GENERAL DIRECTIONS, AND OF ANIMAL FOOD.—The diet of the latter months of infancy is still to be continued, but with the important addition of animal food, which the child has now got teeth to masticate. This must be given in small quantity; it should be of the lightest quality, only allowed on alternate days, and even then its effects must be carefully watched, as all changes in the regimen of children should be gradual.
A child at this age, then, should have its meals at intervals of about four hours:—thus its breakfast between seven and eight o'clock, to consist of tops and bottoms, steeped in hot water, a little milk added, and the whole sweetened with sugar; or bread may be softened in hot water, the latter drained off, and fresh milk and sugar added to the bread. Its dinner about twelve o'clock, to consist, every other day, of a small quantity of animal food (chicken, fresh mutton, or beef, being the only meats allowed) with a little bread and water; on the alternate days, well boiled rice and milk, a plain bread, sago, tapioca, or arrow- root pudding, containing one egg; or farinaceous food, with beef-tea. Its afternoon mealy about four o'clock, the same diet as formed the breakfast. At seven, a little arrow-root, made with a very small proportion of milk, or a biscuit, or crust of bread, after which the child should be put to bed.
The child must be taught to take its food slowly, retain it in it's mouth long, and swallow it tardily. Nothing must be given in the intervals of the meals. The stomach requires a period of repose after the labour of digestion; and if the child is entertained by its nurse, and its mind occupied, there will be no difficulty in following out this important direction.
As the child grows older, the quantity at each meal should be increased; the tops and bottoms changed for bread and pure milk, boiled or not; meat may be taken daily, except circumstances forbid it; and a small quantity of vegetable also.
If a child, then, be of a sound constitution, with healthy bowels, a cool skin, and clean tongue, the diet may be liberal, and provided it is sufficiently advanced in age, animal food may be taken daily. Too low a diet would stint the growth of such a child, and induce a state of body deficient in vigour, and unfit for maintaining full health: scrofula and other diseases would be induced. At the same time let the mother guard against pampering, for this would lead to evils no less formidable, though of a different character. And as long as the general health of this child is unimpaired, the body and mind active, and no evidence present to mark excess of nutriment, this diet may be continued. But if languor at any time ensue, fever become manifested, the skin hotter than natural, the tongue white and furred, and the bowels irregular, then, though these symptoms should bebonly in slight degree, and unattended with any specific derangement amounting to what is considered disease, not only should the parent lower the diet, and for a time withdraw the animal part, but the medical adviser should be consulted, that measures may be taken to correct the state of repletion which has been suffered to arise. For some time after its removal, care should also be taken to keep the diet under that, which occasioned the constitutional disturbance.
But if the child be of a delicate and weakly constitution (and this is unfortunately the more common case), it will not bear so generous a diet as the foregoing. During the three or four earliest years, it should be restricted chiefly to a mild farinaceous diet, with a small allowance only of meat on alternate days. The constant endeavour of the parent now should be, to seek to increase the digestive power and bodily vigour of her child by frequent exercise in the open air, and by attention to those general points of management detailed in the after- part of this chapter. This accomplished, a greater proportion of animal food may be given, and, in fact, will become necessary for the growth of the system, while at the same time there will be a corresponding power for its assimilation and digestion.
A great error in the dietetic management of such children is but too frequently committed by parents. They suppose that because their child is weakly and delicate, that the more animal food it takes the more it will be strengthened, and they therefore give animal food too early, and in too great quantity. It only adds to its debility. The system, as a consequence, becomes excited, nutrition is impeded, and disease produced, ultimately manifesting itself in scrofula, disease in the abdomen, head, or chest. The first seeds of consumption are but too frequently originated in this way. A child so indulged will eat heartily enough, but he remains thin notwithstanding. After a time he will have frequent fever, will appear heated and flushed towards evening, when he will drink greedily, and more than is usual in children of the same age; there will be deranged condition of the bowels, and headach,—the child will soon become peevish, irritable, and impatient; it will entirely lose the good humour so natural to childhood, and that there is something wrong will be evident enough, the parent, however, little suspecting the real cause and occasion of all the evil. In such a child, too, it will be found that the ordinary diseases of infancy, scarlet fever, measles, small pox, etc., will be attended with an unusual degree of constitutional disturbance; that it will not bear such active treatment as other children, or so quickly rally from the illness.
"Strength is to be obtained not from the kind of food which contains most nourishment in itself, but from that which is best adapted to the condition of the digestive organs at the time when it is taken."
SUGAR.—This is a necessary condiment for the food of children, and it is nutritious, and does not injure the teeth, as is generally imagined. "During the sugar season," observes Dr. Dunglison, "the negroes of the West India islands drink copiously of the juice of the cane, yet their teeth are not injured; on the contrary, they have been praised by writers for their beauty and soundness; and the rounded form of the body, whilst they can indulge in the juice, sufficiently testifies to the nutrient qualities of the saccharine beverage."[FN#13] Sweetmeats, on the other hand, are most indigestible, and seriously injurious.
[FN#13] Elements of Hygiem. Philadephia, 1835.