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Something About Babies

ending in drawers and stockings. Over this, in cold weather, may be worn a flannel sack. At severe seasons, instead of putting an extra coverlet on the bed, he advises the use of a large bag, made of a light blanket, into which the child may be securely placed, and closely buttoned around the neck. Light coverings generally are preferable to heavy ones, if the night-clothing and the room are sufficiently warm, as they do not induce perspiration nor check exhalations.

EATING SNOW, except in very limited quantities, is very injurious, producing catarrh, congestion and many other troubles. JUMPING THE ROPE is an injurious and dangerous amusement, often resulting in disease of the spine and brain. FOR WORMS, give rue tea; for colie, catnip tea.

NEVER LET THE LITTLE CHILDREN go out of doors in winter without being warmly clad. They lose heat rapidly, and easily contract throat and lung affections. Every child should have full suits of underclothing; and especially let the legs and ankles be well protected with thick stockings and leggings.

BATHE CHILDREN IN THE FORENOON when possible, or, if not too tired, an hour before the evening meal; never for at least an hour after eating. When possible bathe before an open fire or in a warm room near, and rub dry before an open fire. It is injurious to bathe children on rising before breakfast, especially in cold weather. Washing the face, neck, and hands, and dressing, is enough before refreshing the body by eating. GREAT CARE MUST BE TAKEN that the navel of infants takes its proper place. If not attended to it is likely to puff out and produce a breach. If it shows: any signs of protruding, round a piece of cork into a ball as large as a large marble, cover with linen, and lay over the navel, fastening it to its place by six or eight strips of adhesive plaster. Let it remain for a month or six weeks, as it will cause no inconvenience.

IF A SCURF OR MILK-CRUST appears on the head, do not apply water, but brush often gently with a soft baby's brush.

FOR CONSTIPATION, BRAN WATER is an excellent remedy. Boil two tablespoons bran in a pint of water for two hours, strain and use as food. It must be made fresh every day, and the fresher the better. NO CHILD SHOULD GO TO BED HUNGRY, but food taken near the hours of sleeping should be of the simplest nature, -a cracker, a bit of bread, or a glass of milk.

A BABY SHOULD SLEEP ON ITS SIDE. When lying on its back the food. sometimes rises in its throat and chokes it.

GREAT CARE SHOULD BE TAKEN to shade a baby's eyes from the light. If a strong light shines directly in its face, it often produces ophthalmia, an inflammation of the eyelids, which is troublesome and dangerous. A few drops of breast-milk, applied to the eye and worked under the lid, is very healing to sore lids.

SOME BABIES' SKINS WILL NOT BEAR FLANNEL. In this case a linen shirt should be put on first, and flannel over it.

WHEN CHAFED, SQUEEZE COLD water over the parts chafed. Dry lightly without rubbing, and apply vaseline or cold cream.

IN CLEANSING THE EAR, penetrate no deeper than you can clearly see. Never scratch or inflame the entrance to the ear. The ear-wax is not dirt, and should not be removed, at least only that portion which is plainly visible should be disturbed. Pins and scrapers inserted in the ear are injurious. The wax will find its way out when too much is accumulated. Scraping produces irritation, discomfort, and calls for a repetition, which, after a time, produces disease. Sweet-oil, glycerine, etc., are apt to clog the ear and produce inflammation. Syringing the ear with tepid water relieves itching. If cold air gives pain a little wool, placed in the ear while out of doors, will protect.

UPON THE VERY FIRST SYMPTOMS of cold, such as snuffling or any slight ihoarseness, give immediately a warm foot bath, and then grease with mutton tallow the nose, neck, chest, and feet; warm the feet well at the fire. Sweet-oil, pig's-foot oil, or any kind of good grease will answer as well as mutton tallow. After warming well put them to bed and wrap up well. MILK FOR THE USE of children should cool until the animal heat is gone before using.

The following rules for the management of infants during the hot season are from Dr. Wilson's "Summer and Its Diseases":

Rule 1. Bathe the child once a day in tepid water. If feeble, sponge all over twice a day with tepid water, or tepid water and vinegar.

Rule 2.-Avoid all tight bandaging. Make clothing light and cool, and so loose that the limbs may have free play. At night undress, sponge, and put on a slip. In the morning remove slip, bathe, and dress in clean clothes if it can be afforded; if not, thoroughly air clothing by hanging it up during the night. Use clean diapers, and change often.

Rule 3. Let the child sleep by itself in a cot or cradle. Put to bed at regular hours, and teach to go to sleep without being nursed in the arms. Give no cordial, soothing syrup, or sleeping drops, without the advice of a physician. They kill thousands of children every year. -If the child frets it is hungry or ill. Never quiet a child by candy or cake. They are common causes of diarrhea and other troubles. Rule Give the child plenty of fresh air. Give it plenty of pure cold water. Keep it out of rooms where cooking or washing is going on. Excessive heat kills children.

Rule 5. Keep the house sweet and clean, cool, and well aired. In hot weather leave windows open day and night. Cook in the yard, in a shed, or in the garret. Whitewash walls every spring, and keep cellar clear of rubbish. Let no slops collect. Disinfect privies and sinks by a solution of copperas, and get your neighbors to clean up. Rule 6. If the supply of breast-milk is ample, and the child thrives, gives no other food in hot weather . If the supply sup is short give goat's or cow's milk in addition. Nurse once in two or three hours by day, and as seldom as possible at night. Remove child from breast as soon as it falls asleep, and never give the breast when overheated or fatigued.

Rule 7.-If brought up by hand, give goat's milk, or cow's milk, and use no other food 'while hot weather lasts. For an infant that has not cut its front teeth, no substitute for milk is safe. Creeping children must not be allowed to pick up unwholesome food.

Rule 8.-If milk is pure add one-third hot water to it until child is three months old; afterwards gradually lessen the water. Sweeten each pint with a heaping dessert-spoonful of sugar of milk, or a tea-spoonful crushed sugar. When very hot weather give milk cold. It must be unskimmed and as fresh as possible, and brought very early in the morning. Scald pans to be used with boiling suds. In very hot weather boil milk as soon as it comes, and remove to the coolest place in the house upon ice or down in a well. In a warm room it soon spoils

Rule 9.-If the milk disagrees add a table-spoon of lime-water to each bottleful. If pure milk can not be had, try condensed milk, sold at all grocers. Prepare by adding to six table-spoons boiling water, without sugar, one table-spoon or more of the milk, according to age of the child. If this disagrees, a tea-spoon of arrow-root, of sago, or of cornstarch, may be added to a pint of milk, as prepared under Rule 8, and cautiously tried. If milk can not be digested try, for a few days, pure cream, diluted with three-fourths to four-fifths water, returning to milk as soon as possible. Rule 10. The nursing-bottle must be kept perfectly clean, otherwise the milk will turn sour, and the child will be made ill. Empty after each meal, rinse first in cold water, take apart, and place nipple and bottle in clean water, to which a little soda has been added. It is better to have two bottles, and use them by turns. The plain bottle with rubber nipples is better than the tube, which is difficult to keep clean. Rule Do not wean a child just before or during hot weather; nor, as a rule, until after its second summer. If suckling disagrees with the mother she must not wean the child, but feed it in part from the nursing bottle as directed. However small the supply of breastmilk, the mother should keep it up against sickness. It will often save the life of a child when every thing else fails. When over six months old the mother may save her strength by giving it one or two meals a day of stale bread and milk, which should be pressed through a sieve, and put into a nursing bottle. When from eight months to a year old, it may have also one meal a day of the yolk of a fresh, rare boiled egg, or one of beef or mutten-broth, into which stale bread has been crumbled. When older it can have a little meat, finely minced; but even then milk should be its principal food, and not what grown people usually eat.

Rule 12. If a child is suddenly taken with vomiting, and purging, and prostration, send for the doctor at once. Meantime, put the child for a few minutes in a hot bath, then carefully wipe dry with a warm towel, and wrap in warm blankets. If hands and feet are cold, apply bottles filled with hot water and wrapped in flannel. Place a mush poultice or flaxseed poultice to which one quarter part of mustard flour has been added, or flannels wrung out of hot vinegar and water, over the belly. Give every fifteen minutes, five drops brandy in a teaspoonful of water; if vomiting continues, give the brandy in the same quantity of milk and lime-water. If the diarrhea has just begun, or if caused by improper food, give a teaspoonful of castor-oil, or of spiced syrup of rhubarb. If the child has been fed partly on breast-milk, mother's milk alone must be used now. If weaned, dilute pure milk with lime-water, or give weak beef-tea or chicken-water. Let child drink cold water freely. Remove soiled diapers at once from the room but save for the examination of the physician.

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Always rest before and after a hearty meal.

Do not eat too much. Do not eat late at night.

Food, especially bread, should never be eaten hot.

Children should never be dressed in tight clothes.

Never sit in a damp or chilly room without a fire.

Supper just before going to bed is highly injurious. If hungry, a bit of bread or cracker will check the craving without spoiling sleep. Never enter a room where a person is sick with an infectious disease with an empty stomach.

When really sick, send for a good physician; and as you value your health and life, have nothing to do with quacks or patent medicines. The condiments, pepper, ginger, etc., are less injurious in summer. Fat beef, bacon, and hearty food may be eaten more freely in winter. Let the amount of the meal bear some relation to future needs as well as present appetite; but it is better to carry an extra pound in your pocket than in your stomach.

A small quantity of plain, nourishing soup is a wholesome first course at dinner. Rich soups are injurious to persons of weak digestion, and a large quantity of liquid food is not beneficial to adults. Three full meals daily are customary, but the number, the relative quantity and quality, and the intervals between them, are largely matters of opinion, habit and convenience; regularity is the important thing. Exercise before breakfast should be very light; and it is better to take a cracker or some trifle before going out, especially in a miasmatic climate. Early breakfasts are a necessity to the young and growing. Remember that when the stomach is sour after eating, the food is actually rotting-that is a nauseating word but it expresses the absolute fact in the case-and it means that some of the rules above given have been violated. Eat in pure air and in pleasant company; light conversation and gentle exercise promote digestion, but hard work of any kind retards it. Avoid severe bodily or mental labor just before and for two hours after a full meal. Most people drink too much and too fast. A small quantity of water sipped slowly satisfies thirst as well as a pailful swallowed at a draught. Drinks at meals should be taken at the close, and not too strong or hot. Dyspeptics especially should drink sparingly. Children need more than adults, but too much is injurious.

Adults need to eat at regular intervals two or three times a day, allowing (466) time for each meal to be fully digested before another is taken. It would spoil a loaf of bread, half baked, to poke a lump of cold dough into the middle of it.

Use good palatable food, not highly seasoned; vary in quantity and quality according to age, climate, weather and occupation. Unbolted or partially bolted grains are good and sufficient food for men; but nature craves variety. As a rule, the flesh of meat-eating animals is not wholesome food. Hot soft bread digests slowly.

Don't eat too fast; the digestive organs are something like a stove, which if choked up and out of order, burns slowly, and if you keep piling in fuel, grows more and more choked. The wiser course is to let it burn down and put in fuel only when needed. It is a foolish notion that food always keeps up the strength. Only what we digest helps us; all beyond that is a tax upon the system, and exhausts the strength instead of increasing it. Masticate well; five minutes more at dinner may give you better use of an hour afterward. At meals never drink a full glass of very hot or very cold liquid. Never wash down a mouthful. Avoid waste of saliva. Avoid tobacco, alcohol in all forms, and all stimulants. Every healthy man is better, stronger, has a clearer head, more endurance, and better chances for a long life, if free from the habitual use of stimulants. The boy who begins the use of tobacco or liquors early is physically ruined. Avoid colds and break up as soon as possible when taken. As soon as conscious that the pores are closed, keep warnı within doors, drink warm ginger tea, relax the bowels, and take a vapor bath. Breaking a cold up early, often saves a severe attack of congestion, pneumonia, often even a fever.

Panaceas are prima facie humbugs; their makers and takers, their vendors and recommenders are knaves or fools, or both. Nature-cures most diseases, if let alone or aided by diet and proper care. There are no miracles in medicine; remember that to keep or to get health generally requires only a recognition of Nature's powers, with knowledge of anatomy and physiology, experience, and common sense.

Never sleep in clothing worn during the day, and let that worn at night be exposed to the air by day. Three pints of moisture, filled with the waste of the body, are given off every twenty-four hours, and mostly absorbed by clothing. Exposure to air and sunlight purifies the clothing and bedding of the poisons which nature is trying to get rid of, and which would otherwise be brought again into contact with the body. "The The lungs should be trained to free, full, and vigorous action. breath is the life." A man will exist for days without food, but when the breath is cut off life ceases. If breathing is imperfect, all the functions of the body work at a disadvantage. It is a common fault to breathe from the surface of the lungs only, not bringing into play the abdominal muscles, and so not filling the more remote air-cells of the lungs. By this defective action the system is deprived of a part of its supply of air, and by inaction the air-cells become diseased.

Evacuate the bowels daily, and, above all, regularly; the best time is after breakfast; partly to be rid of a physical burden during the day, but chiefly to relieve the bowels. Constipation is safer than diarrhea. For the former, exercise, ride horseback, knead the belly, take a glass of cool water before breakfast, eat fruit and laxative food; for the latter, follow an opposite course-toast, crust, crackers and rice are the best food. Pain and uneasiness of digestive organs are signs of disturbance; keep a clear conscience; rest, sleep, eat properly; avoid strong medicines in ordinary cases. Keep the person scrupulously clean; change the clothing worn next to the skin (which should be flannel) often. Don't economize in washing bills. A cold bath every morning for very vigorous persons, or once or twice a week and thorough rubbing with a coarse towel or flesh-brush mornings when bath is not taken, for the less robust, is necessary to keep the functions of the skin in health, and is very invigorating. After warm baths a dash of cold water will prevent chill and "taking cold." In bathing in winter, the shock from cold water is lessened by standing a minute in the cold air after the removal of clothing before applying water.

A very prolific source of disease is defective drainage. In the country, slops and waste water are thrown into the back yard to trickle back into the well and pollute it, or to form a reeking cesspool which poisons the air. In cities, the sewer-connections with houses allow the foul gases to rush back through the waste-pipes to closets or sinks and into the house. Neatness will cure the first, and a flue connecting each system of drainage-pipes with the tallest chimney in the house where a fire is constantly used, will draw off and consume the gases in the second.

It should be remembered that the use of chloride of lime, and other fumigants, does not destroy filthiness, but only renders it less evident. Cleanliness, fresh air, and sunlight will purify. Cleanliness is a very strong word. Carpets filled with dust or grease, dirty furniture, or walls covered with old paper, defile the atmosphere as much as a refuse heap in the cellar or back yard. A dark house is generally unwholesome and dirty. The sunlight is second only in importance to fresh air. To convince one that light purifies, it is only necessary to go into a darkened room and note the corrupt smell. Ventilation can not be accomplished by simply letting the pure air in; the bad air must be let out. Open a window at top and bottom, hold a lighted candle in the draft, and see the flame turn outward at the top and inward at the bottom, showing the purifying currents. Windows on opposite sides of the room ventilate still more perfectly. In sleeping rooms, avoid "drafts" when possible, but danger of taking cold from them may be averted by extra clothing. In living-rooms, an open fire-place or grate insures ventilation. The use of close stoves, and close rooms, are the causes of the increased prevalence and fatality, in winter, of small pox, scarlet fever, and other contagious diseases.

Colds are often, if not generally, the result of debility, and are preceded by disordered digestion. Such cases are prevented by a removal of the cause by diet and pure air. Extreme cold or heat, and sudden exposure to cold by passing from a heated room to cold outside air, is very injurious to the old or weak. All such should avoid great extremes and sudden changes.. In passing from heated assemblies to the cold air, the mouth should be kept closed, and the breathing done through the nostrils only, so that the cold air may be warmed before reaching the lungs, which have just been immersed in a hot-air bath. The injurious effect of such sudden changes is caused by driving the blood from the surface to the internal organs, producing congestions.

Bad smells mean that decay is going on somewhere. Rotten particles are floating in the air, and penetrating the nostrils and lungs. Their offensiveness means that they are poison, and will produce sickness and death, or so reduce the tone of the system that ordinarily mild disorders will prove fatal. In all such cases remove the cause when possible. Many of these poisons are given off by the body, and are removed by pure air, as dirt is washed away by water. Soiled or foul air can not purify any more than dirty water will clean dirty clothes. Pure air enters the lungs, becomes charged with waste particles, which are poison if taken back again. An adult spoils one gallon of pure air every minute, or twenty-five flour barrelfuls in a single night, in breathing alone. A lighted gas-burner consumes eleven. gallons, and an ordinary stove twenty-five gallons a minute. Think of these facts before sealing up the fire-place, or nailing down the windows for winter.

Let the sunshine into every room in the house. The sunlight is a great purifier. Keep the cellar not only clean and sweet, but give it fresh air and good ventilation, or it will poison the rest of the house.

If one is accustomed to sleeping with windows open, there is no danger of taking cold from the exposure, winter or summer. People who shut up. windows to keep out "night air," make a mistake. At night, the only air to breathe is "night air." A bed that has been made up for a week or longer is not fit to sleep in. It has gathered moisture and should be aired. When fixed wash-bowls stand in sleeping-rooms, the waste-pipe should be carefully closed, as sewer gases often escape through them into the room. Many of the colds which people are said to catch, commence at the feet. To keep these extremities warm, therefore, is to effect an insurance against the almost interminable list of disorders which spring out of a "slight cold." First, never be tightly shod. Boots and shoes, when they fit closely, press against the foot and prevent a free circulation of the blood. When, on the contrary, they do not embrace the foot too tightly the blood gets fair play, and the places left between the leather and the stockings are filled with a comfortable supply of warm air. The second rule is, never to sit in damp shoes. It is often imagined that unless they are positively wet it is not necessary to change them while the feet are at rest. This is a fallacy; for when the least dampness is absorbed into the sole, it is attracted nearer to the foot itself by its own heat, and thus perspiration is dangerously checked. Any person may prove this, by trying the experiment of neglecting this rule, and his feet will become cold and damp after a few moments, although, taking off the shoe and warming it, it will appear quite dry. Remember that there is no patent medicine or "patent pad," warranted to "cure by absorption," that will absorb "disease half as rapidly as a wet towel wrapped around the body, and covered with a dry flannel. If people were required to pay $10 each for this "valuable secret" there would be no difficulty in getting millions of testimonials to its efficacy. It is too cheap to be popular with people who liked to be humbugged; but when humbugs all fail, try hot and cold water.

One of the most prominent writers on health topics says: "The great practical lesson which I wish to inculcate, to be engraven as on a plate of steel, on the memory of children and youth, young men and women, the mature and the gray-headed: Allow nothing short of fire or endangered life to induce you to resist, for one single moment, nature's alvine call. So far from refusing a call for any reason short of life and death, you should go at the usual time and solicit, and doing so you will have your reward in a degree of healthfulness, and in a length of life, which very few are ever permitted to enjoy. If the love of health and life, or the fear of inducing painful disease can not induce you to adopt the plan I have recommended, there is another argument which, to young gentlemen and young ladies, may appear more convincing-personal cleanliness. [If you suffer yourself to become and remain costive you will smell badly; the breath of a costive child even is scarcely to be endured.] Cold feet, sick headache, piles, fistulas, these, with scores of other diseases, have their first foundations laid in constipation, which itself is infallibly induced by resisting nature's first calls. Reader, let it be your wisdom never to do it again."