FOR THE BABIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 71, 1 April 1913, Page 3

FOR THE BABIES.

CASTOR OIL. The following letter recently appeared in an Oamaru paper, and it is an interesting illustration of the way in which people will rush into print, simply because they have themselves misread or misapplied some perfectly clear and correct advice or instruction. In the present case the Blanket nurse made no mistake when she ordered a small dose of castor oil for a baby suffering from diarrhoea, and “Our Babies” column was equally right in warning mothers that a dose of castor oil may kill a child who has been suddenly seized with acute abdominal pain owing to appendicitis; further, it was only fair to tell the public that the common practice of dosing children with castor oil for constipation is a most injurious proceeding. We merely warned mothers against the indiscriminate giving of oil or any other drug—not against their proper uses. THE LETTER.

Sir, —I have been extremely interested in the work of the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children for a number of years, and latterly in the articles appearing in your columns under the heading of “Our Babies.” But 1 •must confess that my faith received a rude shock by perusing the article on Saturday last dealing with castor oil, contributed by “Hygeia.” Therein was contained a general condemnation of castor oil for use in babies* trou-, bles, and it has been hard for mo to reconcile this fact with my case when occasion arose to call in the Plunket nurse for baby. Abour four and a half years ago in Wellington I attended the lectures of the society’s accredited nurse, and a little while after had to seek her aid in the case of baby’s troublesome diarrhoea. The first thing she asked me was whether I had castor oil in the house, and as I had not any she 'told me to get a bottle from which she administered a dose to the child, and she told me if the child was ever bad again just to give it a dose, and all yould be well. This was the first occasion I used castor oil for baby—on the recommendation of a Plunket nurse—and have kept it in the house ever since in case of an emergency.

If “Hygeia” can reconcile my experience with her (perhaps his) decrying the use of the article all will be well, for I feel quite sure that many another mother must have been misled by Wellington’s nurse the same as I was, and looked upon castor oil as “a friend in time of need,” whereas “Hygeia” looks upon it as a specious concoction for babies’ troubles.—l am, etc., NOT UNDERSTOOD. COMMENT. The Wellington nurse not only did what the mother might have found recommended in the various publications of the society, but in, practically speaking, all authoritative books. on babies written in any language in the world.

It ftlay be interesting to our readers to know that some years ago the question was raised iu Dunedin as to Whether a Plunket nurse might under any circumstances order medicine for a baby. A conference, attended by the leading meihbers of the medical profession, to deal with the sphere of work of the Plunket nurses, decided that in the case of diarrhoea it was right and proper for the nurse to give a small dose of castor oil; and that in the same way it would be right for her to recommend a pinch of baking soda for a baby doubled up with colic —these being the only two cases in which medical opinion favoured the entrusting of the Plunket nurses with the recommending of drugs—namely, the two household remedies found in most homes, and both generally recognised us suitable for the particular circumstances.

As for the “general condemnation of castor oil” which the Oamaru mother assumes to have been contained in my article, I have merely to say again that I was inveighing against what was the unwise and indiscriminate use not only of castor oil, but of all drugs. Let me quote my own words: “It is a safe rate never to give a child medicine of any kind without a very definite and clear reason, and never to give a second dose except under the doctor’s order. / The less drugging a child gets the better. ...

“Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes proclaimed with profound wisdom half a century ago: ‘A medicine—that is, a noxious agent such as a blister,.an emetic, or a purgative—should always be presumed to be hurtful. It is always directly hurtful. It may sometimes bo indirectly beneficial. Let me quote further from the same article by Wendell Holmes:—

The presumption always is that every noxious agent, including medicines proper, which hurts a well man hurts a sick one.

Let me illustrate this proposition before you decide upon it. If it were known that a prize fighter were to have a drastic purgative administered two or three days before a contest, or a large blister applied to his back, no one will question that it would affect the betting on his side unfavourably; we will say to the amount of 5 per cent. Now the drain upon the resources of the system produced in such a case must be at its minimum, for the subject is a powerful man, in the prime of life and in admirable condition. If the drug or the blister takes 5 per cent from his force of resistance, it will take at least as large a fraction from any invalid. But this invalid had to fight a champion who strikes hard but cannot be hit in return, who will press in sharply for breath but will never pant himself while f lu wind can whistle through his flesh less ribs. The suffering combat ant is liable to want all his stamina,

the 5 per cent may lose him the battle. All noxious agents, all appliances which are not natural food or stimuli, all medcines Drop-: , cost a patient, on the average, j per rent ol Lis vital force, let us say. Twenty times as much waste «•» force pro ducc-d by any one of them, that is, would exactly kill Mum—nothing less than kill him, and nothing more. If this, or something like this i« true, then all these medicines are, prima facie, injurious. Yet who can say that Wendell Holmes failed to recognise the beneficence of drugs when properly used? After quoting Sir Astley Cooper to the effect that on the whole more harm than good is done 'by medicine, he continues: — Throw out opium, which the Creator Himself seems to prescribe, for we often see the scarlet poppy growing in the cornfields, as if it were foreseen that wherever there is hunger to be fed there must also be pain to be soothed; throw out a few specifics and the vapours which produce anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind—and all the worse for the fishes.” I shall have something more to say about castor oil next week, including the advice given in the society’s books, etc.