Children : their health, training, and education with valuable hints for young and old / by G.W. Bacon.
- Bacon, G. W.
- Date:
- [between 1900 and 1909?]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Children : their health, training, and education with valuable hints for young and old / by G.W. Bacon. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![be occasionally opened at the top, care bein^ taken that the patient is not exposed to draught. Dr. Chavasse says, “There are four things essentially necessary to a babe’s well doing; namely, (1) plenty of water for his skin ; (2) plenty of fresh genuine milk for his stomach ; (3) plenty of pure air for his lungs ; (4) plenty of sleep for his brain. These are the four grand essentials for an infant; without an abundance of one and all of them, perfect health is utterly impossible. [To these we would add a fifth, plenty of warm clothing to every part of his body.] Perfect health! the greatest earthly blessing, and more to be coveted than aught else beside. There is not a more charming sight in the universe than the beaming face of a perfectly healthy babe.” Suckling.—The infant’s best and most natural food is, of course, that supplied by the mother; but a proper method of feeding is even more important at the earliest period of life than at any other. Too frequent suckling is a common error. It tends to impoverish the milk and to cause defective nutrition in the child. Keeping the child at the breast when there is little or no milk causes irrita- tion of the infant’s stomach, and does much injury. If there is not sufficient time allowed for the infant to digest one meal before another is given, it will suffer from indigestion; the bowels, as elsewhere explained, will be overloaded and disordered, and fever or serious illness will ensue. On the other hand, suckling the baby at regular intervals of sufficient length will promote the due and healthy action of the bowels, the child will be contented, its little noises wdll be pleasant rather than painful to hear, and it will become healthy and vigorous. Although the appetite of the child will generally indicate to some extent the times when it requires food, yet it must not be forgotten that too frequent suckling is injurious to both mother and child. Under ordinary circumstances, once in every two hours is sufficient during the first month, once in two hours and a half for the next month, and the intervals may be gradually increased to once in four hours, by the end of the fourth or fifth month. By a few days’ perseverance, any child, however irregularly it may have been fed, can](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28085796_0015.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
