OUR BABIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 17, 26 October 1910, Page 60

OUR BABIES.

(By

HYGEIA.)

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children. •It is wiser to put up u fence at the top of a precipice than, to maintain an ambulance al the bottom.”

Education and Health. IN last week’s column we dealt with the importance of teaching Domestic Hygiene to all girls, either during or at the cloee of ordinary School life. No doubt the best course would be to make the teaching of the laws of health, and the practical observance of these laws, an essential part of the whole school life. A child in 'the infant room is quite capable of understanding and appreciating simple natural truths, and quite capable of carrying out as a matter of daily routine the essentials for health. Regular - healthful habits cannot be built into the organism too early, and should be inculcated and firmly established in the home long before school life commences —they should be initiated as is shown in the “Feeding and Care of the Baby” (see “Forming a Character,” pages 135 and 136) at the very dawn of life. If this is property attended' to, such habits become virtual instincts—things which tend to be carried out in future without the intervention of thought or the will power. Thus insensibly may a normal organic life be established for the child. He may be made a healthy animal from the start, without having to exert himself consciously to learn what is necessary in the form of lessons. Of course, he does learn —learns in the best of all ways—learns by doing the things that ought to be done, and by avoiding those that ought not to be done. Fresh-air Children. Take, for instance, such very simple matters as fresh air and exercise. The training in the home, long before school life, should have made used-up, stuffy air so organically distasteful to the child that when little more than a baby he will, as it were, instinctively toddle to a window and do his best to open it, rather than endure the unpleasantness—• this being done without any real conscious appreciation of the difference between fresh and polluted air, but simply because the tendency has become inclined and automatic through the practice and direction of his elders. He has become a fresh-air child, without knowing the why and wherefore —without ever giving a thought to the matter—and will tend to remain so for life. Unfortunately, in the rare cases where this happy state of matters is brought about, the cumulative effect of years of such healthy home life may be largely negatived, instead of being fostered, by the enforced conditions of the ordinary schoolroom. It becomes compulsory now to do what Is contrary to the healthful, natural and acquired habits of the child. His senses become dulled, and lie soon ceases to notice that he is living in what has been well described as “aerial sewage.” Thia is not a far-fetched term; it Is in common use among doctors and scientists, and clearly conveys the fact that air into which the used-up waste products of the body have been poured is fouled and polluted in the same sense as water is rendered filthy when mixed with urine or other excreta. The following extracts from Dr. Hillier’s wellknown book on consumption leaves no room for doubt on this point:—• Poisonous Exhalations from the Lungs. Brown-Sequard and d’Arsonva'l at length went far to show that the toxic (poisonous) qualities of confined respired air was due to the expired vapour containing organic matter. They collected In a refrigerating apparatus the vapours contained In air expired by a man, and they injected the liquid thus collected ’under the skin of rabbits and guineapigs. Both rabbits and guinea-pigs succumbed to those injections. These ex-

periments show that the lung exhales vapours charged with poison. The assimilation of food and the constant changes in the tissues fill the body with toxic substances. These are eliminated in the faeces, the urine, the sweat, and pulmonary exhalations. We do not reabsorb the poisons eliminated by the kidneys or the skin. “Why,” asks Daremberg, “should we reabsorb poisons exhaled from the pulmonary surface by breathing an air already breathedl” I have already referred to the effete respiratory products which breathed air contains as furnishing material for the nourishment and growth of the vegetable bacillus (bacteria) within the tissues. There is another noxious quality of impure air. It is in impure air that the septic micrococci are most abundant. These are carried into the lungs, and add their effects to those of the tubercular process. No further evidence as to the scientific basis for the open-air treatment need be adduced, and I cannot do better than preface the direct consideration of this treatment by quoting the - eloquent testimony of Daremberg, derived from his own personal experience. “No one,” he writes, “knows the happiness of the consumptive who quits his tainted chamber to live au grand air if he has not himself experienced the benefits of this change. In 1876, after having passed several months between the four walls of a small room in Paris, I arrived on the French Mediterranean coast, and, after the advice of Henri Bennet, I stretched myself out all day in the sunj at night I lay with my window open. , • . As Voltaire says, ‘The hope of recovery is already half a recovery.’ Soon my powers revived: I could walk, make small excursions, find pleasure in existence. I discovered that the sun of my life has not set yet. I saw it rise each morning with delight, and each day linger too short a time to allow me to enjoy to the full the pure air, the bright light, the blue sea, the heavens, the earth—everything. It is good to feel oneself reborn.” “This life Is pure air, night and day, stimulates the appetite, Improves the digestion, suppresses the fits of coughing, facilitates expectoration, and the respiratory movements invite calm sleep.”— AT,FRED HILLIER, 8.A., M.D., C.M.