The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-07-16
WHAT HAS BECOME or THE SECOND SUMMER LEGEND

SECOND SUMMER LEGEND
 From Hickville on the Hudson, where else9 Comes query that might have been written July l6, 1897. The correspondent would like to know just how serious a baby's second summer is.
 By ginger, that reminds me, this is Patsy's second summer. You may have met Patsy. She was born in March, le36, and 6 snapshot of her au natural smiles at you from the flyleaf of "The Brady Better Baby Book" published in June, 1886. Pret- tier babies have survived the sec- ond summer, thousands of them, but I'll never exact another dime for copy of "The Brady Better Baby Book" if you can line up another of her age (i6 months) who has more sheer vite than Patsy has. You sec, for more than two years Patsy has received an optimal vitamin ration, not only c but the vitamins prospective mothers and young in- fantS too often fail to get, namely, B. c and D. Second summer my eye. It seems more like the fourth or fifth to Pat.
 On page 9 the aforesaid baby book says:
 "A healthy properly fed baby will never need any other laxative than the right food. There is no fl or but about this. I'm telling you. It's your baby. This is . free country. Take my advice or take the advice of Mrs. Sunlsey or SairygaTnp if you prefer .. The first dose of physic you give the baby, under any cir. cumstance, is the beginning of all the trouble you will have from then on. There simply isn't any kind of laxatice, physic, cathartic or acid you can inflict on your baby which is without bad after -effect-hind- ing. Castor oil is particularly harm- ful in that respect. In practice, case tor oil is used only in the treatment of diarrhea, because by It's action 1t presumably sweeps out offending material and then locks the bowel for a while.
 That is not the main reason why the sane parent will carefully avoid restoring to castor oil or other phy. sic without definite or specific pre-. scription by the physician. There would be no harm in locking up the bowel for a day or two or for sev. eral days, no dire poisoning or auto. intoxicator other evil consequence But the administration of any such medicine to a young infant serious. ly upsets the natural physiological automatic regulation of the digestion in the whole length of the digestive tract and makes the establishment of physic habit easy. This is tht way most victims of constipation get that way"
 As already intimated, baby i! months old who has received an ade. uuate ration of vitamins B, D and c for two years or so never needs any. thing like castor oil because she hai Yite.
 Elsewhere a pretty good author. ity who is too bashful to mentor his name again so soon, says:
 "Indeed we know that when thu daily supply of vitamins falls below a certain level necessary for per | feet nutrition, the digestive func. tions are all more or less weakened and the motor functions of stomach and intestine particularly slug | gish. Y"
 Of course one reason why thu '.second summer" was hard on in. fants in the nineties and before wal that people then did not undrestanc how important it is to be certain | the milk or other food for the baby is CLEAN and FRESH and not hail spoiled or swarming with bacteria whose growth Is favored by heat where there is inadequate refrIger- ation.