How to Bring Up Baby.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 19, 6 November 1912, Page 58

How to Bring Up Baby.

(By

HYGEIA.)

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

THE TYRANNY OF HABITS.

Q-r-f T the dawn of life it is easier to J I mould a child into good habits r— l than into a bad. but once bad *J habits have been formed it may be extremely dillieult to eradicate them - indeed, in spite of all that we can do, the child may lose not only its health ami strength, but may even lose its life owing to the persistence ot habits which undermine vitality and the it sistiveness of the organism. One of the most striking instances in this connection is what Darwin tells us as to his experiments with certain illsects. I cannot at the moment recall the details, but the essential point was as follows: ill Nature the insect in quc-tion lived mi certain leaves and .new apace -n it was the paper-mul-berrv. Darwin started them on other leaves instead—say lettuce leaves. Once the insects had acquired a taste tor the wrong leaves they would eat nothing else. Nothing would induce them to go back to their natural food, though the wrom» food did not nourish them properlv. and led invariably to their premature death. M.v readers will realise how eloselv this accords with what may take place'in the .a f children who are allowed to drift into the practice ot quoted from Dr. Still further illustrate habits. ’the following concluding remaiks quoted from Dr. Still fntHied illustrate the subject : Br Still on Morbid Habits in Children. ‘■Stewart 11.. aged one year and a-lialf, was brought because for the last two months he had taken to eating mud, hearthstone, bits of brick, soap, or anything he can get hold of.’ He was particularly fond of the white plaster oft tov horses. '■His appetite for normal food was bail. The bow els had been constipated, and occasionally after such things as those mentioned he retched. ‘•rhe child was very irritable, and during the persistence of the dirt-eating had began to sleep badly, talking in his sleep and starting up in terror at night. He was intelligent, and showed uo sign of disea-e except some rickets. Three months later he was taken to Scotland, with the result that his general health improved greatly, and his appetite be anie good, ami Im lost his craving for unnatural food altogether. ••Mini and mortar seem to be special favourites with these children. Coal, cinder-, ami gravel were also mentioned in -ome of mv cases. In nine out of my 14 ,a-es tlie'habil began in Hie second year of life. In one only it began in the first year (at eight month-): ill two it began in the fourth year. "Now what is the signitlance of this curious perversion of appetite. As 1 have, mentioned, there wa- nothing in any ot the eases to which 1 have referred to -ugg'-t any mental deficiency. Imbeciles often show a similar habit of dirt-eating but in them it is less strange, for it is associated usually with an extreme degree of mental deticien y. ‘■Some light is thrown upon the point by the disorders with which pica is associated. it goes, I think, in the major ity of cases with definite indications of the ‘nervous’ temperament. One child I had seen a few months earlier for spa-modi" maiding, another a few months after the pica cea-ed w;rs attended for witling the bed. another subsequently di veloped stiitleiing and somnambulism, other-, like the '-a-e- I hive mentioned, show an abnormal pi--ionateness or excit i bi lily. •’No doubt tin-• m i \oii- -vniplttiiH arc aggravated by mor* or !♦•-*» dig***! iv •- distiirban •• set up by 110- abnornial mull rial eaten. but I ill.nk that the development of other m-rvoiH disorder*, in ftome after tl»«- pi-a baft entirely •<a-cd, and the family lii-toiy in other**, go to prove tli.it tin* nervoiisneM is partly at bust <au*p rather than effect. “11l almost all <a-»M th** appetite for ordinary food u CMUeindy pour ui

it is often this rather than the dirt-eat-ing which excites the mother’s anxiety. The abdomen is usually large, the stools sometimes contain mucus, and the bowels are costive or irregular. "It is natural enough that such symptoms should be induced by the indigestible substances eaten; but in some cases it has seemed to me clear that there was digestive disturbance before this habit began,ami I suspect that this is so in the majority of* eases, and that the subsequent diseoipfort, hardly felt as such perhaps by the child, plays some part in exciting the habit of dirt-eating in a nervous child. This is confirmed, 1 think, by the effect of treatment. The duration of the habit is often mouths, or even some years, if no special measures are taken for its cure. Treatment. “The first essential in treatment is to prevent the child obtaining the dirt, coal, mortar, or other injurious substance for which it crave-: the second is to improve its general health, especially its digestion. “There is no part of the treatment more valuable than a few weeks at a bracing seaside place, or, if this is not attainable, at some high-standing, breezy, inland country place. At the same time, it will be necessary to aid digestion by the most careful dieting, and care must be taken that the food is not such as to set up fermentation in the bowels, or to keep up a mucous catarrh by its irritating residue. I need not repeat here what I have already said elsevvjiere on the subject of feeding and indigestion. These eases of pica call for careful adaptation of the diet to the digestive capacity of the particular child.”

(Geo. Frederic Still, 51. A., 51. D. F.R.C.P., Professor of Diseases of C hild ren, King’s College, London).