A Book of Medical Discourses, in Two Parts

by Rebecca Lee Crumpler

If rooms are occupied all on the same floor, it is much better for the health and comfort of all. Windows can be dropped from the top; or a swinging pane, set in the top of a sash, is a very good way to ventilate or let in fresh air. So few people that depend on their bodily strength from day to day, stop to think that pure air is the all-essential element, and that without light, air, and sun in their dwellings, the poisonous gases cannot leave them, but they must sooner or later succumb to them. Children need a great amount of rest while growing. Yet few children are ever permitted to lay down during the day after entering the primary school. “Oh,” said a mother, “children rest sitting in school.” The probabilities are, that those little nerves are all on a stretch for the first six months (if they last that long). And they never rest except the meals are regular, the mind made happy, and the sleep quiet and sweet. Not only so; the nervous system of children is, in many instances, run down before entering school at all. Thus, through a desire to humor or cater to its seeming wants, a child is permitted to toddle about on foot, aided by some excitement, all day long, eat whatever it should not, fret and fume till it is literally outdone. This might be avoided by the exercise of a little early home rule, which could be the better understood by the time the child is old enough to enter a public school. If there are a dozen children in one family, each one should be supplied with a chair, according to its age; so that when the word is given to sit down, it may be understood and obeyed. If children can conform to rules of order for strangers, they certainly will for their dear parents and guardians. Would it not be well for mothers and friends to withhold some of their indulgences from children who are entirely too young to appreciate their endearing acts, and bestow them more lavishly when the possibilities of experience will insure a reward? Would not a little more kind persuasion bring sunshine into the family circle? Would it not pay for every laboring man of a family to reserve an empty room at the top of the house for a play-room for his children? There is not the least doubt but that every mother would be made to rejoice from the advantage; if not at the top of the house, on the same floor with the sitting-room.

There is nothing particularly commendable in the habit of permitting cats and dogs to be closely imprisoned with children, as little ones are prone to put their mouths to everything; thus, there is a probability of worms making from the hair of such animals when swallowed. By the close observance of the different traits of mankind, I have been led to believe that true philanthropy is ingrafted into the human heart only through Divine agency. So that if belief in God and His attributes is entertained by each, no sacrifice will be considered too great for the sake of relieving the helpless ones within the family circle. Philanthropy cannot dwell in the heart of an eye servant, it must be inborn and unbiased in applications relative to human happiness. Too often, it happens that mothers give up all hope just at the weakest period in a child’s life, willing, on the slightest pretext, to abandon the offspring of their body. Words are not adequate to portray the lasting miseries that, in consequence, daily encircle the minds and bodies of the youth of our land. With many parents, the beginning to raise a family is novel and pleasing, but at the very time the most particular care is required, patience and watchfulness flag, so that it is no uncommon thing to hear mothers, in particular, declare their inability to rule and rear their own children. Would it not be well for mothers to make a little sacrifice for the sake of equipping the mind, that they may be able to dispense the required rudiments of moral and intellectual education at home, till a child is at least seven years old? Let mothers awake to duty; let them seek to know the causes of so many bleeding hearts and weeping eyes, and learn to compare effect with means, and means with ends; then the pall that is ever ready to obscure their sky of cheer, will rapidly disappear. We find, when comparing the statistical reports of the death-rates of children under one year old, that they are largest in those cities where the influx of immigration is constant, and the women, either from choice or necessity, are so engaged in other pursuits, that they do not take care of their young. Also that the death-rate of children under six years old, is greater in those cities where early home discipline is thwarted and early school privileges are the rule. But a few months ago, a gentleman informed me that he had lost his only daughter. “What caused her death?” I inquired. “The doctor said she studied too hard; she was taken with a hemorrhage, and died in a short time.” “Was she old enough to go to school?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” was the answer. “She was five years and a half.” I knew the child was delicate from birth, but, notwithstanding, her mother had taught her the alphabet at home. No wonder, the doctor said she “studied too hard.”

The “mind your own business” policy goes down too well with some women, for when the doctor pronounces the sickness of their babe a hopeless case, they seem at once to give up all hope, they have no alternative, they are mute, and will not so much as direct a petition to Almighty God, the great Physician for relief. Would it not strengthen the advocacy of equal suffrage in a population of over three hundred and sixty thousand, if every woman would cultivate a desire to know more about the prevention of disease and the preservation of health?

Diminutive, sickly, half-dependent people, care little what party governs, so long as they, themselves, barely exist. By real, earnest, devoted measures, women may be enabled, within the next decade, to exercise the right of franchise, and fill positions of honor outside of the domestic circle. But the women that compose the domestic circle have been, are, and ever will be in the majority; these are the women that have the greatest work of reform before them, namely, that of nourishing in infancy, ruling in childhood, and persuading in youth, the children of their fireside, that their sons may not graduate from the highest school of State penitentiaries, nor the bright future of their daughters be blasted by reason of early abandonment to the mercy of State charities. Parents should hold on to their children, and children should stand by their parents until the last strand of the silken cord is broken. It is natural to the childhood days to sport and play. All cannot bear the early and long-continued expectations through adverse circumstances and frequent unpleasantness of a finale. The vexations of youth from these causes, often serve, no doubt, to embitter the mind against further progress. We need in every community educated men, it is true, but the foundation dependence is in healthy, moral men and women.

Children should not be asked if they like such and such things to eat, with the privilege of choosing that which will give no nourishment to the blood. You may as well ask a child if the new shoes hurt the feet, if it is advanced enough to know that the old ones must be continued till the new ones are changed. Too much is expected of little children for their own good. All of the bones of our bodies, when broken, will unite again; but if the enamel of the teeth gets cracked or broken off, they soon decay, and will be destroyed if not cared for by the means of art. From the age of seven months to twenty years, man is being supplied with those thirty-two pearly bones with which to prepare the food for entrance into the stomach, that it may be converted into milk, from which blood, the life principle, is derived each day.

Headache and toothache, one or both, render the school days of many a youth burdensome. This, too, may be caused as much from cold feet, indigestion, and constipation, as from either arduous studies or decaying teeth. Some parents would stand in amaze if their sons or daughters were discovered perusing some work upon the anatomy and the preservation of the human teeth in youth; while the same parents would boast of the almost frenzied determination of their children to read every available love-novel; that, too, while the new teeth are daily pushing against decaying ones. The study of the science of Dentistry is wise and commendable to all.

Pauperism, like familiarity, “breeds contempt”; therefore persons should try with all their mind and might to avoid its conditions. Is it too much for me to say that the excuse for a mother’s consigning her child to some almshouse, while she goes free, can be but shallow? Unfortunately, the “I can’t” finds many prompters, and gains the precedence in many instances, where renewed and determined resolution only is required to succeed in caring for the helpless, and governing the passions of the youth, until they are old enough to hire out, or be put to some trade. To labor is honorable. Mothers, before you forget the tie which binds you to your child, and deliberately consign it to the care of strangers, look into those dear little eyes. Remember, few ever return, or are restored, as was Joseph of old.

Cast me not off, dear mother,

Oh, cast me not off, is my plea,

I have ears with which to catch the sounds