OUR BABIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 80, 27 November 1912, Page 7

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygek.)

Published under 'the auspices o: the Society for the Health of Woniei, and Children.

“It is wiser to put up a fence a the top of a precipice than to main tain an ambulance at the bottom.”

A DOCTOR’S MISLEADING ADVICE.

Some remarks on the Hygiene of Childhood, by Dr Woods Hutchinson, which have appeared in several newspapers throughout the Dominion during the past month are so specious and at the same time so wrong-head-ed and misleading, that they might not to be allowed to pass unchallenged. Dr Woods Hutchinson is not, as described, one of America’s foremost, authorities on Hygieite. I should father say he is. an. attractive, paradoxical, quasiscientific popular American writer who knows the effectiveness of boldly and dogmatically assailing commonly-ac-cepted views and proclaiming the converse to be true. When an author confines himself to, mere literary juggling and paradox, in the vein of Oscar Wilde and other decadents, he (locs not necessarily do much harm: our morals and judgment are not seriously warped by reading that “Dishonesty is the best policy,” or that “A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand” : but parents are apt to be led astray when a facile, lucid writer sets to work, in the name of science, to discredit and overthrow sound, well-es-tablished rules of life and conduct which date back behind the time of Solomon and Socrates. Some of the things that Dr Hutchinson proclaims need no comment—indeed, scarcely need proclaiming. All will agree with him that a child ought to have plenty, of sleep and that “healthy outdoor play tends to build up the child’s body, mind, and judgment.” Indeed, I would go so far as to assent to the spirit of what the author conveyed some years ago in lucre arresting terms, when denouncing the wrong of founding schools without proper playground®. “If it comes to a question of a school without a playground 'or a playground without a school, give me the playground!” Here the emphasis justifies the exaggeration., But what is to be said of a doctor who ignores the fact that even the progeny of the higher animals are not left to the guidance of blind instincts alone, but are subjected to proper discipline and training by their mothers in such matters as obedience, cleanliness, etc. What is to be said of the doctor who proclaims appetite and desire to be the all-sufficing and only safe guides for childhood? With Dr. Hutchinson more assertion takes the place of reason and argument, thus:— The child knows what it wants better than its parents. Let a child make its own moral code., Do not preach. . . . We think we are older than our children, when, as a matter of fact, they are older than we, at. least racially speaking. Their instincts have been growing for eight or nine million years, and they must mean something. Let a child develop in accord with his instincts.

_ As we all know, children tend at limes to be wilful, disobedient, untruthful, etc. Are such tendencies to be allowed to develop unchecked, or should the little ones be guided and helped by its elders? Under the temptations of modern concentrated foods; fancy cooking, and candy "shops children tend to overeat, and to eat. in season arid out of season. But J)r Hutchinson scouts building up self-re-straint and discipline, saying that the child’s instincts and desires should he the sole guides, even as to eating and drinking. Whatever it wants to do and whatever and whenever it wants to eat the child is sure to be right! Ho writes;—

There is an old saying that one should rise from the table wanting just a little bit more. This is an exploded theory. Be it a large meal or a small tit-bit that a child craves for, in nine times out of ton it ought to have it. The rigid rule that three meals a day are enough for anyone, young or old, active or inactive, is all nonsense. A healthy child can enjoy and assimilate, and very often needs, six meals a day. In fact, the human stomach, is geared for continuance performance.”

If there is one thing that, the physiological research of the last ten y6ars has proved more conclusively than another regarding the dietetic habits of civilised man, it is that, .young or old, we all tend to eat too much—that we all eat and drink too often, and that three meals a day with no food between suffice for anyone.

On reading the following in a recent work by Dr Woods Hutchinson I really thought at first that he was writing ironically, but I have come to the con-

clusion that, carried away by bis own persuasiveness, and scribbling in an office far away from wife and weans, be really thought that the following truly awful regimen was the way ol wisdom for children—at least for the American child:— The Day’s- March,

Here is a rational and physiologic day’s march through this stage of his life’s journey for a healthy growing >boy or girl of from We to seven years ■of age: 8 a.m., breakfast, consisting tchielly of milk, eggs, bacon, ham, fish, mutton chops, with butter, ■bread, toast, griddle cakes, cereals, or cookies and fruit or preserves; and jif a hot drink be desired, weak cocoa.

(Starches of all sorts, except bread, .should bo used only as a supplement to or “filler” with milk, eggs, meat or fish, or if taken olano should have

plenty of sugar and cream on them •The sugar and cream, for instance

eaten with a dish of cereal, form the

most valuable paid of the dish. 10.3) ja.m.., lunch, consisting of bread and uni Ik, sandwiches, ham beef , cheese, or eggs, cookies, cake, bread and jam.

bread and “lasses,’l nuts, particularly •roasted or salted, and fruit. 12.30,

dinner, consisting of meat, particularly beef, mutton, or pork, potatoes with one or more vegetables, especially tomatoes, peas, lettuce, celery,

land onions, with plenty of dessert consisting of sweet puddings, pie (omitting the bottom crust), cake, ■honey or fresh fruit. If the child has been playing in the open air the greater part of the mornling and is reasonably healthy and is started upon the meat and vegetables first, lie may be given practically as iinany helpings as ho will take of these, or even of the desserts, without serious danger to bis digestion, save during the first few days nr weeks .when be is placed upon this unrestrained sugar and sweet ration. Half of our “high-strung,” “difficult.” nervous modern children are

sugar hungry arid often sleep-hungry 'as well. Ilietity of sugar lias almost .as sweetening an effect upon the disposition as it has upon the flavour of ( food. 4 o’clock, afternoon tea, consisting of cookies, sandwiches, doughnuts, bread and butter, cake, jam, •jiuts, or almonds with either milk or weak cocoa. G o’clock, supper, consisting of eggs, fish, or some light

meat or oheo.se dish, potatoes, a talad vegetable with bread and butter, toast, tea, or other hot cakes, jam, cookies, or fruit with milk or weak ■cocoa. Games or entertaining readling, or stories, until 7.31) or 8, according to age, then bed. _ It is a good thing to leave a glass of milk or crackers on a chair beside the bed, so that if the child wakes up in the night and •is hungry ho can help himself; and particularly have these where he can get at them early in the morning before the regular breakfast hour. For the credit of the leading American physicians of the day it is only ■fair to say that their advice as to the feeding of children is on moderate ,-and sensible lines, and they are practically -unanimous in their condemnation of spoiling children in the way 'recommended above by Dr Woods ‘Hutchinson. They'arc as much opposed to stuffing Children, to too frequent feeding, to promiscuous indulgence in sweets, etc., as Dr Hutchinson is in favour of these injurious practices.