Advice to a wife and mother in two parts

by Pye Henry Chavasse

If any inflammation be present, or if he have but just recovered from one, it would be improper to send him into the open air, but not otherwise, as the fresh air would be a likely means of strengthening the lungs, and thereby of preventing an attack of inflammation for the future. Besides, the more a child is coddled within doors, the more likely will he be to catch cold, and to renew the inflammation. If the weather be cold, yet neither wet nor damp, he ought to be sent out, but let him be well clothed; and the nurse should have strict injunctions not to stand about entries, or in any draughts—indeed, not to stand about at all, but to keep walking about all the time she is in the open air. Unless you have a trustworthy nurse, it will be well for you either to accompany her in her walk with your child, or merely to allow her to walk with him in the garden, as you can then keep your eye upon both of them.

257. If a child be either chicken-breasted, or if he be narrow-chested, are there any means of expanding and of strengthening his chest?

Learning ought to be put out of the question; attention must be paid to his health alone, or consumption will probably mark him as its own! Let him live as much as possible in the open air; if it be country, so much the better. Let him rise early in the morning, and let him go to bed betimes; and if he be old enough to use the dumb-bells, or, what is better, an india-rubber chest expander, he should do so daily. He ought also to be encouraged to use two short sticks, similar to, but heavier than, a policeman’s staff, and to go, every morning, through regular exercises with them. As soon as he be old enough, let him have lessons from a drill-sergeant and from a dancing-master. Let him be made both to walk and to sit upright, and let him be kept as much as possible upon a milk diet,[^[256]] and give him as much as he can eat of fresh meat every day. Cod-liver oil, a teaspoonful or a dessertspoonful, according to his age, twice a day, is serviceable in these cases. Stimulants ought to be carefully avoided. In short, let every means be used to nourish, to strengthen, and invigorate the system, without at the same time creating fever. Such a child should be a child of nature; he ought almost to live in the open air, and throw his books to the winds. Of what use is learning without health? In such a case as this you cannot have both.

258. If a child be round-shouldered, or if either of his shoulder-blades have “grown out,” what had better be done?

Many children have either round shoulders, or have their shoulder-blades grown out, or have their spines twisted, from growing too fast, from being allowed to slouch in their gait, and from not having sufficient nourishing food, such as meat and milk, to support them while the rapid growth of childhood is going on.

If your child be affected as above described, nourish him well on milk and on farinaceous food, and on meat once a day, but let milk be his staple diet; he ought, during the twenty-four hours, to take two or three pints of new milk. He should almost live in the open air, and must have plenty of play. If you can so contrive it, let him live in the country. When tired, let him lie, for half an hour, two or three times daily, flat on his back on the carpet. Let him rest at night on a horse-hair mattress, and not on a feather bed.

Let him have every morning, if it be summer, a thorough cold water ablution; if it be winter, let the water be made tepid. Let either two handfuls of table salt or a handful of bay salt be dissolved in the water. Let the salt and water stream well over his shoulders and down his back and loins. Let him be well dried with a moderately coarse towel, and then let his back be well rubbed, and his shoulders be thrown back—exercising them, much in the same manner as in skipping, for five or ten minutes at a time. Skipping, by-the-by, is of great use in these cases, whether the child be either a boy or a girl—using, of course, the rope backward, and not forward.

Let books be utterly discarded until his shoulders have become strong, and thus no longer round, and his shoulder-blades have become straight. It is a painful sight to see a child stoop like an old man.

Let him have twice daily a teaspoonful or a dessertspoonful (according to his age) of cod-liver oil.

When he is old enough, let the drill-sergeant give him regular lessons, and let the dancing-master be put in requisition. Let him go through regular gymnastic exercises, provided they are not of a violent character.