In scurvy, orange juice or other fruit juices should be given, from 1 to 4 ounces a day, according to the age. Orange juice is particularly valuable, 2 or 3 teaspoonfuls being given before each feeding.
A lack of fresh air often aids in producing scurvy.
Feeding during the Second Year
After the baby has reached the age of one year, we often feel that it is not necessary to be so careful of its diet. However, the number of deaths due to digestive disturbances caused by improper feeding during the second year is significant.
After the child is a year old it should be given solid food very gradually to develop its digestive functions as well as its teeth. A soft-boiled egg or a little beef juice may be added to the diet. Until the appearance of the anterior molar teeth, however, the child’s diet should be confined largely to milk. A thin slice of buttered bread or a little plain rice or rice pudding, a soda cracker or bread crumbs in milk may be given. The year-old child may also begin to drink cow’s milk. One or two glasses a day may be given, until the child is at least 13 or 14 years old.
Good judgment should be used in feeding children, as habits and tastes are being formed, and whether they are normal or abnormal will depend on the kind of food given and when.
Four meals a day, at regular intervals, and nothing but water between these intervals, is considered the best plan.
Dry toast, zwieback, and crackers may be gradually added to the diet, also well-cooked cereals, like cream of wheat, rice, and oatmeal. The oatmeal should be strained the first few months it is given. Very little sugar should be added to the cereals, as children very quickly cultivate a desire for sweets, rejecting other more nourishing foods, and too much sugar is apt to disturb the digestion. It is best during the first few months that no sugar be added to cereals.
The amount of whole milk, or milk diluted with barley or oatmeal gruel, should be limited to one quart when the other foods are given.