837. Clothing.—The clothing for children cannot be too simple: it should be so formed as to admit of being easily and quickly changed, free from all bandages or pins, and secured only by tape. Shoes or stockings may be dispensed with, until the child begins to use its legs, as they keep the feet wet and unpleasant, unless changed every hour. The child left to itself, will soon begin to enjoy the use and freedom of its limbs.
838. Food.—The proper food for children is a subject of more importance. That which nature has provided is the milk of its parent; but, when this is lacking, a preparation formed of cow's milk and water, with a little loaf sugar, in the following proportions, supplies the desideratum:—Take of fresh cow's milk, one table-spoonful; hot water, two table-spoonfuls; loaf sugar, as much as may be agreeable. Such nourishment will alone be sufficient for its support, until the end of the first three months. At this period, it may require a small portion of light animal food, of which, how to select the most nutritious, to regulate the quantity, and to administer it, after proper intervals, must depend on the experience of the nurse. Experience is often superseded by convenience: if the child cries, the nurse attributes it to a want of food, and, by her agency, it is fed almost every hour, both night and day. It is seldom that a child cries from abstinence, if it be healthy and free from pain. In the infantile state, the powers of the digestive organs are much weaker than at a more advanced period of life; and therefore, although the food is more simple, it requires an interval of some hours to convert it into chyle: if this process be interrupted by frequent feeding, the chyle will be crude, and pass off without affording due nourishment to the child. Sickness in children arises from the quality or quantity of their food, unduly administered. The food for children should be light and simple—gruel alone, or mixed with cow's milk; mutton broth, or beef tea; stale bread, rusks, or biscuits, boiled in water to a proper consistence, and a little sugar added. The great mortality of children in large towns, may be attributed to the poverty of their parents, who cannot purchase the necessary food or clothing, nor find leisure to attend to cleanliness, air, and exercise, so indispensably necessary to the well-being of their offspring. In the wealthy ranks of society, these means are easily obtained; and in the management of their children, we have only to dread the abuse of these advantages. Happy would it be both for rich and poor, if the superfluities of the one could be transferred for the benefit of the other.
When six months old, a child may be fed every four hours, when awake. Nothing can be more injurious to health than too frequent or irregular meals. Children, if left to themselves, soon acquire the habit of passing through the night without being fed.
839. Weaning of children should not take place under six months, if the mother be in health, nor be deferred beyond nine months. It cannot be too frequently impressed on the mind of the parent, that the future health and strength of her child depend on a due supply of the food which nature has provided. Regarding her own health, the chances are that it will be improved—at all events, it is incumbent on her to make the experiment; if her strength falls off, she may at any time retire from the effort, and engage a wet-nurse.
This foster-parent should not be more than thirty years of age, nor should her milk be more than three months old. She should be in health, free from scorbutic or scrofulous taints, from cutaneous scurf, or eruptions, perfectly clean in her person, and extremely neat in her management of whatever concerns the child. She must be sober and temperate: her diet should consist of a due proportion of bread, fresh meat, and vegetables; her drink, tea, chocolate, and milk and water; but on no consideration either wine or any other spirituous liquors. These, if drank by the nurse, will prove injurious to the child.
840. Proper Medicines for Infants.—Nature has not only provided food for infants, but likewise given to them a constitution capable of correcting those slight deviations from health, to which alone they are liable when properly nursed. This has induced many to assert that medicines are not required in the nursery: perhaps the assertion might be correct, if children were suffered to remain in a state of nature: the further they are removed from it, the evils they have to contend with bear a proportionate increase. As most of their complaints arise from a want of attention to their food, to air, and exercise, by a prompt and skilful use of medicine, these complaints may be removed; therefore, it is not the use but the abuse of medicine that should be avoided. If a child be tormented by a pin running into the flesh, no one would contend against the removal of the pin.
The diseases to which children are liable, are sore eyes, sore ears, sore head, scald head, sickness and vomiting, thrush, red gum, yellow gum, pain in the bowels, diarrhea, dentition, chilblains, rickets, worms, scrofula, catarrh, cough, measles, &c.