THE FOOD OF INFANTS AND CHILDREN.
The diet of children is frequently improper either in regard to quantity, quality, or variety. In 1867, a committee, of which Professor Austin Flint, Jr., was chairman, was appointed in New York city to revise the 'Dietary Table of the Children's Nurseries on Randall's Island.' In the report rendered, attention was forcibly called to the fact that in childhood 'the demands of the system for nourishment are in excess of the waste, the extra quantity being required for growth and development. If the proper quantity and variety of food be not provided, full development cannot take place, and the children grow up, if they survive, into young men and women, incapable of the ordinary amount of labor, and liable to diseases of various kinds. This is frequently illustrated in the higher walks of life, particularly in females; for many suffer through life from improper diet in boarding schools, due to false and artificial notions of delicacy or refinement. After a certain period of improper and deficient diet in children, the appetite becomes permanently impaired, and the system is rendered incapable of appropriating the amount of matter necessary to proper development and growth.'
Charlotte Bronté has drawn, in Jane Eyre, a graphic and physiologically true picture of the effects upon young girls of long-continued insufficiency of food. Let mothers bear in mind that proper food cannot be too abundantly eaten by children, and that the greatest danger to which they are exposed arises from defective nutrition. We would again urge the value of a large amount of milk in the dietary of young people. The disorders of the bowels, which are not uncommon in infancy and childhood, are due to errors in diet by which improper food is supplied, and not to an excess of simple and proper nourishment.
We have already given some directions for the preparation of infants' food in treating of 'bringing-up by hand.' In addition to the various substitutes for the mother's milk there mentioned, we wish to note that known as Liebig's soup. This great chemist thus describes the method of making it:
'Half an ounce of wheat flour, half an ounce of malt meal, and seven and a half grains of bicarbonate of potass, are weighed off. They are first mixed by themselves, then with the addition of one ounce of water, and lastly, of five ounces of milk. This mixture is then heated upon a slow fire, being constantly stirred until it begins to get thick. At this period the vessel is removed from the fire, and the mixture is stirred for five minutes, is again heated and again removed when it gets thick, and, lastly, it is heated till it boils. This soup is purified from bran by passing it through a fine sieve (a piece of fine muslin), and now it is ready for use.'
Barley-malt can be obtained at any brewery. First, it is separated from the impurities, and then ground in an ordinary coffee-mill to a coarse meal. Care should be taken to get the common fresh wheat-flour, not the finest, because the former is richest in starch.
In practice, the troublesome weighing of the materials may be dispensed with, as a heaped table-spoonful of wheat-flour weighs pretty nearly half an ounce, and a like table-spoonful of malt-meal, not quite as heaped, weighs also half an ounce. The bicarbonate of potass can be obtained from the druggist put up in powders of seven and a half grains, each ready for use. The amount of water and of milk prescribed can be attained with sufficient accuracy by means of the table-spoon; two table-spoonfuls will give the quantity of water (one ounce), and ten table-spoonfuls the quantity of milk (five ounces). These directions will enable any sensible mother to make the preparation without difficulty. The soup tastes tolerably sweet, and, when diluted with water, may be given to very young infants.
Although the method of preparing Liebig's soup is a somewhat tedious one, yet, as it is a combination which has long been so highly recommended by physicians of the largest experience for having visibly saved the lives of many wasting children, it deserves a trial in all cases in which the ordinary kinds of food disagree.
On page 276 are recorded the directions given by Dr. J. Forsyth Meigs for an article of diet, consisting of gelatine and arrowroot, which he prefers to all other kinds of artificial infant food. Another method of preparing a useful arrowroot mixture is as follows:—
Place a tea-spoonful of arrowroot in a porcelain vessel, with as much cold water as will make it into a fine dough; then add a cupful of boiling milk or of beef-tea; stir the mixture a little, and allow it to boil for a few minutes until the whole acquires the consistency of a fine light jelly.