The health of children in the nursery and school / by William Squire.

  • Squire, William Stevens 1825-1899.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The health of children in the nursery and school / by William Squire. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Pauls was ii, from the churchyard below it was 70. In Exhi- bition Road, when crowded, on June 8th, 1886, the air yielded 554 colonies. I'ew germs are found in the air of rooms when very still and quiet, but many if dust arises. From a room tenanted and closed dust should be removed in a moist state. In an occupied room germs are not the only spoilers of the air; the carbonic acid given off by respiration is almost equalled by the organic emanations constantly going on. It is most im- portant for children, whose resistance to the encroachment of adverse influences is less than in adults, to have ready access to fresh air in open spaces. The ill effects of any leakage from gas pipes on health, set forth by Dr. Richardson in “Our Homes,” has since received further elucidation from Dr. Corfield. Sanitary defects in dwellings are most plainly shown in spoiling the health of children ; the young soonest suffer from bad air, noxious vapours, damp, dust, and want of cleanli- ness. Into houses where the children are lively and well we may be sure no sewer-gas enters; this may not be the particular cause of illness where children are sickly, but some violation of sanitary law will be found that checks healthy development. No- where is the right of health to be more vigorously maintained, or more jealously guarded, than in the nursery ; for while the neg- lect of sanitation here saps the cheerfulness of childhood, and ruins the fair prospect of youth, nowhere is attention to sanitary law more promptly and permanently rewarded than in the normal evolution of all we hope for in the young. The healthy con- dition of the child, and the means of ascertaining it, will be set forth as the measure of how far the children’s rooms at home and at school are made healthy. The details of nursery fittings must vary extremely in the different grades of society, while many of the same details of nursery management can be commonly carried out; the princi- ples to be kept in view are the same in all stations of life, and may often be as well observed in the poorest as in the richest dwellings. No amount of grandeur will keep mansions free from noxious gases ; the most costly chamber soon becomes unhealthy if constantly occupied. Luxury can add nothing to the pure milk required by infants; when this has to be supple- mented, the same care must be taken that the added food should be fresh and uncontaminated, a care required earlier and oftener among the rich than among the poor. Arrest of nutrition, actual starvation, from dieting an infant on what it cannot assimilate, is still frequent among all classes. Danger from placing a baby
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