicians declaim against this
article, since it forms between seven and eight per cent of the mother's
milk."--Now with me, the fact that milk and almost all other kinds of
food are furnished with a measure of this substance, is the strongest
reason I am acquainted with for making no additions. I believe, however,
that they may sometimes be made, but not for these reasons.

EXCEPTION 2.--The second striking exception to the general rule that has
been laid down, is when the mother is unable to nurse her own child from
positive ill health, or when circumstances exist which render it
obviously improper that she should do it. The following are some of the
circumstances which render such a departure from nature indispensable.

1. When the mother is affected strongly with a hereditary disease, such
as consumption or scrofula; or when her constitution is tainted, as it
were, with venereal disease, or other permanent affections.

2. When nursing produces, uniformly, some very troublesome or dangerous
disease in the mother; as cough, colic, &c.

3. There are a few instances in which the milk of the mother, owing to
an unknown cause, has been found by experience to disagree with the
child. In these circumstances, it is the unquestionable duty of the
mother to resort wholly to feeding.

4. Sometimes the milk, at first abundant, fails suddenly, owing to some
accidental or constitutional defect; and this failure becomes habitual.
In all these circumstances, the proper resort is to a sucking bottle, or
a hired nurse. I generally prefer the latter. The cases which seem to me
to admit of the former, will be pointed out in the next section.

"When the bottle is used," says Dr. Dewees, "much care is requisite to
preserve it sweet and free from all impurities, or the remains of the
former food, by which the present may be rendered impure or sour; for
which purpose a great deal of caution must be observed."

The business of feeding a child, whether by the bottle or the spoon,
should never be hurried: the slower it is, the better. We should stop
from time to time, during the process. Nor should the nourishment be
given while lying down; it is much more pleasant, as well as more safe,
to sit up.

A few thoughts more on the character and condition of the milk which we
give to the young, will conclude the second division of this section.

Some are fond of boiling milk for infants; but to this I am decidedly
opposed, so long as they are in health. Boiling takes away, or appears
to take away, some of the best properties of the milk.

It is true that milk which is boiled does not turn sour so readily in
hot weather; but it is quite unnecessary to boil milk in the common
manner in order to present its changing, since such a result can be
prevented by another process. You have only to put your milk in a
kettle, cover it closely, and heat it quickly to the boiling point, and
then remove and cool it as speedily as possible. This plan prevents the
rising to the surface of that coat or pellicle which contains some of
the most valuable properties of the milk.

I have already said that it was as necessary that the stomach should
have rest as any other muscular organ. Some writers say that the infant
should be kept perfectly quiet, at least half an hour, after each meal.
This is certainly necessary with feeble children, but I question its
necessity in the case of those who are strong and robust. I would not
recommend, however, nor even tolerate, for one moment, the absurd
practice of _jolting_, so common with a few ignorant nurses and,
mothers, as if they could jolt down the food in the stomach with just as
much safety as they can shake down the contents of a farmer's bag of
produce. Such mothers as these should go and reside among the native
tribes of Indians in Guiana, in South America, where they make it a
point not only to stuff their children's stomachs as long as they will
hold, but actually to shake it down.

Little less absurd than jolting is the custom of tossing a child high,
in quick succession, which is practised not only after meals, but at
other times. But on this point, I have treated elsewhere.

Some give the sucking bottle to children as a plaything. This is just
about as wise a practice as that of giving them books as playthings.
Both are done, usually, to save the time and trouble of those whose
office it is to devote their time to the very purpose of managing and
educating their offspring. The evil, however, of suffering the child to
have the bottle when it pleases is, that he will thus be tasting food so
often as to interfere with and disturb the process of digestion, to his
great and lasting injury. For in this way, a part of the food will pass
from the stomach into the bowels unchanged, or at least but imperfectly
digested, where it is liable to become sour, and cause disease. It is
not to be doubted that many diarrhoeas, as well as, other bowel
affections, are produced in this way. Children that are always eating
are seldom healthy; and we may hence see the reason.

In speaking of the importance of keeping the bottle, from which a child
takes his food, perfectly clean and sweet, I ought to have extended the
injunction much farther. There is a degree of slovenliness sometimes
observable in those who manage children, both when they are sick and
when they are in health, which even common sense cannot and ought not to
tolerate. Every vessel which is used in preparing or administering
anything for children, ought, after we have used it, to be immediately
and effectually cleansed. How shocking is it to see dirty vessels
standing in the nursery from hour to hour, becoming sour or impure! How
much more so still, to see food in copper vessels, or in the red earthen
ones, glazed with a poisonous oxyd! I speak now more particularly of
vessels in which food is given; for with the administration of medicine,
and nursing the sick, I do not intend in this volume to interfere.

EXCEPTION 3.--We come now to the consideration of those cases--for such
it will not be doubted there are--where a hired nurse is to be preferred
to feeding by the hand.

Before proceeding farther, however, it is important to say, that if a
nurse could always be procured whose health, and temper, and habits were
good, who had no infant of her own, and who would do as well for the
infant, in every respect, as his own mother, it would be preferable to
have no feeding by the hand at all.

But such nurses are very scarce. Their temper, or habits, or general
health, will often be such as no genuine parent would desire, and such
as they ought to be sorry to see engrafted, in any degree, on the child.
For even admitting what is claimed by some, that the temper of the nurse
does _not_ affect the properties of the milk, and thus injure the child
both physically and morally, still much injury may and inevitably will
result from the influence of her constant presence and example.

Others have infants of their own, in which case either their own child
or the adopted one will suffer; and in a majority of cases, it can
scarcely be doubted _which_ it will be. And I doubt the morality of
requiring a nurse, in these cases, to give up her own child wholly. If
_one_ must be fed, why not our own, as well as that of another?

The only cases, then, which seem to me to justify the employment of a
nurse, are where she possesses at least the qualifications above
mentioned; and as these are rare, not many nurses, of course, would on
this principle be employed. But when employed, it is highly desirable
that the following rules should be observed:

1: The nurse should suckle the child at both breasts; otherwise he is
liable to acquire a degree of crookedness in his form. There is another
evil which sometimes results from the too common neglect of this rule,
which is, that it endangers the deterioration of the quality of the
milk.

2. The milk which is thus substituted for that of the mother, should be
as nearly as possible of the same age as the child who is to receive it.
It should be remembered, however, that the milk is not so good after the
twelfth or thirteenth month, nor _quite_ so good under the third.

3. When the parent or some trusty and confidential friend can, without
the aid of interested spies and emissaries, have an eye to the general
treatment, and especially to the moral management, it should be done;
for even the best nurses may so differ in their principles, manners and
habits from the parent, that the latter would deem it preferable to
withdraw the child, and resort at once to feeding.


SEC. 7. _From Teething to Weaning._

This period will, of course, be longer or shorter according as the teeth
begin to appear earlier or later, and according to the time when it is
thought proper to wean.

On few points, perhaps, has there existed a greater diversity of opinion
than in regard to the age most proper for weaning. The limits of this
work do not permit a thorough discussion of the question; and I shall
therefore be very brief in my remarks on the subject.

Dr. Cullen, whose opinion on topics of this kind is certainly entitled
to much respect, thought that less than seven, or more than eleven
months of nursing was injurious. Yet in some countries, and even in some
parts of our own, the period is extended by the mother, from choice, to
two years. And although the milk is not so good after the thirteenth or
fourteenth month, I have never either known or heard that any evil
consequences followed from the practice.

Dr. Loudon, a recent writer, observes, that the period of nursing has a
great influence over the numbers of mankind in various countries, as is
evinced by numerous facts. He adduces proofs of this, position. Thus, he
says, in China, where the population is excessive, and the inhuman
practice of infanticide is common, they wean a child as soon as it can
put its hand to its mouth. On the other hand, the Indians of North
America do not wean their children until they are old and strong enough
to run about: generally they are suckled for a period of more than two
years.

He then enters into a physiological inquiry why it is that British
mothers do not usually suckle their children longer than ten months. He
seems--though he does not give us his precise opinion--to think that, in
all ordinary cases, the period of nursing ought to be protracted to two
or three years, and that perhaps it would be better still to extend it
to four or five. His remarks are so excellent, and withal so curious,
and their tendency so humane, that we venture to insert one or two of
his paragraphs entire.

"Certain it is, that the milk does not diminish particularly at that
time, (ten months,) so far as regards quantity; and from the health of
children reared without spoon-meat beyond this time, it as certainly
undergoes no change in its quality. Children are sometimes so old before
weaning, as to be able to ask for the breast; and it has not been
remarked that the health of mothers, thus suckling, was in any way worse
than that of their neighbors. Altogether, then, it may be asserted, that
a mother is likely to enjoy better health, and to be less liable to
sickness and death during lactation, than during pregnancy.

"Many women believe, or affect to believe, that the weakness they labor
under arises from some latent moral or physical cause; but this weakness
is not attributed to lactation in the earlier months of suckling,
because the mother then considers herself fulfilling a necessary duty,
which her constitution, for so long, is well able to bear. So soon,
however, as the period of lactation has passed over, as it is
established by custom or fashion, she imagines she is exceeding the
intentions of nature, and she forthwith concludes that the continuance
of suckling is the cause of her uncomfortable sensations. This whim
being entertained, the child is weaned, and too often becomes the victim
of a most reprehensible delusion.

"Since nature has furnished the mother with milk for a longer period
than custom demands, it is evident that some good purpose for the mother
and child was intended in this arrangement. Had it been otherwise, the
secretion of milk would stop at a definite time, in like manner as the
period of gestation is definite. That a child, in comparison with the
young of the lower animals, is so long unable to provide for itself,
strongly tends to corroborate the proofs already advanced--that nature
originally had in view a more protracted period for lactation than is
now allowed.

"Some writers, following the laws of nature, as they interpreted them,
fixed the period of weaning at fifteen months, when the infant has got
its eight incisors and four canine teeth. There are well-authenticated
instances of mothers having suckled their children for three, four,
five, and even seven consecutive years; we ourselves have known cases
of lactation being prolonged far three and for four years, with the
happiest results."

It appears to me better, therefore, that the child should be nursed, in
all ordinary cases, from twelve to fifteen months; and when there are no
special objections, about two years. As the change, whenever it is made,
and however gradual it may be, is an important one, in its effects on
the stomach and bowels, it is better to wean a little earlier or a
little later, than to do so just at the close of summer or beginning of
autumn, at which season bowel complaints are most common, most severe,
and most dangerous. It is sufficiently unfortunate that teething should
commence just at this period; but when we add another cause of irregular
action, which we can control, to one which we _cannot_, we act very
unwisely.

I have already observed that we may begin to feed children when the
teeth begin to appear. By this is not meant that we should do so while
the system is under the irritation to which teething usually, or at
least often, subjects it. But when this is over, and a few teeth have
appeared, it is usually a proper time to commence our operations.

The first food given should be precisely of the kind which has been
recommended for those children who are fed by the hand. The rules and
restrictions by which we are to be guided, are the same, except in one
point, which is, that in the case we are now considering, the child
should be fed _between nursing_.

Let not parents be anxious about their healthy children under two years,
who have a supply of good milk, either from the mother or from the cow.
For those that are feeble, a physician may and ought to prescribe--not
medicine, but appropriate food, drink, &c.

When the grinding teeth have cut through, if we have any doubts in
regard to the nutritive qualities of the food we are giving, we may
improve it by adding, instead of the one third of pure water, a similar
quantity of gum arabic water, barley water, or rice water. Some use a
little weak animal broth; but this is unnecessary, and I think, on the
whole, injurious, except for purposes strictly medicinal.

This course is so simple, and so far removed from that which is
generally adopted, that few mothers will probably be willing to pursue
it with perseverance, especially when the teeth appear very late. Those
who are, however, will be richly rewarded, in the end, in the
advantages; which will accrue to the child's health, and the vigor it
will ensure to his constitution.


SEC. 8. _During the process of Weaning._

It has already been shown that, in weaning, some regard should be had to
the season of the year; and that the end of summer and beginning of fall
are of all periods the most unfavorable. The best time, on every
account, is in the spring--in March, April, May, or June; and the next
best is during the months of October and November. But December, January
and February are better than July, August and September.

Weaning should never be sudden. We may safely and properly call upon
those who are addicted to snuff or opium taking, tobacco chewing, rum
drinking, and other habits which are purely artificial, to break
off--_to wean themselves_--suddenly; since _they_ can do so with
considerable safety, and will seldom have the courage or the
perseverance to do it otherwise. But with the child, in regard to his
food, such a course will not be advisable. If we regard his future
health or happiness, he must be weaned gradually.

The first proper step will be to give the child a little larger quantity
of the cow's milk and gum arabic mixture, between nursings, at the same
time increasing very gradually the intervals of nursing. When the
intervals become six hours distant from each other, it will be best to
add a little good bread to the milk with which it is fed, about two or
three times a day. Arrowroot jelly, if he can be made to relish it, will
be highly useful; but if not, some boiled rice, into which a little
arrowroot has been sprinkled while boiling, may be added to his milk.

It may be worth the attempt to excite an aversion in the child to
nursing his mother, so that be will refuse to nurse, if possible, of his
own accord. This aversion may be excited by such an application of
aloes, or some other offensive substance, as will cause him to withdraw
himself from the breast as soon as he tastes it.

A serious mistake is often made, in connection with weaning, in giving
the child not only too much food, but that which is too solid, or too
rich. This mistake has undoubtedly grown out of the belief that his
feeble condition _requires_ it; whereas the truth is, that he neither
needs food at this period, nor is capable of digesting it. For let us be
as judicious in the process of weaning as we may, the tone of the
child's stomach will be somewhat reduced, or in other words, its powers
of digestion will be weakened by it; and to give it strong food, or
overload it with that which is weaker, is not only unreasonable and
unphilosophical, but cruel. And if there should be a tendency in the
child's constitution to rickets, scrofula, consumption, and other
wasting diseases, such a course would be likely to bring them on, and
destroy life.

"When milk will agree," says Dr. Dewees, "there is no food so proper. It
may be employed in any of its combinations, with good wheaten bread,
rice, sago, &c., only remembering that when either of these articles is
found to agree, it should be continued perseveringly, until it may
become offensive. In this case, some new combination may be required." I
do not see the necessity of continuing one kind of food till it
_offends_. Besides, I do not believe that these simple articles of food
are apt to become offensive to stomachs that have not already been
spoiled. But whether a single dish should or should not come to be
offensive, I greatly prefer an occasional change.

Buchan, in his Advice to Mothers, has recommended it to them to boil
bread for their infants, in water. It should not, for this purpose--nor
indeed for any other--be new; it is best at one or two days, old. It may
be boiled in a small quantity of water, or what is still better, of
milk; or it may be steamed till it becomes soft and light, almost like
new bread, but without any of the objectionable properties of that which
is wholly new. To bread, thus prepared, is to be added a suitable
quantity of milk, fresh from the cow, and a little diluted with water,
but not boiled.

But as there may be, here and there, at any age, a stomach with which
milk, with bread, or rice, or sago, will not agree--though I think they
must be very rare cases--we may be allowed to substitute for it a
solution of "gum arabic, in the proportion of an ounce to a pint of
water," to which may be added a little sugar; and if the child is old
enough to observe the color, just milk enough to change the appearance.
Another preparation for the same purpose consists of rennet whey, a
little sweetened, and "disguised, if necessary, as just stated."

The health of the mother, too, during the period of weaning, often needs
great attention. Let her avoid medicine, however, if possible. A due
regard to food, drink, exercise, and rest of body and mind, &c., will
usually be found more effective, as well as more permanently
efficacious.


SEC. 9. _Food subsequently to Weaning._

You will allow me to introduce in this place, some of the sentiments of
Dr. Cadogan, an English physician, from a little work on the management
of children. [Footnote: Though Dr. C.'s remarks will apply more closely
to England in 1750, they are by no means inapplicable to the United
States in 1837.] I do it with the more pleasure because, though he wrote
almost a century ago, he urges the same general principles on which I
have all along been insisting: hence it will be seen that mine are no
new-fangled notions. His remarks refer to the young of every age, but
chiefly to early infancy and childhood. It will be found necessary, in
some instances, to abridge, but I shall endeavor not to misrepresent the
Doctor's views.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Look over the bills of mortality. Almost half of those who fill up that
black list, die under five years of age; so that half the people that
come into the world go out of it again, before they become of the least
use to it or to themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious
consideration.

"It is ridiculous to charge it upon nature, and to suppose that infants
are more subject to disease and death than grown persons; on the
contrary, they bear pain and disease much better--fevers especially; and
for the same reason that a twig is less hurt by a storm than an oak.

"In all the other productions of nature, we see the greatest vigor and
luxuriancy of health, the nearer they are to the egg or bud. When was
there a lamb, a bird, or a tree, that died because it was young? These
are under the immediate nursing of unerring nature; and they thrive
accordingly.

"Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of every nurse and every
parent, not only to protect their nurslings from injury, but to be well
assured that their own officious services be not the greatest evils the
helpless creatures can suffer?

"In the lower class of mankind, especially in the country, disease and
mortality are not so frequent, either among adults or their children.
Health and posterity are the portion of the poor--I mean the laborious.
The want of superfluity confines them more within the limits of nature;
hence they enjoy the blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their
cause.

"In the course of my practice, I have had frequent occasion to be fully
satisfied of this; and have often heard a mother anxiously say, 'the
child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying.'

"These complaints, though not attended to, point very plainly to the
cause. Is it not very evident that when a child rids its stomach of its
contents several times a day, it has been overloaded? While the natural
strength lasts, (for every child is born with more health and strength
than is generally imagined,) it cries at or rejects the superfluous
load, and _thrives apace_; that is, grows very fat, bloated, and
distended beyond measure, like a house lamb.

"But in time, the same oppressive cause continuing, the natural powers
are overcome, being no longer able to throw off the unequal weight. The
child, now unable to cry any more, languishes and is quiet.

"The misfortune is, that these complaints are not understood. The child
is swaddled and crammed on, till, after gripes, purging, &c., it sinks
under both burdens into a convulsion fit, and escapes farther torture.
This would be the case with the lamb, were it not killed, when full fat.

"That the present mode of nursing is wrong, one would think needed no
other proof than the frequent miscarriages attending it, the death of
many, and the ill health of those that survive. But what I am going to
complain of is, that children, in general, are over-clothed and
over-fed, and fed and clothed improperly. To these causes I attribute
almost all their diseases.

"But the feeding of children is much more important to them than their
clothing. Let us consider what nature directs in the case. If we follow
nature, instead of leading or driving her, we cannot err. In the
business of nursing, as well as physic, art, if it do not exactly copy
this original, is ever destructive.

"If I could prevail, no child should ever be crammed with any unnatural
mixture, till the provision of nature was ready for it; nor afterwards
fed with any ungenial diet whatever, at least for the _first three
months_; for it is not well able to digest and assimilate other elements
sooner.

"I have seen very healthy children that never ate or drank anything
whatever but their mother's milk, for the first ten or twelve months.
Nature seems to direct to this, by giving them no teeth till about that
time. The call of nature should be waited for to feed them with anything
more substantial; and the appetite ought ever to precede the food--not
only with regard to the daily meals, but those changes of diet which
opening, increasing life requires. But this is never done, in either
case; which is one of the greatest mistakes of all nurses.

"When the child requires more solid sustenance, we are to inquire what
and how much is most proper to give it. We may be well assured there is
a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
diseases.

"As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
it should ever prevail.

"If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]

"In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.

"There are many faults in the quality of children's food.

"1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &c. are
generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
sometimes a drop of wine--none of which they ought ever to take. Our
bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
destruction of the health of mankind.

"2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &c. are
light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
chief ingredients in some of these preparations.

"What I mean by light food--to give the best idea I can of it--is, any
substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm water. Good
bread is the lightest thing I know, and the fittest food for young
children. Cows' milk is also simple and light, and very good for them;
but it is often injudiciously prepared. It should never be boiled; for
boiling alters the taste and properties of it, destroys its sweetness,
and makes it thicker, heavier, and less fit to mix and assimilate with
the blood."

       *       *       *       *       *

It is hardly necessary for me to repeat, that in these general views of
Dr. C., with a few exceptions, I entirely concur; indeed some of them
have already been presented. But I have expressed my doubts of the
soundness of his conclusion in regard to sugar. Used with food, in very
small quantity, by persons whose stomachs are already in a good
condition, both sugar and molasses, especially the former, appear to me
not only harmless, but wholesome and useful.

On the subject of simplicity in children's food, I should be glad to
enlarge. There is nothing more important in diet than simplicity, and
yet I think there is nothing more rare. To suit the fashion, everything
must be mixed and varied. I have no objection to variety at different
meals, both for children and adults; indeed I am disposed to recommend
it, as will be seen hereafter. But I am utterly opposed to any
considerable variety at the same meal; and above all, in a single dish.
The simpler a dish can be, the better.

But let us look, for a moment, at the dishes of food which are often
presented, even at what are called plain tables.

Meats cannot be eaten--so many persons think--without being covered
with mustard, or pepper, or gravy--or soaked in vinegar; and not a few
regard them as insipid, unless several of these are combined. Few people
think a piece of plain boiled or broiled muscle (lean flesh) with
nothing on it but a little salt, is fit to be eaten. Everything, it is
thought, must be rendered more stimulating, or acrid; or must be
swimming in gravy, or melted fat or butter.

Bread, though proverbially the staff of life, can scarcely be eaten in
its simple state. It must be buttered, or honied, or toasted, or soaked
in milk, or dipped in gravy. Puddings must have cherries or fruits of
some sort, or spices in them, and must be sweetened largely. Or
perhaps--more ridiculous still--they must have suet in them. And after
all this is done, who can eat them without the addition of sauce, or
butter, or molasses, or cream? Potatoes, boiled, steamed or roasted,
delightful as they are to an unperverted appetite, are yet thought by
many people hardly palatable till they are mashed, and buttered or
gravied; or perhaps soaked in vinegar. In short, the plainest and
simplest article for the table is deemed nearly unfit for the stomach,
till it has been buttered, and peppered, and spiced, and perhaps
_pearlashed_. Even bread and milk must be filled with berries or fruits.
Where can you find many adults who would relish a meal which should
consist entirely of plain bread, without any addition; of plain
potatoes, without anything on them except a little salt; of a plain rice
pudding, and nothing with it; or of plain baked or boiled apples or
pears? And _could_ such persons be found, how many of them would bring
up their children to live on such plain dishes?

It need not be wondered at, that a palate which has been so long tickled
by variety, and by so many stimulating mixtures of food, should come to
regard cold water for drink as insipid; and should feel dissatisfied
with it, and desirous of boiling some narcotic or poisonous herb in it,
or brewing it with something which will impart to it more or less of
alcohol. The wonder is, not that some of our epicures become drunkards,
but that all of them do not.

Dr. Cadogan alludes to a sad mistake everywhere made about _light_ food;
and condemns, very justly, hard-boiled custards, pastry, &c. It is very
strange that these substances--for these are among the injurious
articles which I call mixtures--should ever have obtained currency in
the world, to the exclusion of bread, which, as the same writer justly
says, is among the lightest articles of food which are known.

It is strange, in particular, what views people have about bread.
Judging from what I see, I am compelled to believe that there are few
who regard it in any other light than as a kind of necessary evil. They
appear to eat it, not because they are fond of it, by itself, but
because they _must_ eat it; or rather, because it is a fashionable
article; and not to make believe they eat it, at the least, would be
unfashionable. They will get rid of it, however, when they can. And when
they must eat it, they soak it, or cover it with butter or milk, or
something else which will render it tolerable--or toast it. And use it
as they may, it must be hot from the oven. After it is once cold, very
few will eat it. The idea, above all, of making a full meal of simple
cold bread, twenty-four hours old, would be rejected by ninety-nine
persons in a hundred; and by some with abhorrence.

People not only dislike bread, but regard it as unnutritious. I have
heard many a fond parent say to the child who ate no meat, and seemed to
depend almost wholly on bread--"Why, my dear child, you will starve if
you eat no meat. Do at least put some butter on your bread or your
potatoes." A thousand times have I been admonished, when eating my
vegetable dinner during the hot and fatiguing days of summer--for I was
bred to the farm, and ate little or no meat till I was fourteen years
of age--to eat more butter, or cheese, or something that would give me
strength; for I could not work, they said, without something more
nourishing than bread and the other vegetables. And yet few if any boys
of my age did more work, or performed it better, or with more eas

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/10482