To enforce this Precept, and prove the Reasonableness of not giving Children Meat so soon as is usual, I will here observe, that Physicians say the first Digestion should be in the Mouth, the second in the Stomach; whence it appears that Children have no Business with Meat ’till they have Teeth to chew it; nay, not ’till they have their Mouths almost full of Teeth; for they have not the Power of grinding down their Meat sufficiently ’till they have got some of their strongest Teeth, and those every one is sensible do not come first. Hence we are furnished with an admirable Hint, which not to endeavour to reduce to Practice, would be injuring our Children, and baffling the Labours of learned Men, who make the Good of Mankind the Study of their Lives. Parents by the same Lesson are instructed likewise, to make their Children accustom themselves to chew their Meat well their whole Lives; for it is certain they would thereby prevent many ill Effects arising from Indigestion.
Having thus, as near to Nature as I am able, led Parents into the first Steps of the Management of their Childrens Health, I shall now touch on Art; a little of which may, and will be necessary. It is plain that Children are born full of Foulness, full of Excrement; and Nature to remedy this, gives a purgative Quality to the Mother’s first Milk; which Quality, as the Child cleanses, goes off. But if this first Milk be drawn away by another, as is frequent, in order to ease the Breasts; or the Child does not suck it’s Mother, but an older Milk; in that Case it should most certainly be purged three or four times in the Month. For my own Part I have gone farther, and tho’ my Children had the first Milk, I always began by giving them a little Syrup of Rhubarb and Oil of Almonds; which has constantly had a good Effect, not only on them, but on many others under my Care: the Rhubarb scours and cleanses them, and the Oil in some measure blunts its griping Quality, and prevents its leaving a Costiveness so common to that Drug. But tho’ I have frequently given this, yet Rhubarb in Substance, corrected with a small Portion of Aromatic, or mix’d with Gascoign’s Powder, is found by Experience to agree very well: Syrup of Violets or Marshmallows, join’d with Oil of Almonds, are frequently given in order to cleanse the first Passages, and are very proper; tho’ not so efficacious as Rhubarb. Nor are there any better Purges than these for new-born Infants, unless, (which very seldom happens) in great Costiveness, and then a little Manna. What farther relates to Physic and physical People, shall be spoken of hereafter.
In a Treatise of this Kind nothing must pass unobserved that is important; and nothing is more so, than the destructive Practice of drinking spirituous Liquors. For a Woman to have a Habit of Dram-drinking is always detestable; but for one who gives Suck, it is horrible beyond Expression: it is fraught with double Mischief, Destruction to herself, and Destruction to the Child. One would imagine, that so odious a Vice wanted not to be inveigh’d against; or at most that the Caution could no where be useful, but amongst Basket-women and Billingsgates. ’Tis true indeed, that the Illiterate and Vulgar are the most addicted to it; but melancholy Experience shews us, that Women every way happy in Life, Women of the best Understanding, and the best Education, are but too often tainted with it.
It is not my Design in general to write on the Foibles or Vices of Parents, but of Children; yet it must be owned, that where the Actions of the one have an Influence on the other, where the Connection is so close that the Health or Morals of Children are affected by the Conduct of Parents, it is perfectly consistent with the Plan I have laid down; and consequently is within my Province. Thus then I observe, that there are many Women who never tasted spirituous Liquors ’till they gave Suck. A Child is kept lugging at the Breast ’till the Mother is ready to sink, and a Friend recommends a Dram: the innocent Woman starts at the Proposition; but it being strenuously urg’d that it will do her good and the Child too, she follows the Counsel and drinks it. How reluctantly and with how much dislike may be known by her shaking her Head at the very Smell of it, making Faces when it is down, and declaring it is nasty Stuff. Now for a while let me talk like an Apothecary. The Nerves give Sensation to our whole Frame whether of Pain or Pleasure. This Dram acts immediately on the Nerves of the Stomach, and instantly communicates itself to those of the Brain, which are exquisitely fine; the Sensation is pleasing, a general Glow is felt, and the temporary Relief it gives, persuades her that Drams are not so pernicious as People pretend. But by and by the Languor returns, and she has recourse to her Dram again; tho’ perhaps with this Difference, that instead of being persuaded into it she seeks it herself; and thus by a Return of Wants, she finds a Return of Desire; she flies so often to her fancied Remedy, that at length she is innocently and insensibly led into a Habit which infatuates her: even so far as often to rob her of the Power of getting rid of it. But the Habit contracted, what is the Effect? Why, that which at first was only a slight Injury, by this means becomes a mortal Wound.
The Human Frame, that Master-Piece of infinite Wisdom, is compos’d of a great variety of Parts, of different Make, Texture and Quality; each of which has it’s Use, and proper Office assign’d it. But that I may not confound any of my Readers by nice or obscure Physical Divisions, I will say it is compos’d of Solids and Fluids: the Fluids, that is, the Blood and other Juices, are allotted to nourish and preserve the Solids; and the Solids, that is, the Flesh and other hard Parts, serve as Pipes or Channels to convey in a due Course the several Fluids to their destin’d End. Now to preserve Health, it is necessary that our whole Machine acts regularly; which it cannot do for any long Time with the pernicious Habit we have been speaking of. Drams, which at first give only a slight Wound to the Nerves, by frequent Repetition enfeeble them; and in the End totally disable them; as is evident by their bringing on Tremblings, weakening the Memory, and impairing the Understanding. To maintain Health, the Solids are to keep up their due Force or Spring, that they may propel the Fluids, and prevent their breaking them down by too great a Resistance. The Fluids are to be kept in such a state, that they may neither run too rapidly, nor clog by the way for want of the circulating Power. Thus in Rivers, where the Banks and Fences are weak, the Pressure of the Water will break them down; or if the Water be clogg’d and render’d foul by any Mixture foreign to it’s Nature, or is otherwise obstructed in it’s Course, it cannot reach those various Meanders, those small Canals it was allotted to fill.
Hence every Eye may see how destructive this unnatural Habit must be to our Frame. The Tone of the Stomach is weaken’d, and with it, the Power of Digestion; Obstructions of the Liver and other Parts ensue; the Solids are broke, and the Fluids forsake their proper Channels: hence Jaundice, Dropsies, Palsies, and various other Distempers, fatal in their Consequences, and doubly acute to those who reflect, that they have brought them on themselves: for however thoughtless or indifferent they may be while in Health, when bitter Remembrance accompanies the severe Effects, the Situation must be dreadful.
I have observ’d that many are innocently led into this grievous Habit: and they are the more liable to it, as the Goodness of their Constitution preserves some longer than others, from being sensible of it’s ill Effects. But they must beware of Illusions, and convince themselves of one Truth at least; that instead of that Nutrition which proper Food yields, the Blood and other Juices are by this means vitiated; and with them that most salutary Fluid the Milk. It is true indeed that all Drams are not alike pernicious; nor do they, as I have just hinted, act alike on all Constitutions. Yet thus much is certain; that they all contain fiery Particles, a Portion of caustic inflammable Matter, in general very injurious to our whole Frame; very unfit to circulate in our Blood and Juices; and above all, extremely prejudicial to those Infants who imbibe the Infection by sucking at a Breast thus unhappily tainted.
But besides this dreadful Habit in the Mother or Nurse, there is a Practice among the Vulgar still more shocking; and which must make every reasonable Creature shrink with Horror; that of giving Drams to the Children themselves, even while Infants. Nothing is more strongly urg’d by all moral Writers than the Force of Example; and when they mean to paint a bad Parent, they describe a Child imitating those Vices his Father acts before him. But here Description is too weak; no Language has Force enough to express the Horror of this Vice! These unhappy wretched Parents forestall Imitation; they stay not ’till the Child has Power to follow their Example; but pour the deadly Poison down the poor Babe’s Throat, even before it can speak! What, I say again, what Language can describe the Horror of this Vice? Surely none.
All wise Men agree, that Virtues flow, or ought to flow, from the Head; that the Inferior receive their Influence from the Superior; and most act by Imitation of their Betters: but Experience shews us, that the Little can sometimes teach the Great Virtues they were before Strangers to; and by a still stranger Inversion of the natural Order of Things, it often happens, that the Great imitate the Vices of the Little. But here I cannot refrain from exhorting Parents of every Rank never to suffer themselves to fall into so dreadful an Error as that just hinted at. Those who are already tainted with it are perhaps too abandon’d to be reclaim’d; or have it not in their Power to remove the Mischief they have caused: but those who are happily Strangers to it, must keep their Attention awake; must live in a constant Resolution never to let a Child so much as touch so dangerous a Weapon; unless they choose to be their Childrens Murderers; choose to have them fall a Sacrifice to some dire Disease; or become Cripples, Idiots, or Brutes.
Before I quit this Head, I must take Notice of an inferior Degree of the same Error; less a Vice indeed, because there is an Intention of Good in it, tho’ generally a mistaken one; I mean that of putting Brandy and other spirituous Liquors into Childrens Victuals. How this Practice came to be introduced is amazing! But tho’ the general Pretence is preventing or curing Wind and Gripes, it is highly erroneous: for where these Disorders really exist they should be treated in another Manner; and by People whose Judgment can be depended on.