When the infant is five or six months old, either oatmeal milk gruel, or Robinson’s Patent Groat Gruel made with new milk, occasionally given in lieu of the usual food, will often open the bowels, and will thus supersede the necessity of administering an aperient.
Castor oil, or Dr. Merriman’s Purgative Liniment, well rubbed every morning, for ten minutes at a time, over the region of the bowels, will frequently prevent costiveness, and thus will do away with the need—which is a great consideration—of giving an aperient.
Take of—Tincture of aloes, half an ounce;
Soap liniment, one ounce:
Make a liniment.
What NOT to do.—There are two preparations of mercury I wish to warn you against administering of your own accord, viz.—(1.) Calomel, and a milder preparation called (2.) gray powder (mercury with chalk). It is a common practice in this country to give calomel, on account of the readiness with which it may be administered, it being small in quantity and nearly tasteless. Gray powder, also, is, with many mothers, a favorite in the nursery. It is a medicine of immense power—either for good or for evil; in certain cases it is very valuable; but in others, and in the great majority, it is very detrimental.
This practice, then, of a mother giving mercury, whether in the form either of calomel or of gray powder, cannot be too strongly reprobated, as the frequent administration either of one or of the other weakens the body, predisposes it to cold, and frequently excites king’s evil—a disease too common in this country. Calomel and gray powder, then, ought never to be administered unless ordered by a medical man.
Syrup of buckthorn and jalap are also frequently given, but they are griping medicines for a baby, and ought to be banished from the nursery.
The frequent repetition of opening medicines, then, in any shape or form, very much interferes with digestion; they must, therefore, be given as seldom as possible.
Let me, at the risk of wearying you, again urge the importance of your avoiding as much as possible, giving a babe purgative medicines. They irritate beyond measure the tender bowels of an infant, and only make him more costive afterward; they interfere with his digestion, and are liable to give him cold. A mother who is always of her own accord quacking her child with opening physic, is laying up for her unfortunate offspring a debilitated constitution—a miserable existence.