OUR BASIES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13843, 24 December 1908, Page 10

OUR BASIES.

(By I-lygeia.)

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children.

TWENTY-THREE HOUR CURE.

(Continued.)-

We repeat Dr. Northrup's summary of essentials in his plea tor pure cool air.

ESSENTIALS.

(1) The twenty-three hour cure or twenty-three hour treatment consists in living out of the twenty-four hours in the best obtainable cool, flowing, fresh air. (2) The quality of cold or cool flowing fresh air is essential. Cold air may be stale. Air may be oxygenated and free of air and yet be warm. The air should be flowing freely and cold. (3) Cold, fresh, flowing air has uniformly certain effects upon young patients. First they sleep. They remain qniet so long as they are in the open air, and sleep most of the time. The quieting effect is well proved. Second, they take more food, and assimilate it better. . , (4) Patients in the open air rarely catch cold, much less often than those kept habitually in warm rooms. EVENTFUL CAREER OF MONTHOLD BOTTLE-FED WEAKLING.

'The baby had been bottle-fed from the outset; he had been kept in a room-temperature of 70deg. to 72deg. Fahr., carefully guarded from draughts, which means from the ingress of fresh air, and fed on a preparation made up in the house from the family milk supply. When he came under my care he was not a proud specimen. He was thin, barely gaining at all, jumping and jerking, and sleeping indifferently. The family were extremely anxious about him. . . • Since the baby did not thrive on modified milk alone I resolved to modify him also. I inaugurated a living in improved quality of air. The month was December (the freezing, midwinter of New York), and the child four weeks old. Delicate to an extreme degree would be the words to express the child's condition. . . ' "To restate the proposition: the infant was four weeks old, the month was December, the indications in regard to its care required the twenty-three hour treatment. I may add the house was very large, facing south, situated half a block from Central Park, on a wide street. What is more to the point, the nurse was excellent, and in the end I voted her the best nurse I have ever known.

" Gradually the windows were opened, the doors into halls closed ; the crib, which stood at first in the far corner, was gradually advanced to the open windows, and finally, after a couple of weeks, the infant was pnt in a laundry basket with an improvised carriage hood, and passed out on the balcony. Family friends who knew the. baby's delicate beginning of life were horrified, for the weather was about average for December. The whole proceeding was frankly pronounced brutal, and predictions of awful accidents filled the conversation of chance callers. The father, who had a slight suspicion that this new boy baby was going to be a great pride to his family name (and the baby's first name hinted at rare links in famous historic lineage), had unconfessed anxieties and groans all to himself. For a few. days the advance was slow and uncertain. At least nothing happened. Then the father's face cleared a little, and the nurse's face wore an expression of quiet courage, and even of hope.

OUT IN A LAUNDRY BASKET.

. 4I A month later. Scene on the first morning after a snowstorm: morning bright, snow gleaming, wagon wheels whistling and groaning. < Baby near the window, wrapped in its blankets, basket and wondow showing evidence of the nurse's intentions. In due time the window opened and snapped shut, and the baby was out for his airing. The father, whose future lawyer or soldier son was thus punched out into the elements in a thirty-five-cent laundry basket, was discovered hovering near, and the only expression which escaped him was, 'Ah, the poor little man !' and he departed. - The thermometer on the casement near the basket registered lOdeg. Fahr. I saw it myself.

" I mention these incidents because they belong to the Bubject. I make no mention of drugs, for he never has had any, except one or two doses of castor oil. When the father disappeared, leaving his child in the basket alongside a thermometer registering lOdeg. Fdhr., and could raise no protest, only murmur, ' Poor little man!' the day was won. The baby must be thriving. "So it was. The boy gained, slept, piped for his meals, and slept again. The room was swimming with air. On rainy and snow days he was brought just within the dry spots on the balcony, and when the gusts of rain became boisterous he was brought in, and the thirty-five-cent laundry basket was placed on a low table between two windows. • There never was a northeast storm in midwinter or a combination of snow, rain, slush, or sleet which kept him from having all the bracing effect which comes of cold, fresh, flowing air. " RESULT.— During his litfle life, now of nearly seven months, ho hae not lost more than one day of feedings. He had no colds, he regularly gained, all his functions were normal,! and no one would ever call him delicate. He has lost all nervousness, is simply very bright, almost too bright and alert for his' own good, and is round, plump, happy, normal. For twenty-three hours each day he has lived in the cold air. The twentyfourth has been devoted to bathing. It is simply astonishing to what he 1 became accustomed. He would lie on the bed without extra cover and kick and shout in a cold room in which one not accustomed to it would fear to loiter. During the winter nearly everybody in the house had influenza. The party in the basket escaped. Every day and every night was the same to him. All was a joke. He loved company; he cooed and gurgled, nnd thought it all fun. The last word Irom the country is ,' He's fit to burst his skin from fat.' "

WHY DID THE GROWN-UPS CATCH COLD?

This is not the least interesting part of Dr. Northxup's narrative. The

adults no doubt coddled themselves in warm, stuffy rooms, took little exercise, and if they became a little chilled were not in a condition to resist the host of invading microbes which lie in wait for all of us.

In the closing remarks after the discussion which followed the reading ot his paper X)r. Northrup said : — AN HOUR OR TWO IS NOT ALL BAY. The idea to be emphasised is that people will say the child is kept out all day when perhaps it has been out but an hour or two ;' thai is what Wrought out this paper. The word " hospitalism " has taken leave of the books of the Presbyterian Hospital for ever. We dropped jhe temperature of the rooms and improved the ventilation. The results have been so good that everybody, from the superintendent to the elevator boy and the man that takes out the ashes, is interested and con-

vmced. , . . That, however, n not what I had first in mind. It is simply to keep the child well out in the open air many hours a day, and I purposely limited it to private practice. In a hospital you can do what you like, but in private practice, where there is perhaps a doting grandmother and many friends, it is the most difficult thing to have your ideas carried out. The more they lov© the children the more they will shut all the windows to guard them from drafts. I always feel quite sure about a patient that it out-doors; it is safe if it is clear out-doors. If before an open window and the warm room is behind it, the case is less safe.