Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1857-08-09
From the Baltimore Sun, July 3Ist
HEALTH OF CHILDREN

4
1t is a sad thing, at this season of the year. to
cast ones eye over the bills of mortality in some Of
| our great cities and see how many children under
| two years of age pass away in single week We
do not say too much when we affirm that the detail
is absolutely shocking. How is such frightfu NOR
talty be accounted for? 1t is not to be supposed
that man, animal, is worse organized and pro-
vided for than those of the inferior species Child
born to live, and not to die to grow I'D and
| not to perish undeveOped. We cannot suppose
| that perfectly wise and Omnipotent Being created
merely to destroy; that he brings the germs of a
human being into existence merely to infict on an
innocent creature the pains of disease and OPENS
rational vision upon this fair world only to close it
again in utter darkness. And then what pangs do
such bereavements inhic on hoping parents and eff
fectionate relatives and friends! The sick pillow
Of child is scene always of peculiar Distress and
sOmetin es of spC echless and hopeless agony The
sufferer cannot tell its pains indicate the means
| of relief. Bhere is one cry of enduring nature
which we hear in a hot summer night indicative of
discomfort which nothing has the power to relieve
The suggestion confess often comes up that there
| must be something wrong here. There is some
great mistake. Such results look more like human
error than any alteration in the councils of Infinite
Wisdom. 1t is more likely that fallable man mis-
takes than that the All-wise can have fallen in the
structure of any of his works.
What then the great foes of the life andhealth
of children in large cities In the first place bad
air. In hot weather the exhaaJions of cities are
absolutely pestilential. The smoking streets. the
fetid sewers, the drains and stables are always
throwing up amount of corrupted atmosphere
surprising all estimate in quantity and poisonous
ness. There is absolutely no pure air in a CITY in
the summer season. For health the lungs require
a certain number of cubic feet of pure air every
hour. Deprived of this, the whole system sinks and
cOlapses. Fire becomes extinct the moment YOU
feed it with corrupted air. The lamp of human
life burns brightly only while it is supplied with the
same pure air which ministers vigor to combustion
Adults for time can bear the privaton, though at
the expense of the loss of strength and animal
spirits. But infancy and childhood are Frustrated
at once. The skin becomes fabby, the muscles be-
come relaxed, and the digestive process becomes
embarrassed, and a general uneasiness and irrita-
biity give notice that the universal system is run
ming down Nausea and fever set in and the pro-
gress is daily downward to lower and lower degrees
Of prOstratiOn. That bad air is the cause of sick
ness to iunumerable children is proved BY the fact
that removal to the country often lifts the droop-
ing head and teammates the languid eve in the
course of few hours.
Another cause of the terrible desolation produced
in young families by the summer months is the i'm
proper and unwhOlsOme food which parents in their
thOughuessness or indulgence permit themselves to
administer 10 their children The careless indifer-
ence Of some sensible parents, confess, has often
filled US with establishment. We see them pouring
into the stOmaches of their children the most indi-
gesOe substances, as they had the digestion of
ostrich Before they have any indication of a TOOTH
they are permitted and encouraged to swallowmea
Candies are distributed as if they were the most
legitimate species of food. And worst of all, any
sort offruit in every possible condition of greenness
or decay Is devoUred without stint or scruple. An
other cause contributes to increase the peris of
children in summer, and that is exposure to draughts
of air, in clothing 100 thin and otherwise altogether
insufficient. Reflection is not sufficiently developed
to enable these delicate beings to akecare of them
selves nurses are forgetful, and mothers alas
trust their most precious treasures almost altogeth
er to the care of others.
Happy are those who are able to remove their
children for two three summers to the bracng !
air Of the country Happier, perhaps are those |
who are permitted to bring up their children in the
country altogether. lthas been said by physiogists
that cities would become depOpulaed and their in
habltants utterly out were it not for the perpet-
ual replenishing from the country. This is prob |
ably the fact. Causes which are scarcely seen to |
operate in one generation in the of three
do not fail to make their mark Nothing deteriorates
the human frame faster or more surely than the |
want Of good air. This cause alone, in the course
of years, not only shOrtens the period of human fe
but makes 1t much less vigorous while it lasts.
Another cause must not be passed over. Few
cities, till very recently, have been supplied with
an abundance of pure water Water in cities is
ally vile, sometimes nauseous, sometimes poisonous.
new era, however, is in most of our cities in
this respect. New York, Philadephi and Bos-
ton are now abundantly supplied. May our turn
come next!