Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health

by S. A. D. Tissot

§ 395. There is a very great Difference in different Children, in Respect to their being more or less liable to Convulsions. There are some, in whom very strong and irritating Causes cannot excite them; not even excruciating Gripes and Cholics; the most painful Cutting of their Teeth; violent Fevers; the Small Pocks; Measles; and though they are, as it were, continually corroded by Worms, they have not the slightest Tendency to be convulsed. On the other Hand, some are so very obnoxious to Convulsions, or so easily convulsible, if that Expression may be allowed, that they are very often seized with them from such very slight Causes, that the most attentive Consideration cannot investigate them. This Sort of Constitution, which is extremely dangerous, and exposes the unhappy Subject of it, either to a very speedy Death, or to a very low and languid State of Life, requires some peculiar Considerations; the Detail of which would be the more foreign to the Design of this Treatise, as they are pretty common in Cities, but much less so in Country Places. In general cold Bathing and the Powder [Nº. 14] are serviceable in such Circumstances.

General Directions, with Respect to Children.

§ 396. I shall conclude this Chapter by such farther Advice, as may contribute to give Children a more vigorous Constitution and Temperament, and to preserve them from many Disorders.

First then, we should be careful not to cram them too much, and to regulate both the Quantity and the set Time of their Meals, which is a very practicable Thing, even in the very earliest Days of their Life; when the Woman who nurses them, will be careful to do it regularly. Perhaps indeed this is the very Age, when such a Regulation may be the most easily attempted and effected; because it is that Stage, when the constant Uniformity of their Way of living should incline us to suppose, that what they have Occasion for is most constantly very much the same.

A Child who has already attained to a few Years, and who is surrendered up more to his own Exercise and Vivacity, feels other Calls; his Way of Life is become a little more various and irregular, whence his Appetite must prove so too. Hence it would be inconvenient to subject him over exactly to one certain Rule, in the Quantity of his Nourishment, or the Distance of his Meals. The Dissipation or passing off of his Nutrition being unequal, the Occasions he has for repairing it cannot be precisely dated and regular. But with Respect to very little Children in Arms, or on the Lap, a Uniformity in the first of these Respects, the Quantity of their Food, very consistently conduces to a useful Regularity with Respect to the second, the Times of feeding them. Sickness is probably the only Circumstance, that can warrant any Alteration in the Order and Intervals of their Meals; and then this Change should consist in a Diminution of their usual Quantity, notwithstanding a general and fatal Conduct seems to establish the very Reverse; and this pernicious Fashion authorizes the Nurses to cram these poor little Creatures the more, in Proportion as they have real Need of less feeding. They conclude of Course, that all their Cries are the Effects of Hunger, and the Moment an Infant begins, then they immediately stop his Mouth with his Food; without once suspecting, that these Wailings may be occasioned by the Uneasiness an over-loaded Stomach may have introduced; or by Pains whose Cause is neither removed nor mitigated, by making the Children eat; though the meer Action of eating may render them insensible to slight Pains, for a very few Minutes; in the first Place, by calling off their Attention; and secondly, by hushing them to sleep, a common Effect of feeding in Children, being in fact, a very general and constant one, and depending on the same Causes, which dispose so many grown Persons to sleep after Meals.

A Detail of the many Evils Children are exposed to, by thus forcing too much Food upon them, at the very Time when their Complaints are owing to Causes, very different from Hunger, might appear incredible. They are however so numerous and certain, that I seriously wish sensible Mothers would open their Eyes to the Consideration of this Abuse, and agree to put an End to it.

Those who overload them with Victuals, in Hopes of strengthening them, are extremely deceived; there being no one Prejudice equally fatal to such a Number of them. Whatever unnecessary Aliment a Child receives, weakens, instead of strengthening him. The Stomach, when over-distended, suffers in its Force and Functions, and becomes less able to digest thoroughly. The Excess of the Food last received impairs the Concoction of the Quantity, that was really necessary: which, being badly digested, is so far from yielding any Nourishment to the Infant, that it weakens it, and proves a Source of Diseases, and concurs to produce Obstructions, Rickets, the Evil, slow Fevers, a Consumption and Death.

Another unhappy Custom prevails, with Regard to the Diet of Children, when they begin to receive any other Food besides their Nurse's Milk, and that is, to give them such as exceeds the digestive Power of their Stomachs; and to indulge them in a Mixture of such Things in their Meals, as are hurtful in themselves, and more particularly so, with Regard to their feeble and delicate Organs.

To justify this pernicious Indulgence, they affirm it is necessary to accustom their Stomachs to every Kind of Food; but this Notion is highly absurd, since their Stomachs should first be strengthened, in Order to make them capable of digesting every Food; and crouding indigestible, or very difficultly digestible Materials into it, is not the Way to strengthen it. To make a Foal sufficiently strong for future Labour, he is exempted from any, till he is four Years old; which enables him to submit to considerable Work, without being the worse for it. But if, to inure him to Fatigue, he should be accustomed, immediately from his Birth, to submit to Burthens above his Strength, he could never prove any Thing but an utter Jade, incapable of real Service. The Application of this to the Stomach of a Child is very obvious.

I shall add another very important Remark, and it is this, that the too early Work to which the Children of Peasants are forced, becomes of real Prejudice to the Publick. Hence Families themselves are less numerous, and the more Children that are removed from their Parents, while they are very young, those who are left are the more obliged to Work, and very often even at hard Labour, at an Age when they should exercise themselves in the usual Diversions and Sports of Children. Hence they wear out in a Manner, before they attain the ordinary Term of Manhood; they never arrive at their utmost Strength, nor reach their full Stature; and it is too common to see a Countenance with the Look of twenty Years, joined to a Stature of twelve or thirteen. In fact, they often sink under the Weight of such hard involuntary Labour, and fall into a mortal Degree of Wasting and Exhaustion.