If delicate they should be sponged instead of immersing them in water, but
cleanliness is absolutely necessary for the health of infants.
_CLOTHING._
2. Put no bands in their clothing, but make all garments to hang loosely
from the shoulders, and have all their clothing _scrupulously clean_; even
the diaper should not be re-used without rinsing. {322}
_SLEEP ALONE._
3. The child should in all cases sleep by itself on a cot or in a crib and
retire at a regular hour. A child _always_ early taught to go to sleep
without rocking or nursing is the healthier and happier for it. Begin _at
birth_ and this will be easily accomplished.
_CORDIALS AND SOOTHING SYRUPS._
4. Never give cordials, soothing syrups, sleeping drops, etc., without the
advice of a physician. A child that frets and does not sleep is either
hungry or ill. _If ill it needs a physician._ Never give candy or cake to
quiet a small child, they are sure to produce disorders of the stomach,
diarrhoea or some other trouble.
_FRESH AIR._
5. Children should have plenty of fresh air summer as well as winter. Avoid
the severe hot sun and the heated kitchen for infants in summer. Heat is
the great destroyer of infants. In excessive hot weather feed them with
chips of ice occasionally, if you have it.
_CLEAN HOUSES._
6. Keep your house clean and cool and well aired night and day. Your
cellars cleared of all rubbish and whitewashed every spring, your drains
cleaned with strong solution of copperas or chloride of lime, poured down
them once a week. Keep your gutters and yards clean and insist upon your
neighbors doing the same.
_EVACUATIONS OF A CHILD._
The healthy motion varies from light orange yellow to greenish yellow, in
number, two to four times daily. Smell should never be offensive. Slimy
mucous-like jelly passages indicate worms. Pale green, offensive, acrid
motions indicate disordered stomach. Dark green indicate acid secretions
and a more serious trouble.
Fetid dark brown stools are present in chronic diarrhoea. Putty-like pasty
passages are due to acidity curdling the milk or to torpid liver. {323}
[Illustration]
_BREAST MILK._
7. Breast milk is the only proper food for infants, until after the second
summer. If the supply is small keep what you have and feed the child in
connection with it, for if the babe is ill this breast milk may be all that
will save its life.
_STERILIZED MILK._
8. Milk is the best food. Goat's milk best, cows milk next. If the child
thrives on this _nothing else_ should be given during the hot weather,
until the front teeth are cut. Get fresh cow's milk twice a day if the
child requires food in the night, pour it into a glass fruit jar with
one-third pure water for a child under three months old, afterwards the
proportion of water may be less and less, also a trifle of sugar may be
added.
Then place the jar in a kettle or pan of cold water, like the bottom of an
oatmeal kettle. Leave the cover of the jar loose. Place it on the stove and
let the water come to a boil and boil ten minutes, screw down the cover
tight and boil ten minutes more, then remove from the fire, and allow it to
cool in the water slowly so as not to break the jar. When partly cool put
on the ice or in a cool place, and keep tightly covered except when the
milk is poured out for use. The glass jar must be kept perfectly clean and
washed {324} and scalded carefully before use. A tablespoonful of lime
water to a bottle of milk will aid indigestion. Discard the bottle as soon
as possible and use a cup which you know is clean, whereas a bottle must be
kept in water constantly when not in use, or the sour milk will make the
child sick. Use no tube for it is exceedingly hard to keep it clean, and if
pure milk cannot be had, condensed milk is admirable and does not need to
be sterilized as the above.
_DIET._
9. Never give babies under two years old such food as grown persons eat.
Their chief diet should be milk, wheat bread and milk, oatmeal, possibly a
little rare boiled egg, but always and chiefly milk. Germ wheat is also
excellent.
_EXERCISE._
10. Children should have exercise in the house as well as outdoors, but
should not be jolted and jumped and jarred in rough play, not rudely rocked
in the cradle, nor carelessly trundled over bumps in their carriages. They
should not be held too much in the arms, but allowed to crawl and kick upon
the floor and develop their limbs and muscles. A child should not be lifted
by its arms, nor dragged along by one hand after it learns to take a few
feeble steps, but when they do learn to walk steadily it is the best of all
exercise, especially in the open air.
Let the children as they grow older romp and play in the open air all they
wish, girls as well as boys. Give the girls an even chance for health,
while they are young at least, and don't mind about their complexion.
[Illustration]
{325}
Infant Teething.
[Illustration]
1. REMARKABLE INSTANCES.--There are instances where babies have been born
with teeth, and, on the other hand, there are cases of persons who have
never had any teeth at all; and others that had double teeth all around in
both upper and lower jaws, but these are rare instances, and may be termed
as a sort of freaks of nature.
2. INFANT TEETHING.--The first teeth generally make their appearance after
the third month, and during the period of teething the child is fretful and
restless, causing sometimes constitutional disturbances, such as diarrhoea,
indigestion, etc. Usually, however, no serious results follow, and no
unnecessary anxiety need be felt, unless the weather is extremely warm,
then there is some danger of summer complaint setting in and seriously
complicating matters.
3. THE NUMBER OF TEETH.--Teeth are generally cut in pairs and make their
appearance first in the front and going backwards until all are complete.
It generally takes about {326} two years for a temporary set of children's
teeth. A child two or three years old should have twenty teeth. After the
age of seven they generally begin to loosen and fall out and permanent
teeth take their place.
4. LANCING THE GUMS.--This is very rarely necessary. There are extreme
cases when the condition of the mouth and health of the child demand a
physician's lance but this should not be resorted to, unless it is
absolutely necessary. When the gums are very much swollen and the tooth is
nearly through, the pains may be relieved by the mother taking a thimble
and pressing it down upon the tooth, the sharp edges of the tooth will cut
through the swollen flesh, and instant relief will follow. A child in a few
hours or a day will be perfectly happy after a very severe and trying time
of sickness.
5. PERMANENT TEETH.--The teeth are firmly inserted in sockets of the upper
and lower jaw. The permanent teeth which follow the temporary teeth, when
complete, are sixteen in each jaw, or thirty-two in all.
6. NAMES OF TEETH.--There are four incisors (front teeth), four cuspids
(eye teeth), four bicuspids (grinders), and four molars (large grinders),
in each jaw. Each tooth is divided into the crown, body, and root. The
crown is the grinding surface; the body--the part projecting from the
jaw--is the seat of sensation and nutrition; the root is that portion of
the tooth which is inserted in the alveolus. The teeth are composed of
dentine (ivory) and enamel. The ivory forms the greater portion of the body
and root, while the enamel covers the exposed surface. The small white
cords communicating with the teeth are the nerves.
[Illustration]
{327}