Wisely, therefore, does Dr Clark recommend early and earnest attention to a proper dietetic regimen, and insist that “the food of the child be regulated chiefly by the state of the digestive organs. In proportion to the delicacy of the child, the diet will in general require to be mild; when he thrives upon milk, farinaceous food, and light broths, no stronger or more substantial food need be used during the first two years of life: when he looks healthy and grows, and his bowels are regular (for this is one of the surest indications that the food is suited to the digestive organs), we have the best proofs that the diet agrees with him. When, on the other hand, the child appears heated or flushed towards evening, when he drinks greedily and more than is usual in children of the same age, and when his bowels do not act regularly, we may be assured that there is something wrong in the regimen employed.
“There is no greater error in the management of children than that of giving them animal diet too early in life. To feed an infant with animal food before it has teeth for masticating it, shews a total disregard to the plain indications of Nature in withholding such teeth till the system requires their assistance in masticating solid food. Before that period, milk, farinaceous food, and broth, afford that kind of sustenance which is best suited to the digestive organs, and to the nourishment of the system. The method of grating and pounding meat as a substitute for chewing, may be well suited to the toothless octogenarian, whose stomach is capable of digesting it; but the stomach of the young child is not adapted to the digestion of such food, and will be disordered by it. When the child has the means of masticating, a little animal food may be allowed, but it should be of the lightest quality, and given on alternate days only; and even then its effects should be watched, for all changes in the regimen of children should be gradual.
“The frequent origin of scrofulous disease in defective nourishment has led to the opposite extreme, and children who are disposed to tuberculous disease are too often subjected to a system of over-feeding which induces the disease it is intended to prevent. By persevering in the use of an overstimulating diet, the digestive organs become irritated, and the various secretions immediately connected with digestion are diminished, especially the biliary secretion; at least the sensible qualities of the bile enable us to observe it best. Constipation of the bowels soon follows; congestion of the hepatic and abdominal veins succeeds, and is followed by the train of consequences which have already been detailed. It would be well if the advocates of the system of high feeding, would bear in mind the salutary adage, corpora impura quo plus nutries, eo magis lædis.”[48]
In proportion as the organization becomes developed, and strength, activity, and aptitude for abundant exercise increase, a larger allowance of plain animal food becomes essential to health. The instruments of mastication are now fully adequate to their office, and the stomach is no longer oppressed by the effort of digesting it. To make it safe, however, even at that age, ample exercise and exposure to the open air are indispensable. By undue confinement to the house or to school, and deficient exposure to the air, a degree of general delicacy is kept up which is incompatible with the daily use of a stimulant animal diet. The waste occasioned by the bodily action is too limited to require the copious supply of any very nutritious substances, and if these be freely allowed, they serve only to oppress the digestive functions and impair the health.
The prevalent and pernicious custom of tasking the minds and confining the bodies of children for hours in succession at home and in schools, at a time of life when the growth of the body and the welfare of the system require constant and playful exercise in the open air, and perfect freedom from care and excitement of mind, is the fruitful source of much future bad health, and is eminently calculated to defeat the object aimed at by parents, namely, the mental excellence of the child. The premature exertion of intellect to which it is stimulated by the constant excitement of emulation and vanity, far from strengthening, tends to impair the health and tone of the brain, and of all the organs depending on it; and hence we rarely perceive the genius of the school manifesting in future years any of the superiority which attracted attention in early life; but we find him, on the contrary, either sunk below mediocrity, or dragging out a painful existence, the victim of indigestion and melancholy. On the other hand, some of the most distinguished men who ever lived were in childhood remarkable only for health, idleness, and apparent stupidity. The illustrious Newton was, by his own account, an idle and inattentive boy, and “very low in the school,” till he reached twelve years of age; and the young Napoleon himself is described as “having good health, and being in other respects like other boys.” Adam Clarke was considered “a grievous dunce” when a boy, and was seldom praised by his father, except for his ability in rolling large stones, which his robust frame and good health enabled him to do. Shakspeare, Gibbon, Byron, Scott, and Davy, were in like manner undistinguished for precocious genius, and were fortunately allowed to indulge freely in those wholesome bodily exercises, and that freedom of mind, which contributed so much to their future excellence. The mother of Sheridan, too, long regarded him as “the dullest and most hopeless of her sons.”
Among the many who give great promise in early life, and whose talents are then forced by ill-judged cultivation into precocious maturity, how few live to manhood to reap the reward of their exertions, and how few of those who survive preserve their superiority unimpaired! Tasso was early distinguished, and wrote his immortal epic at twenty-two years of age, but his life was miserable and his reason disordered, and he died at fifty-one. Pascal is another example of the same result, and Kirke White and many others might be named were it necessary.[49]
Experience, indeed, amply demonstrates that precocious and excessive activity of intellect and vivacity of feeling are most powerful impediments to healthy and vigorous digestion, and consequently to a sufficient nutrition. In early life, therefore, when not only health but future usefulness depend mainly on the completeness and vigour with which the system shall proceed towards its full development, the preservation of the digestive organs by suitable diet, exercise, and regimen, ought to be a primary object of attention with every sensible parent. Even as regards superiority of mind, the healthy development of the body is of essential importance, as the only sure foundation on which mental excellence can be built; because, so long as mind and body are intimately connected with each other, the former must continue to be affected by every change in the condition of the organization on which it depends. We enjoy acuteness of vision by preserving the eye in high health, and exercising it regularly and moderately; and in like manner, we can obtain and preserve intellectual power only by preserving the health of the brain, and exercising it in conformity with its natural constitution.
Instead, then, of feeding the closely confined and excitable children of the middle and higher classes from early infancy on quantities of stimulating animal food, and even giving them wine and fermented liquors, we shall act more in accordance with the laws of Nature by restricting them, during the three or four earliest years of childhood, chiefly to a mild farinaceous diet, with a small allowance of meat on alternate days; and by seeking to increase their digestive power and bodily vigour by constant exercise in the open air, before giving them a more solid diet. By these means the development of the organization, the keenness of appetite, the tone of digestion, and the desire of, and fitness of the system for, animal food, will increase in regular proportion, and a free supply of that species of aliment will even become necessary to carry on the growth. In short, it must ever be remembered, that strength is to be obtained not from the kind of food which contains most nourishment in itself, but from that which is best adapted to the condition of the digestive organs at the time when it is taken.
Children who are prone to bodily exertion, and live almost entirely in the open air, as many of those of the lower orders do, and who display no unusual sensibility or activity of mind, or, in other words, no unusual irritability of the nervous system, not only bear but require a larger proportion of animal food than their more delicate and sensitive companions. Not only is their digestion more vigorous, but the waste going on in the system is much greater, and the nutritive functions are more active; the need consequently for nourishing food, and the desire to procure it, are proportionally increased. Hence it happens that, in the wealthier classes of society, young children suffer most from over-feeding; while in the poorer classes they suffer chiefly from the opposite cause. In both, defective nutrition is the result; but the modes in which it is brought about are very different.
One of the most pernicious habits in which children can be indulged is that of almost incessant eating. Many mothers encourage it from the facility with which, for a time, the offer of “something nice” procures peace. Even from infancy, the child ought to be gradually accustomed to eat only when hungry, and when food is really required. After two years of age, an interval of four hours between meals will rarely be more than enough; and to give biscuit, fruit, or bread in the mean time, is just subtracting from the digestive power of the stomach. Like almost every organ of the body, the stomach requires a period of repose after the labour of digestion; and, accordingly, in the healthy state, the sensation of appetite never returns till it has been for some time empty. To give food sooner, therefore, is analogous to making a weary traveller walk on without the refreshment of a halt.