Save the Babies. should be met by appropriate changes of clothing. Don't permit the common, deadly practice of leaving the arms and legs bare, but clothe every part, except the head, warmly. Woolen clothing is best, and should always be worn in Winter, and even in Summer it is best that a thin, flannel shirt be worn next the skin. If this is thin, it will not be much warmer than if of cotton, but very much more healthful. Many mothers make the mistake of too warmly dressing their babies and children in Summer months. The flannel worn should be thin in Summer and thick in Winter. Never permit the child to wear the same clothing night and day, but completely undress it at night, and hang up the clothing so it will air through the night. SLEEP. Let babies and young children sleep all they will, for sleep is an absolute necessity for their vigorous development. They should regularly be laid to rest at stated times, away from noise and the light. The child from the very first should be taught to go to sleep in a cot, without being rocked, nursed, or carried about. No kind of cordial, spirits, syrups, sleeping or soothing drops, or any other remedies should ever be given by the nurse or mother to make a child sleep. If the young child is sleepless it is ill, and medical attendance should be summoned. It is a bad habit for the mother and child to go to sleep while the child is nursing in bed. Children from two to six years of age are often cross and ill natured for want of sleep. NURSING. A mother, while nursing, ought to live well and generously, but not carelessly or grossly. Spiritous or malt liquors should not be used unless prescribed by the family physician. The mother should remember that what would produce colic in the baby, if eaten by it, will often produce this trouble in it when eaten by the mother, and thus by care in her own diet she may save herself much trouble, and her baby much pain. If she suffers from giddiness, palpitations, shortness of breath, night sweats, or feels exhausted as the child nurses, or if her milk seems to disagree with the child, she should consult a medical man concerning the propriety of weaning the child. Pure, healthy breast milk is the best food for babies, and so long as the child thrives upon it, and the supply is Save the Babies. sufficient, it needs nothing else. Nurse a child at regular intervals; under two months, every two or three hours during the day, and three or four times during the night; at six months, five or six times during the twenty-four hours. Do not fail to give the baby water several times each day. Babies relish it and need it as much as older people. Do not nurse the baby to stop its crying, but only at the regular intervals. A child should not be weaned suddenly, but by degrees. After the ninth month it should be weaned; but never just before or during the hot season. Before the child is six months old, if the mother is weak, but her milk still agrees. with the child, it may be fed on cow's milk, alternating with the mother's milk. If the supply of breast milk is very small, but still agrees with the child, it should still be continued as a safeguard against illness. The mother's own milk is usually to be preferred to that of a wet nurse. FOOD. A very frequent cause of the early death of young children is improper feeding. The natural food for babies is the breast milk of its own mother; next that of a wet-nurse; lastly unskimmed cow's or goat's milk; the latter is very nourishing and easily digested. For young babies, remember, milk and milk only, should be used as food. They need no gruel, butter, honey or castor oil; these things are all worse than useless--they are dangerous. Too much care cannot be exercised to secure pure milk. It is now believed that milk derived from a number of cows is better than that from one cow. If from one cow, care should be taken not to get it from a cow which has been milking too long, since milk frequently deteriorates from this cause; also, when the milk disagrees with the child, it will be well to change the cow. So soon as the milk is received it should be placed on the stove and brought to on the ice or in the well. should be daily scalded out a boil, then placed in the coolest place The vessel in which the milk is kept with boiling water, and cleaned with soap, being kept perfectly stoneware vessels are preferNever give a baby sour or able to tin ones for keeping milk in. musty milk; it must be always sweet and pure, and freshly prepared each time; if sour throw it away and get some fresh; it cannot be safely sweetened. When fed to the child the milk should be diluted Save the Babies. with one-fourth or less water, and a little sugar added, but before adding water be sure that the milk-man has not previously added it. If undiluted milk agrees with the child use it. Use condensed" milk if the fresh cannot be had pure. Under six months children can be stuffed with, but not nourished by, corn, flour, arrow-root, baked flour, and all kinds of starchy foods. These are of no value at all to children under six months, and they may be, and often are, starved to death on these things. Where the child has cut its front teeth it should have some light food, as bread, baked flour, or milk-biscuits added to its milk. Once a day it may have meat broth or beef tea, with bread or biscuits soaked in it, or the yolk of an egg, lightly boiled. When it is a year and a half old it may have some fine chopped meat, but milk should be its principal food. At two years it may eat of corn meal mush, rolled wheat, oat grits, etc.; but such food as solid meat and potatoes, fat pork and fish, which form the food of adults, should on no account be given to babies. Do not give any of the patented baby foods sold at the stores, unless on the advice of your family physician. Creeping and crawling children must not be permitted to pick up unwholesome food. The nursing bottle needs special attention. It should be oval, with no corners or rough places in which the milk may lodge and become sour. A plain, black, rubber nipple to slip over the mouth of the bottle is the best pattern. Never use the elaborate and complex nipples with glass and rubber tubes attached, because they cannot be readily cleansed, and they also invite in the baby the habit of sleeping with the nipple in the mouth, a thing which should never happen. Both bottle and nipple should be thoroughly cleansed in boiling water after each using, and then kept in cold water, to which a little baking soda has been added, until used again. SUMMER COMPLAINT. July, August and September are the worst months, and the "second year" the dreaded period of the child's life. As preventive measures are recommended: 1. The nursing of the child over the second Summer, when this can be properly done, if the mother's milk agrees with the child, and she is not exhausted. Save the Babies. 2. The wearing of a thin flannel shirt by the child all through the Summer. It should be thin, and in hot weather very thin. 3. Feeding only milk or other food known to be fresh and abso lutely pure. 4. Whenever possible, babies should spend the Summer months in the country. If the above precautions could always be carried out, summer complaint would be almost unknown. At all events during the Summer months, give the child pure water to drink at frequent intervals; for it needs water to supply that lost by perspiration. Bathe it in cool or tepid water twice a day. Keep it in the open air as much as possible, and where the air is pure. Don't permit it to have any sour, unripe or overripe or half-decayed fruit. Even ripe fruit may cause injury if the child be allowed to indulge at will. Give no laudanum, no soothing syrups, no paregoric, no teas, nor any other drugs, medicines or remedies, unless directed by the family physician. DISEASES OF CHILDHOOD. It is the common belief that measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, mumps, diphtheria and the other diseases of childhood are necessarily contracted by every child. This is a mistake. These diseases are all contagious, and pass from person to person by actual contact. By great care their spread may be restricted, and the lives of many children saved. When diseases prevail in a community, withdraw the children from the day and Sunday schools, and so far as possible, isolate them from other children. In no case should they attend the funeral of a person dead from any of the above diseases, and in case of scarlet fever and diphtheria it is best for the parents to remain away as much as possible from the houses where they prevail, no matter in how light form. Abuse of the Brain. ABUSE OF THE BRAIN. Inasmuch as the American people suffer so much from nervous disorders they have as a nation been for some years in search of brain food. Beans, fish, phosphorus-containing foods, celery, etc., have one and all been heralded as preventives or curatives of insomnia, brain softening, and that large list of neurotic affections so prevalent in this country. Below is an extended article on this subject by Prof. Allen McLane Hamilton, M. D., a man of extended observation, and excellent judgment. It is practical, suggestive, and if carefully read, and its conclusions and recommendations heeded, excellent results will follow. It is surprising that the doctor has made no reference to the use of tobacco, especially in minors, as a most prolific source of nervousness; for tobacco, as much, if not more than anything else, contributes to nervous depression as well as to heart disease. Dr. Hamilton says: "Nervousness is the great brain trouble in this country. It is caused chiefly by the continued strain of business. Americans take too little time to think about their health, and to think especially about their brain. All the time they are thinking of business; how to get on in the world, and how to make a fortune. Many of them would work twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four if they possibly could, and would then complain that they hadn't time to attend to their business properly. This continued strain on the brain is also the cause of so much insomnia that is prevalent. People who live in foreign countries do not have anything like the amount of brain trouble that those who live in this country have. They give themselves more rest than we take here, they have more holidays, more times like the recent Centennial time, when all thoughts of business are put on one side and the whole community give themselves up entirely to rest and pleasure. I think those three days' holiday in this city did those who availed themselves of the holiday, more good than they will |