Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1864-02-26
How to Keep the Children Healthy.

The mortality among the children in
our cities, as well as in the country, is sad
to contemplate. Is there any necessity for
this? Are all these children sent into the
world to be thus early cut down? Are
not nine out of ten of these early deaths
the result of ignorance? What parents
ever lost child except by accident, with
out thinking, "If had treated it different
ly, it would not have died 2" The loss of
our own three first-born has led us to think
much upon this topic, and three almost al
ways healthy living ones are evidences that
our studies on the subject have not been
in vain. A few hints on the topic may
not be without use.
Elsewhere, we have given some hints on
the sleep of children. Next to securing a
plenty of sound sleep, or rather before it.
we place the proper preparation of food
The kind of food they eat is not of half so
much consequence as the manner of It's
preparation. Give a child hard apple
and let him swallow it in pieces from the
size of large pea upward. The result
will be, that the Jumps will bepartly worn
off by the coats of the stomach, and partly
dissolved by the gastric juice; but after
a time, the remaining portion of the Jumps
will be forced down into the intestines and
go through the whole length of fifteen to
twenty feet, producing at least gripping and
irritation all the way, if not diarrhea or
Idysentery. But first scrape or mash the
article to fine pulp, and it may then be
eaten with impunity, and with benefit, if
ripe or nearly so.
Feed child on boiled potatoes cut up,
or ON potatoes coarsely mashed and fried
in fat, and you will be pretty sure to find
more or less of humps of potatoes remain
ing undigested. How can it be otherwise
than that these humps must have produced
irritation in the intestines! But mash these
same potatoes finely before feeding them,
and then the fine material will be digested
and afford nutriment instead of giving un-
easiness and pain {" under the apron"
The same holds true of most meats
Cut up fine-as fine as shot almost-they
will be digested, and produce nourishment; |;
W41uO IL lOA III SOoloO pAOOOS1 OnOI VIII hO
in the stomach, ike meat poultice on the
outside, the cause of uneasiness if not of
partial inflammation. Feed raisins and nuts
to children, and unless very strong and
vigorous, the chances are that they will in
duce immediate sickness or weakened
system, liable to be affected by the first
change of heat and cold.
Chop these same raisins or nuts finely,
reducing them almost to powder, and they
may be eaten in moderate quantity with
impunity. These remarks apply to all
kinds of food, and, iii measure, to grown
people as well as children.
Many persons are over nice or anxious
as to aChat their children eat, and often re-
duce them to skeletons, or unfit them for
vigorous resistance of colds and malaria
diseases, by feeding them on toast or rice,
weak gruel DC. Give them rather fair
supply of hearty food so finely reduced that
1t 10M be quickly digested IN tie stomach,
and they will grow vigorous and be able
to withstand the changes of climate, and
the exposures to which they are ever la
able. Mothers, consider these things, and
see if they are not true and in accordance
with reason.-Americdn Agriculturist.
/