Climate and Health in Hot Countries and the Outlines of Tropical Climatology / A Popular Treatise on Personal Hygiene in the Hotter Parts of the World, and on the Climates That Will Be Met Within Them.

by George Michael James Giles

Native attendants are especially fond of the contrivance, and hence it is desirable to emphasise its dangers in a work on the present subject.

It should be needless in these days to warn mothers that all “soothing syrups” are extremely harmful and even dangerous preparations; but there is another preparation in almost universal use, which, in a smaller way, does a great deal of harm. I allude to the abuse of dill water and similar pungent stomachics. The usual pretext for its administration is that the baby has got what is popularly termed “wind in the stomach,” which may mean merely indigestion, due, in all probability, to the use of some patented abomination in the way of “infants’ foods,” containing farinaceous material; or that, as evidenced by belching, there really is gas in stomach produced by fermentation, or by sucking in air from the use of a “comforter.” Now the dill water will no doubt temporarily relieve the pain, but it will rather aggravate the malady than cure the condition that causes it; as the remedy is of exactly the same character as the nip of gin which Mrs. Gamp found so useful in soothing her “spasms,” and is probably even less suited for babies than the gin was to the good lady so inimitably portrayed by Dickens.

It is astonishing how mothers, who would exclaim with horror at a few wholesome grains of pepper to season the breakfast egg of a child of five or six, will go on giving a new-born baby dose after dose of what is much the same thing as a very pungent liqueur. Should the pain be really due to “wind,” as shown by belching, some unirritating antiseptic such as a grain or two of resorcin will rapidly check the fermentation that is producing the gas, and so cure the disease. Though comparatively little used for this purpose, the writer has found this drug most useful in these little troubles, and has found that even infants of but a few days old tolerate it perfectly. If, on the other hand, the pain be due to indigestion, the trouble is probably caused by the character of the food, and an effort should be made to find something that agrees better. Probably the commonest cause of these disorders is the use of the numerous much-advertised “infants’ foods,” most of which contain farinaceous material of some sort. Now young infants cannot digest starchy matter of any kind, and the only proper food for them is milk. When the milk of the lower animals is used it is of course desirable to modify it, so that its composition may be made to more closely resemble that of human milk; and this in the case of cow’s milk is effected by diluting the milk and adding a little sugar, preferably milk sugar. Again the tendency of cow’s milk to clot in large mass has to be neutralised by the addition of some material that will prevent this, and the general ban against farinaceous materials need not extend to the use of the deservedly popular barley water for this purpose, as the amount of starchy matter it contains is too small to be harmful.

When goats’ milk is used, the goat should be kept tied up and its food gathered for it, as although a clean feeder, it is apt, if left at freedom, to eat acrid leaves which may affect the milk. Goats’ milk requires somewhat less dilution than that of the cow, and may agree in cases where cows’ milk fails.

In proportion as the heat is greater, so should the milk be more freely diluted, as otherwise thirst may lead to the child taking more food than is good for it; and if at such times the child craves too frequently for food, a few teaspoonfuls of plain water should be given; as the craving is merely an indication that the child, like larger people, is thirsty. The water can do no harm, but irregular feeding is always injurious. As the child grows older, the milk can be given less diluted, and after eight or nine months the yolk of a raw egg beaten up with the milk may be occasionally given, if the child appears to require more nourishment; but this should not be overdone, as such food is apt to cause “biliousness.” In the second year milk puddings and bread and gravy may be given occasionally, and after the third the child should be encouraged to eat plenty of well-cooked vegetables, but stewed fruits should be given with caution.

In the case of older children brought up in hot climates, it must be remembered that their appetite, like that of their elders, is apt to suffer at trying times of the year, and hence it is important to introduce as much variety as possible into the menu. A dish nearly always much appreciated, and I believe perfectly wholesome, is a curry;—not too highly spiced of course, but still a curry. The writer had at one time, as a sole charge, the care of some five hundred children, varying from four to seventeen years of age, in a large school. For many years, on two days in the week, a curry had formed the dinner for the children of all ages in this institution. That of the “infants” had even less pepper in it than what was supplied to the elder boys and girls, but was still distinctly appetising. Now no item of the dietary was as thoroughly relished and finished with as hearty an appetite as this; and there never appeared the least reason for suspecting it was anything but useful and wholesome. Children are often much to be pitied on account of the fads of their parents in the matter of diet, for the poor little souls are continuously placed in the position of Sancho Panza, when they made him governor of Barataria, and the court physician would allow him nothing decent to eat. When children have passed the stage of early infancy, and nature has furnished them with teeth, one may be pretty sure that what is bad for them is equally deleterious to oneself, and it is well, instead of denying them all sorts of things on mere suspicion, to give a small quantity and notice if it causes any discomfort. Otherwise, as likely as not you are denying them things that may suit them excellently, and forcing them to eat insipid traditional children’s dishes, which very possibly, do not really suit them. Milk should of course be always given freely to all growing children, but apart from this too great monotony is sure to be harmful. There are some children, of course, to whom even small quantities of usually wholesome articles of food seem to act as absolute poisons. This is especially the case with sugar, extremely small quantities of which will, in such peculiarly constituted children, bring out an attack of nettle-rash. The skin is always abnormally irritable under great heat; and hence such cases show themselves more commonly in European children brought up in the Tropics than in those living in temperate climates.

When, therefore, a child is greatly troubled with nettle-rash it is well to suspend sugar, and should this fail, experiment with the stopping of other articles of its dietary.

A very common mistake on the part of anxious mothers is to cut up a child’s food too small. As soon as a child’s digestive organs have so far developed as to be capable of digesting solid food at all, as shown by its having come into the possession of a full set of first teeth, it is very important that nothing should be swallowed without thorough mastication; and the mincing of the food not only renders it possible for the food to be swallowed without chewing, but actually makes it difficult for the child to do otherwise, as anyone may convince himself by trying to masticate any minced dish.

Now mincing is in no sense a substitute for chewing, and as it is disagreeable to swallow a large piece of food without proper mastication, it is better to err on the side of cutting too large than too small. Moreover, the cutting up of the food too finely actually trains the child to bolt its meals, and this causes it to acquire a most harmful habit, of which it will be very difficult for him to break himself in after life.

On the other hand, many children take up the almost equally injurious habit of churning their food about in the mouth for an unreasonable time. This habit is a very common one with Anglo-Indian children and should always be checked, as the prolonged mumbling of each mouthful stimulates an undue flow of saliva, and produces dyspepsia by flooding the stomach with it. It is really, I believe, due to want of appetite, and is generally caused by the monotonous and insipid diet to which children are often confined, while they watch their parents consuming appetising dishes which they are not allowed to touch. Surely it is hard to expect the child to swallow a stodgy mass of boiled flour and milk, with the savour of crisply fried bacon under its nose; and why should a child whom Nature has already provided with a full set of teeth be less able to digest a simple wholesome article of food, such as this, than an adult? No one would suggest the giving of large quantities of such delicacies, of which, indeed, adults very commonly consume a good deal more than is good for them; but some bread and butter with a few scraps of bacon and some bread crisply fried in the fat, eaten with a relish that stimulates the proper flow of the digestive secretions, is surely more likely to be properly assimilated than some insipid mess, eaten under compulsion, with difficulty and loathing.