The Young Mother: Management of Children in Regard to Health

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. Mischief they produce. Caution to mothers. Extracts. Drinking cold water, while hot.

Children need little if any drink, so long as their food is nothing but milk; nor indeed for some time afterward, unless they are indulged in the use of animal food. Adults, even, very seldom drink merely to quench natural thirst. In the summer, people usually drink either to cool themselves, or to gratify a thirst which is wholly artificial. Tea, coffee, beer, cider, and most other common drinks, when not used for the sake of their coolness, are drank, both in winter and summer, for this purpose.

That this is the fact, we have the most abundant and unequivocal evidence. I know that much is said of the demand which a profuse perspiration creates among hard laborers in the summer. Such a sudden abstraction of a large amount of fluid requires, it is said, a proportional supply, or life would soon become extinct. Yet there are many old men who have perspired profusely at their labor all their days, and yet have drank nothing at all, except their tea, morning and evening; and perhaps have eaten, for one or two of their meals daily, in summer, a bowl of bread and milk. And some of them are among the most remarkable instances of longevity which the country affords.

How the system acquires a sufficient supply of moisture to keep up good health, in these cases, I do not pretend to determine: perhaps it is through the medium of the lungs. But at any rate, it can obtain it without our drinking for that sole purpose, to the great danger of exciting liver complaints, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, colds, rheumatisms, and fevers.

But if adults who perspire freely do not require much drink, children certainly do not; and above all, young children. And if they do require any thing, it is only simple water. The following remarks of Dr. Oliver, of Hanover, N.H., are extracted from Dr. Mussey's late Prize Essay on Ardent Spirits:

"Who has not observed the extreme satisfaction which children derive from quenching their thirst with pure water? And who that has perverted his appetite for drink, by stimulating his palate with bitter beer, sour cider, rum and water, and other beverages of human invention, but would be a gainer, even on the score of mere animal gratification, without any reference to health, if he could bring back his vitiated taste to the simple relish of nature?

"Children drink because they are dry. Grown people drink, whether dry or not, because they have discovered a way of making drink pleasant. Children drink water because this is a beverage of nature's own brewing, which she has made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst. Grown people drink anything but water, because this fluid is intended to quench only a natural thirst; and natural thirst is a thing which they seldom feel."

There is a great deal of truth, as well as of sound philosophy, in these two paragraphs, and little less of truth in the following paragraph from Dr. Dewees:

"We have witnessed very often, with sorrow, parents giving to their young children wine, or other stimulating liquors. Nature never intended anything stronger than water to be the drink for children. This they enjoy greatly; and much advantage is occasionally experienced from its use, especially after they have commenced the use of animal food."

Two things are to be observed in the last remarks, which are, that children demand drink of any kind but seldom, and that even this occasional demand is often the special result of the use of animal food. Here comes out an important secret. It is the use of animal food, to a very great degree, in adults and children both, that creates so much of that unnatural thirst which prevails in the community. When we shall come to lay aside animal food, in childhood, youth, manhood and age, much that is now called thirst will be banished; and much of the intemperance and other kinds of sensuality which follow in its train.

It has been sometimes said that there is but one kind of drink in the world—and that is water. This is strictly, or rather physiologically true. For, though many mixtures are called drinks, it is only the water which they contain that answers any of the legitimate purposes for which drink was intended by the Creator.

The object of drink, besides quenching our thirst, or rather while it quenches it, is, not to be digested, like food, but to pass directly from the stomach into the blood-vessels, and dilute and temper the blood, rendering it more fit to answer the great purpose of sustaining life and health. Now, there is nothing that can do this but water. Alcohol cannot do it, nor can turpentine, oil, quicksilver, melted lead, or any other liquid.

Tea, coffee, chocolate, small beer, soda water, lemonade, &c., which are nearly all water, quench the thirst very well, it is true; but not quite so well as water alone would. The narcotic principle of the first two, the alcoholic principle of the fourth, and the mucilage, nutriment, acid, and alkali of the rest, are in the way; for thirst would be quenched still better without them, even when it is of an unnatural kind.

Indeed, the same or similar remarks may be made in regard to all other mixtures which are usually proposed as drinks. Even milk and water, molasses and water, &c., in favor of which so much is said, are objectionable, as mere drinks. Not that they contain anything poisonous, but they evidently contain nutriment; and even this, except as a part or the whole of a regular meal, does harm; for it sets the stomach at work when it needs repose. Mere drink, as I have already said, is never digested.

But if the drinks above mentioned, and even milk and water, are objectionable, what shall we say of cider, wine, and ardent spirits?—substances which contain, the latter one half, and the two former from one twentieth to one fourth alcohol. Surely, nobody will deny that these substances ought, at all events, to be banished from the nursery. And yet we occasionally find them there, not only for the use of the mother, to the ruin of the child, indirectly—but also, in some of their smoother forms, for the use of the child itself.

I would not lay too much stress on food and drink; for, as I have already observed, more than once, the causes of infantile ill health and mortality are numerous. Still I must insist that, of all the sources of disease, these are the most prolific. Much is done towards ruining the health of children by the improper food and drink of the mother. But when, in addition to all this, the children themselves are early fed with animal food, and with stimulating drinks—punch, coffee, tea, &c.—and an artificial thirst is early excited and rendered habitual, their destruction, for time and eternity, is almost inevitable.

Very few children relish any drink but water, or sweetened water, at first; and where they do, it is probably hereditary. I have been struck with their tastes and preferences; nor less with the folly of those around them, in endeavoring to change them, by requiring them—almost always against their will—to sip a little coffee, or a little tea, or a little lemonade; or, it may be, a little toddy. Such children may escape the death of the drunkard or the debauchee; but if they do, it will not be through the instrumentality of the parents.

I am very much opposed to giving children hot drinks of any kind. If they are to drink substances which are injurious, as tea or coffee, let them be cool. I do not say cold, for that would be going to the other extreme. But no drink, in any ordinary case, should be above the heat of our bodies; that is, about 98 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer. Yet the precautions of this paragraph will be almost unnecessary, if children are confined—as they ought to be, and would be, did we not go out of our way to teach them otherwise—to water, as their only drink. Cold water is almost always preferred. Not one child in a thousand would ever prefer it hot, until his taste had been perverted. No writer has inveighed more against hot drinks of every kind, than the late William Cobbett—and, as I think, with more justice.

But, in avoiding one rock, we must not, as has already been intimated, make shipwreck on another. Hot drinks, though they injure the powers of the stomach, and by that means and through that medium, are one principal cause of the almost universal early decay of teeth, are yet less injurious, or at least less dangerous, immediately, than cold ones. Mr. Locke, in speaking of the sports of a child, in the open air, has the following quaint, but judicious remarks:

"Playing in the open air has but this one danger in it, that I know; and that is, that when he is hot with running up and down, he should sit or lie down on the cold or moist earth. This, I grant, and drinking cold drink, when they are hot with labor or exercise, brings more people to the grave, or to the brink of it, by fevers and other diseases, than anything I know. These mischiefs are easily enough prevented when he is little, being then seldom out of sight. And if, during his childhood, he be constantly and rigorously kept from sitting on the ground, or drinking any cold liquor, while he is hot, the custom of forbearing, grown into habit, will help much to preserve him, when he is no longer under his maid's or tutor's eye.

"More fevers and surfeits are got by people's drinking when they are hot, than by any one thing I know. If he (the child) be very hot, he should by no means drink; at least a good piece of bread, first to be eaten, will gain time to warm his drink blood hot, which then he may drink safely. If he be very dry, it will go down so warmed, and quench his thirst better; and if he will not drink it so warmed, abstaining will not hurt him. Besides, this will teach him to forbear, which is a habit of the greatest use for health of mind and body too."

The last remarks are full of wisdom. Mothers may depend upon it, that every indulgence to which they accustom their children paves the way for habitual indulgence; and has a tendency to lead, indirectly, to indulgence in other matters; and, on the contrary, every self-denial which they can lead children to exercise, voluntarily—even in these every-day matters of food, drink, exercise, &c. is so much gained in the great work of self-denial and the resisting of temptation in matters of higher importance. But I must not moralize too long; having dwelt on this same point under the head Confectionary. I proceed, therefore, to make a few more extracts from Mr. Locke:

"Not being permitted to drink without eating, will prevent the custom of having the cup often at his nose; a dangerous beginning."

"Men often bring habitual hunger and thirst on themselves by custom."

"You may, if you please, bring any one to be thirsty every hour."

"I once lived in a house, where, to appease a froward child, they gave him drink as often as he cried, so that he was constantly bibbing. And though he could not speak, yet he drank more in twenty-four hours than I did."

"It is convenient, for health and sobriety, to drink no more than natural thirst requires; and he that eats not salt meats, nor drinks strong drink, will seldom thirst between meals."

Great mischief is often done to their health by children at school; and one instance of this is, in getting violently heated with exercise, and then pouring down large quantities of cold water to cool themselves. I once made it a habitual rule for pupils, that they must drink water, if they drank it at all, on leaving their seats to go to their plays, but not afterwards: and I was so situated that I could prevent the law from being broken, as there was no spring or well to which they could have access, privately. And though they thought the rule rather severe, I have no doubt it saved them from much injury, and perhaps sometimes from sickness.

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.

So much error prevails in regard to the medical management of the young, that a volume might be written without exhausting the subject.14 My present limits and plan allow of only a few remarks, and those must be general.

That "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," has so long ago become a proverb, that it seems almost idle to repeat the sentiment. And yet it is to be feared that very few receive it as a practical truth, in the management of children. Now nothing is more certain than that it is easier, as well as more humane, to prevent diseases than to cure them.

I have elsewhere mentioned the opinion of a very eminent physician, that nine in ten of children's diseases may be imputed to error with regard to the quantity or the quality of their food. For myself, I am by no means certain that nine out of ten is the exact proportion, though I think the number is, at all events, very large. Few children, or even grown persons, are seized with disease suddenly. Their progress towards it is always gradual, and sometimes imperceptible. To a physician of any tolerable degree of skill, however, there is no difficulty in observing and pointing out the first steps towards illness; in those whose habits of life are well known to him; and of foretelling the consequence.

But since parents and nurses are not so well qualified as physicians to make these observations, I will endeavor to point out a few certain signs and symptoms by which they may know a child's health to be declining, even before be appears to be sick.—For if these are neglected, the evil increases, goes on from bad to worse, and more violent and apparent complaints will follow, and perhaps end in incurable diseases, which a timely remedy, or a slight change in the diet and manner of life, would have infallibly prevented.

"The first tendency to disease," says Dr. Cadogan, "may be observed in a child's breath. It is not enough that the breath is not offensive; it should be sweet and fragrant, like a nosegay of fresh flowers, or a pail of new milk from a young cow that feeds upon the sweetest grass of the spring; and this as well at first waking in the morning, as all day long."15

There is much of truth in these remarks; but if they are wholly true, then very few children are perfectly healthy. For no child that eats much animal food of any sort, or, what amounts to nearly the same thing, much butter or gravy, will long retain the fragrant breath here alluded to. Who has not observed the difference in this respect, between animals in general which feed on flesh, and those which feed on grass? And whether it is the character of their respective food that makes the difference or not, it is also true that there is nearly as much difference of breath between men who use animal food and those who do not, as between other animals. The breath of some of our enormous meat eaters would almost remind one of a slaughter house.

Nor is it the quality of food alone, that will induce a foul breath, either in adults or infants. He who swallows such enormous quantities, even of plain food, as by overloading and fatiguing the stomach, tend gradually to debilitate it, will produce the same effect. The enormous feeders of this full feeding country, whether they are young or old, whether they inhabit the mountain or the vale, and whether they feed on animal food or not, have generally a bad breath; and if they seldom offend, it is because few feed otherwise. And it is not too much—in my own opinion—to say of this whole class of gormandizers, no less than of the flesh eaters, that they have laid for themselves the foundation of future disease.

One general rule may here be distinctly laid down. As a child's breath becomes hot and feverish, or strong, or acid, we may be certain that "digestion and surfeit have fouled and disturbed the blood; and now is the time to apply a proper remedy, and prevent a train of impending evils. Let the child be restrained in its food. Let it eat less, live upon milk or thin broth for a day or two, and be carried (or walk if it is able) a little more than usual in the open air."16

This rule is the more important, because, if duly persevered in, it will generally prevent disease, and save the trouble and evil consequences of taking medicine at all. Meanwhile it will be advisable to call in a physician—not to give drugs, but to prevent the necessity of giving them. There is a foolish fear abroad that physicians, if called before a person is violently sick, will dose him with their drugs, as a matter of course, till they make him sick. But this, no judicious physician will ever do. It may have been done, though I believe it has been seldom. The more general course is to defer calling for medical advice, till it is too late to use preventive means; and medicine is then resorted to by the physician as a sort of necessary evil.

A judicious physician, seasonably called in, would in many instances save a severe fit of sickness, besides a great deal of expense, both of time and money.

But if the first symptoms of approaching disease are overlooked—if the child is fed, or rather crammed; with solid food as much as ever—and if no medical advice is sought, his sleep will soon become disturbed; he will be talking, starting, and tumbling about, and will have frightful dreams; or he will at other times be found smiling and laughing. To these, in the end, may be added, loss of appetite, paleness, emaciation, weakness, cough, and consumption; or colics, worms, and convulsions.

I do not undertake to say that the most judicious parental management, aided by the greatest medical skill, will always prevent disease; far from it. The child may and undoubtedly sometimes does inherit a tendency to a particular disease; or he may be made sick by error in regard to dress, exercise, &c. But so long as nine tenths of the disease and early mortality of the young might be prevented by due attention to all these means combined, so long will it be necessary to reiterate the sentiments of the present section.

CHAPTER X.

EXERCISE

SEC. 1. Objections to the use of cradles.—SEC. 2. Carrying in the arms—its uses and abuses.—SEC. 3. Creeping—why useful—to be encouraged.—SEC. 4. Walking—general directions about it.—SEC. 5. Riding abroad in carriages.—SEC. 6. Riding on horseback—objections. Riding schools.

This subject may be considered under the following heads: ROCKING IN THE CRADLE; CARRYING IN THE ARMS; CREEPING; WALKING; RIDING IN A CARRIAGE; AND RIDING ON HORSEBACK. These I shall consider in their order.