Volume 1
The household physician : a family guide to the preservation of health and to the domestic treatment of ailments and disease, with chapters on food and drugs and first aid in accidents and injuries / by J. McGregor-Robertson ; with an introduction by John G. McKendrick.
- M'Gregor-Robertson, J. (Joseph), 1858-1925
- Date:
- 1899
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The household physician : a family guide to the preservation of health and to the domestic treatment of ailments and disease, with chapters on food and drugs and first aid in accidents and injuries / by J. McGregor-Robertson ; with an introduction by John G. McKendrick. Source: Wellcome Collection.
522/602 (page 450)
![WEANING. [Sect. XV. By the time the child is eight months old a further addition to the diet should be made by giving once a day a small quantity—a small tea- cupful at most —of beef-tea or weak chicken or mutton broth or soup from which all vege- tables have been removetl by straining through muslin and from which fat has been skimmed. The beef-tea is best made by scraping the meat with a knife. Place the scrapings in a jelly-can with two breakfast-cupfuls of cold water to each quarter of a j)ound of beef; set the jelly-can in a pot of hot water, covered with a lid, and allow the water in the pot to simmer for two hours or so. Salt the beef-tea to taste. It should con- tain all the valuable parts of the beef in fine flakes and should need no straining. If this tends to make the child’s bowels too loose, that may be remedied by slightly thickening the tea with rice or corn-flour and boiling it for some minutes. Weaning should be effected when the child is ten or twelve months old, the exact time being dependent upon the health of mother and child. It will be begun earlier if the mother is sutlering from nursing, and delayed till later if the child is weakly and the mother able to bear prolonged nursing and having good milk. The period named is generally chosen because the child usually has about that time an interval of rest between cutting the front teeth and the first of those at the back. It is often a process involving some trouble to the mother and dis- comfort to the child, but, if the above directions as to feeding have been observed, the child will really have been in prepaiution for it since the sixth month, and much of the difficulty will be overcome. Weaning should not be allowed to take place if the child is suffering from the irritation of late teething, from any cold, or feverish attack, or trifling illness, but the mother should wait till that has passed off. The pro- cess should be performed gradually; as the breast-milk is withdrawn its place should be supplied by other appropriate nourishment. The child’s food at this time should consist largely of milk and of the preparations of milk already mentioned, including well-boiled milk porridge, the diet being properly varied from day to day, though given at the same regular intervals, the cup of beef-tea or weak mutton broth being given once a day. At this time, too, a lightly-boiled egg beat up and properly seasoned, given with bread and milk, will be as a rule much relished. The mid-day meal may be thus varied, the egg being given instead of the beef-tea or broth. As the child grows older and more vigorous the quantity of animal food in the diet is to be carefully increased. At about fifteen months of age it may occasionally get a small quantity of well-boiled mealy po- tato, thoroughly bruised down in its beef-tea or in gravy, and the mid-day meal may also be added to by some light milk-pudding. Before this age no solid animal food whatever should be given. It will be receiving sufficient animal food in a semi-fluid form in the beef-tea, broth, beat-up egg, and so on. But between the fif- teenth and eighteenth months -the child may be tried with a little meat, if it be scr’aped down into a fine pulp and given with gravy and a little well-mashed potato. A small piece of chicken may be given in the same way. White fish will also be found usindly to agree well with the child’s digestion. At about two years of age the child should be getting four regular meals a day:—breakfast of well-boiled porridge and milk, bread and milk, or egg with bread (lightly buttered) and milk; a mid-day meal of beef-tea, broth, or soup, with a little well- mashed potato, and afterwards some light milk or egg pudding, or some well-chopped-up meat —beef or mutton—or fish or chicken, with po- tato and pudding afterwards; a tea of bread, butter, and milk, and the bread may be spread with jelly, honey, or syrup instead of with but- ter; and for supper bread and milk. Some regard should be paid in dieting to the relation of the meals to one another. If the breakfast consists chiefly of porridge and milk, or bread and milk, the dinner should contain a good 2:)roportion of animal food in the shape of egg, fish, or butcher-meat of some kind. For it must not be forgotten that at this age the child can- not obtain sufficient flesh-forming material from oatmeal or bread, and still less from idee, sago, corn-flour, or such substances. It cannot even drink sufficient milk to su])ply this want. The result will be that, if animal food is not sup- plied, the child will be soft, with soft bones and flabby muscles, wanting in sustained energy. The necessary animal part of the diet should therefore be made up at breakfast or dinner, and if, owing to the nature of this meal, on some occasion it is in deficient quantity, it may be made up at tea by a part of an egg or a whole egg. Animal food should be given preferably at mid-day. The meat should be boiled or roasted. Salted meats, pork, veal, and lamb are to be avoided. A small quantity of vege- table may also be allowed when the child has reached two years of age, potato as already mentioned being given earlier than that age, if](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28124674_0001_0522.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
