The Jasper news., 1908-01-28

| ly washed In boiling water after ana
before using. 1t is best to have two,
the one not in use kept immersed in
solution of common baking soda.
Cows milk can not be made iden-
tical with the infants natural food
but 1t can be approximated to 1t. The
chief difficulty TO be overcome is to
modify the large curds of cows milk
that tend to remain in the stomach
longer than they should, as the de.
velopment of the calf's stomach re-
quires that its food shall have much
heavier curd than that required by the
infant, in which intestinal digestion
Is more important. The use of Tactic
tablets, as explained In my last ar
ticle, entirely obviates this difficulty
besides overcoming other objections
to the use of cows milk.
To reduce the proportion of the ele-
ments in cows milk to approximately
the standard of human milk, pour off
about half of the fat that settles to
the top of the bottle; add as much wa
ter as the whole amount of milk and
tablespoonful of sugar. Milk sugar is
to be preferred to cane sugar, always
Objectionable. The addition of q lit
tie lime water is, in many cases, bene-
fetal.
AS rule infants, like adults, are
overfed. No doubt one of the rea-
sons for the greater endurance and
freedom from disease of wild animals
is the fact that the young are less
likely to be overfed, as every natural
ist knows An infant probably would
starve in one-tenth the time that an
adult can subsist without food, but
eating too often and too much be-
comes habit with the infant as with
the adult. An infant may cry for food
when 1t is food drunk; what it may
need is water. And children cry for
other reasons than because they are
hungry. Stopping an infants cry con-
tinually with food is easy but unwise.
Nature provides an extremely light
diet for the first few days of infancy.
Let us not snnersede her method till
We know better.
Once every two hours is often
enough for the first month and every
third hour thereafter. II there Is q
real demand between the periods,
sweetened water should be given (dis-
titled or boiled water and milk sugar..
Constant overfeeding causes an abnor-
NAL appetite, as in the adult, that is
never satisfied.
No definite rule can be laid down as
to the amount required. The best that
has been suggested is, an ounce for
each month, beginning with two
ounces, increasing to eight ounces at
eight months, after which full milk
will be used. Moderate, judicious ex-
ercise now becomes important. A
= child needs exercise before 1t can
walk. The freer its opportunities for
movement the better.
The infant digestive system is not
adapted to cereal food, always a cause
of more or less digestive difficulty and
expenditure of vitality, even in the
adult. Under no circumstances should
white bread, moistened with tea. cof
fee. milk or gravy be given to an in
FAINT.
There are many infant foods on the
market, composed of cereals or of
cereals with milk, matted. In cases of
milk poisoning, or Of serious digestive
disorder resulting from unbalanced
feeding, due to the inadaptability Of
cows milk. something must be sub
stituted for the milk, but 1t does not
follow that because child improves
on the substitution of one of these
prepared cereals 1t is better
as permanent diet. 1t is also well
to keep in mind that a child is not
healthy merely because 1t is fat. II
may be failing to develop the diges-
tive system normally. 1t may become
SO "fabby' that it will fall a prey
to disease when the fatty degenera-
ton has reached its limit and the con-
ditions are favorable for disease.
The common practice, when cows
milk disagrees, is to adapt the milk
by mixing it with oatmeal or barley
water. This cereal tends to break up
the coarse curd of cows milk, but 1t
is in itself unsuitable, though the
remedy is better than the disease; the
prepared foods are better as the
cereal in them is matted.