Bare Pink legs

Otago Witness, Issue 2654, 25 January 1905, Page 68

Bare Pink legs

It appears to be a disputed point whether young children require less or more clothing than grown people. No doubt medical men agree on the subject, but matrons come to their own separate conclusions about the rearing of children, and are never known to be of one mind on the matter. On the one side are theoretical arguments, such as the greater extent of surface in proportion to bulk in the body of a child as compared with that of an adult; therefore, a child's body parts with its heat more quickly. It seems also reasonable to argue that the young tender body cannot be able to resist cold so well as the hardened body of, say, 30 years. Yet one may see, any winter day, young children going about clad in such airy fashion that if the parents were to adopt the same style they would speedily be laid low with pleurisy or something as deadly. How is it? One sometimes reads that children are warmerblooded than their elders. That means, not that their temperature is higher, but that the pulse beats more quickly and' the blood! circulates more rapidly. A,gam, children are never still when in health, and constant; motion generates heat. On a biting day you watch a little- thing running about outside with bar© legs. It makes you shivery to look at those bluish pink legs, but when the little one slips a hand into yours, you find it glowing. So long as exercise keeps up a healthy glow in the blood, , no injury can arise from cold. '

It cannot be questioned, however, thaS children are much more liable to serious chest troubles than are adults, and that, in clamp or changeable- weather, the little toddlers are hardly ever free from cold in the head. In the treatment of our own colds, we have learned) that the care of the feet is more important than the extra clothing of the chest or throat. Thick stockings and an inner woollen sock in the shoe are of more value than a chest-protector. When the blood is chilled in the extremities it flows more languidly, and the head, throat, or. chest become congested' with an oversupply, which sets up a form of inflammation which we call "cold." In the case 08 little things with their arms and legs exposed, the wonder is that they do not suffer more than they do from colds. The <.nly excuse for having the arms bare is that the round, soft, dimpled things are so pretty; and there is 'io known remedy for a mother's vanity. The legs present a. real difficulty, for a child has no natural instinct of cleanliness, unless it- has been trained to it. It is daily proved by experience that a yoxmg infant at a few weeks* 1 old, before ?he dawn 'of consciousness, can be taught habits of personal cleanliness which become a second instinct. It is worth the little patient trouble at first, for later on, when th© child can walk and understands what is said) to it, there will b& no difficulty in having the lower limbs clothed.

Mrs Ball in, the wcll-tknown woman doctor and editress of Baby, recommends long 1 stockings coming up far enough -to cover most part of ths thighs, and' buttoned on to the stays by a strap ; this- for small toddlers and children in arms after they are shortened. But the influence of conventional fashion is so powerful that few mothers could allow those- beautiful pink legs to be wholly covered up from view. A compromise which was recommended to me by a doctor's wife is to have knitted drawers- reaching from the waist to the knees. They arc knitted garter-stitch, of fine white wool, without any opening, and drawn into the waist by means of a piece of clastic. They are easily slipped up and down, and hate the further recommendation of keeping the lower part of the body waim. Obviously the«e cannot be adoptoj until the child has been trained in regular habits. — "Gretehen," in the. Scottish Farmer.

— The dome of the observatory b£ Groan* wich, which weighs 20 tons, is made chiefly of paper.

Raiexrs of Poultry should use Nimmo aitd Bljltr's Game and Poultry Meal, which is composed of the best ground bones and shells', specially prepared to meet the requirements of the fast-increasing poultry industry. It ia made up in 341b bags, at Is 9d each. Ask yen* 9tprekeej?ejr iet ik