New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-07-02
THE BABY.

In July and August the baby becomes or
ought to become a point OF public interest.
If grown men and women suffer from bad
ventilation, uncleanliness, or Indigestion, they
have themselves to blame. But when the poor
baby is the victim it is a matter of deliberate
cruelty. Summer after Summer teething
children fall in hecatombs, sacrificed to the
ignorance or carelessness of their parents
This year, however, as last, instructions have
been published by the Boards of Health in
some neighboring cities by which the most I'M
educated mother may understand how to pro-
tect her child from danger as far as is possible
during the season of heat and foul air.
The directions are based upon plain principles
of common sense, which we would suppose
would be patent to anybody of ordinary in
telligence, but which fare unfortunately the
very facts soonest ignored and neglected.
Irish or German mothers, like Naaman of
old, are usually willing to try any cure which
any prophet may recommend-the more mirac-
ulous and difficult the better; but as for q
steady washing of themselves or their children
in the waters of Jordan or CrotOn to make
them whole, they are apt, like the Syrian,
to sniff contemptuously at the, idea, and go
faithfully on their way through dirt to death.
Washing, however, might be called the basis
of baby's salvation through teething;
thorough sOusing of the little body in plenty
of cold water every morning, and when the
weather is extremely hot. tepid sponge bath
at night; washing, too, constantly of all clothes
and cloths used by the infant, to afford it per-
fectIy clean garments at all times. Whatever
milk be given should be thoroughly sweet and
cool; infants under two years should be re-
stricted in their diet to mix, oatmeal mush or
cruel carefully prepared, and beef broth or
minced raw beef in small quantities. There is
a popular prejudice among uneducated women
against the "meanness of refusing food to
" their children which they eat themselves y
to which is owing one-half the deaths among
that class of infants. The swarms of sallow,
puny, wizenedfaced babies which we see at
the doors of tenement-houses are fed on NOR
sells of pork, vegetables, unraised bread, and
occasional sips of tea and lager-beer, which
may fall to their mothers lucky lot, 1t is not
heat or malaria or teething against which the
doctors have to contend SO much as the obsti-
nate ignorance of the parents. Fresh air is of
course u tonic and cure superior to any medi-
cine; every hour passed by the child under
the trees III the squares or on the rivers gives
it new chance for life No anodynes or
soothing sirups should be gwen except under
medical direction.
n SO far the doctors. There are other rules
as practical in effect, but which only affection
can suggest. One is the laying aside for the
brief hot season the rigor of parental dis
cipline. Many well meaning women feel it to
be their duty to teach their children implicit
obedience at the earliest age, and to punish
any ill-temper or pceyishness. Now an infant
never cries unless when hungry, hurt, or sick
the cutting of the teeth frequently affects the
brain and produces nervous irritability,
which relieves itself by peeyish complaints or
crying. To whip a child for such conduct is
sheer cruelty. and simply increases what is
an actual disease. Through these perilous
two months. the helpless little creatures re-