OUR BABIES.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1872, 4 October 1913, Page 11

OUR BABIES.

TBT HIOEU.I

Published under tho aujpioes of th« Booioty for the Health of Women and Children. - "It is'wiser to put up a f«noa at th« ton of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at tha bottom." NOTE.— I Tho Society etronely disapproves of tho injo of artificial focus as <i substitute for mothera' or humanised milk. Full directions for tho preparation of the latter are contained in tho Society's pamphlet entitled "What Baby Needs." OVER-TAXING BABY'S KIDNEYS. ■The essential purpose and work of the kidneys is to extract from the blood and excrete the waste products resulting from tho protcid materials taken into the body. Nature has designed these organs of the right size and power to carry out this important duty, thus ridding tho system of what we know to bo the most poisonous of, all the effeto substances poured into the circulation But, perfect as the kidneys are for the performance of their allotted task, Nature has not fitted them for doing day after day two or three times as much work as she intonds them to fulfil. Especially does Nature resent tho overworking of immature organs at the age appointed for their most rapid growth and development. Such transgressions of her laws, whether witting or unwitting, are always followed by punish-

ment sooner or . later —there is an inevitable Nemesis ahead. The tiny, deJicat? kidneys of babies are .not fit subjects for over-pressuro. DON'T PLAY WITH NATURE. One of the first injunctions of physiology is that whioh warns us against the overworking of living structure in the course of building, because such overwork gravely, interferes with de-velopment—over-taxed baby-organs tend to bo stunted later on. Wo cannot "monkey with Nature" with impunity. She may not exact during childhood any apparent penalty for a baby's .unconscious disobedience to her laws, but the future man or woman whose kidneys are rehdored specially liable to fail prematurely before or during middle life will not find much comfort in the complasent parental remarb:—"Well, you grew up al] right, anyway. The wrong food we gave you during' infancy didn't seem to do any harm at the time so far as we could see—in fact, you took the first prize at a baby show." The _ pride of having beefi a prize baby, judged'merely from the outsido, is not much compensation for having a wrons; insido later on in life—for being doomed, say, to Bright's'disease. DYSPEPSIA AND CONSTIPATION. I have mentioned nothing as to the harm found to result in practico from abuso of the digestive organs and the system generally through the giving of an excess of proteid material during infancy. Tbo evidence on that point is startling and overwhelming, but it mu!jt stand for the present.. The society strongly disapproves of the use of artificial foods a3 a substitute for mothers or humanised milk. Full directions for the preparation of the latter, is oontaincd in the society's published pamphlet, entitled "What Baby Needs." '