OUR BABIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3511, 28 June 1921, Page 51

OUR BABIES.

E,

Hygeia.

Published under the auspices ot the Royal New Zealand Society fo r -he Health el Women and Children. “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top cl a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.”

FOOD REFORMS FOR SCHOOLS. (Continued.) Last week we printed part of an article published in this column pearly six years ago on the foolish and damaging practice of giving school children food between their normal meal times. It ended thus:— “I can imagine the teacher persistently coming back to the point that whatever one may say the food does somehow enter into their composition and nourish them, because within five minutes of the taking of it the children are obviously brightened up and benefited.” The article goes on as follows: —- TEMPORARY STIMULATION. They might as well advocate that a child should be taught to suck its thumb, and contend that it must get some nourishment out of its thumb because the sucking of it is capable of causing a certain amount of exhilaration. I am quite serious on this point. Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton in liis book oil “The Disorders of Digestion,” says:—The mere act of mastication not only supplies a stimulus to the sensory nerves in the mouth, it leads to an increased supply of blood to the nerve centres. . . . the pulse becomes more rapid. The extent to which this occurs will hardly be credited by anyone who has not tried the experiment. In my own case, I find that sipping half a wineglassful of water will raise ray pulse from 76 to considerably over 100. So that, in fact, a glass of cold water, slowly sipped, will stimulate the heart as much as, or move than, a glass of brandy swallowed at a draught. 'The stimulant effect of sucking is soon learned by children, and we see them console themselves, and raise their spirits, by sucking their thumb when they are depressed, or by any childish misfortune; in fact, under conditions similar to those under which children of an older growth might keep their spirits up by pouringspirits down. Is anyone going to contend seriously that the fact cf our having such powers cf temporarily stimulating the nervous system and the circulation justifies our using these means out of their proper time and place? Any doctor, could tell us that one of the most fruitful sources of dyspepsia in adults is the fact that they have made the unfortunate discovery that they 7 can temporarily pull themselves together and do away with feeling's of discomfort, sinking, and faintness “by taking a little something”— whether that something be fluid or solid, milk or brandy. The difficulty is to break these vicious habits once they have been formed. Many a person tries in vain to “unwind the accursed chain” as Do Quincey so picturesquely put it m his “Confessions of an Opium Eater.” NATIONAL FOOT) REFORM. I take it as a hopeful sign that the London Times_ last year devoted a leading article to dealing with a Conference held under the auspices of the National Food Reform Association, the subject under consideration being “The Health and Food of Boys and Girls at Boarding and Day Schools.’’ The Times said: , The Conference is evidence of the attention that is now being paid to a subject too long neglected. . . . We may hope that a considerable step has been taken towards the development of a rational system of school diet to which all schools will, oy degrees, approximate in practice. It was conclusively shown at the Conference that increased attention to this matter leads to a higher standard of health and greater physical and mental fitness. The concluding three out of a dozen important points arrived at were as follows: 10. Abstain from eating when not hungry, and from “stodging” between meals. Edison,_ the famous inventor, warns us against “stoking our engines with too much coal.” 11. In particular, sweets, clicoo’ate or and milk, or food of ’ anv kinci, gnould not be eaten between meals or before going- io bed. 12. The “grub-shop” and the “tuck-box” are two of the greatest enemies to allround fitness. Several schools represented at the Conference allow neither, while the 40 senior boys at one house themselves almost unanimously voted the abolition of the “tuck-box.”