Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-04-29
How to Bring Up Children Health y.


The risk of having been a baby or
having to be brought up from tiny in
fancy in such an age as this is fearful to
contemplate. If there is one thing more
than another in these artificial times that
is likely to be a martyr to artificiality,
that thing is baby. 1t can often
scarcely finish its first battle cry of exist
ence before it is assumed that it has
wind on the stomach, and must get
anise seed, catnip tea and molasses. The
sweet too often gives colo, while the
repeated spoon is merely a temptation in
the direction of weaving. Nature, like
a good nurse, has provided the food
needed ready to hand so soon as it ought
to be used. Yet it is the experience of
most physicians that not one child in a
hundred, in the first five days of its ex-
istence, escapes some provoking inven-
ton of the adversary. Although sprue
is no more natural to child than small
pox, it is assumed that the child must
have the sprue; which merely means
that food sours or changes in the mouth
which ought either not to have been put
there or not kept there. Artificial foods
are at once proposed. We have tried to
keep catalogue of them, but it is in
are able to manufacture the very best
milk for calves without depending on
COWS, we despair of substituting a COM
plete food for infants. We do not think
any member of Adams family died
prematurely because Liebig or Mel
Ion had not existed. While we
fully recognize the value of certain
artificial foods in conditions of sickness,
yet the too prevalent idea that these are
easy substitutes for nature must be dis
carded. The child is an animal for which
good provision has been made. We do
well to watch with sedulous care any
departure from Natures method as to
modes and materials for feeding. Not
only food itself, but artificial methods of
giving it, cause great disturbance.
The next sad experience of babyhood
is in its locomotion. The child which is
permitted its natural motions throws its
arms about for exercise and kicks as nat
urally as any mule. How little of this
natural work is permitted nowadays,
especially in high circles. We have seen
many child being fatted for an early
grave by improper foods, and so dressed
and carried as entirely to suspend the
possibilities of its own natural exercise.
1t has two great infections from nurses.
The first is well described thus:
Next comes brawny nurse, but five feet
high,
With leathern lungs and throat of brass sup
Piled,
Striving with Chevy Chase and Lullaby
To drown the screeching infant at her side;
And ever and anon the babe she seized,
And squeezed and sung, and sung and
squeezed.
Although sometimes, each dreary pause be-
tween
The stranpled infants piercing shrieks.
And writhing limbs and blackening cheeks,
Full well confessed the secret pin
That keenly goaded him within;
Yet closer squeezed the nurse and louder was
her din" s..
We recently made an art study of a
few weeping babies, to see how much
more they were subjected to the artificial
than to the natural. and how much more
attempt there was to quen the result
than to seek the cause.
The baby carriage as an institution we
shall speak of hereafter. 1t is now the
great promoter of lazy exposure of babies,
negatively bad and positively not very
good. We knew u boy-who was no.
BILE, hearty child-that was left thus to
sleep in a hot sun, and fell into con-
vt,lsion that night, which turned the
course of a life. Parents generally know
little how apt babies are to be unduly
exposed in their carriages, and how
much more apt they are to take cold than
if they could be allowed the active use of
their limbs.
The next sad crisis in babyhood is the
teething time. Here it seems that. by
common consent, it is admitted that the
Creator made mistake; the teething is
always crisis in which many babies
have right to die. It is in vain that
the anatomist and the Psychologist unite
in showing US the wonderful provision
already in store for the second, as well