OUR BABIES.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2301, 7 November 1914, Page 4

OUR BABIES.

fBl HTQEIi..] Published under the tvuspicos of the Bocioty for the Health of Women ami Children. "It Jβ wiser to put ud a fence at tho ton of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." HEALTHY HABITS FOR CHILBBEN l closed my last article 'toy quoting a page from Professor C'oieman's Health Primer for Children, viilh a view to eliowing now much can be done (even after the golden opportunity of 'early ■wiancy has passed) in the direction of forming habits tending to healthy development. The last paragraph, dealing with the question of tho teeth, read as follows :— "Some children will not eat anything hard. They do not like hard crusts of bread, or tough bread. You 'would almost think tiioy had false teeth, and were afraid of breaking them by' eating tnything hard or tough. Gums would do as well as teeth for the' food they eat. They do not use their teeth. So the teeth decay, and are taken • away from them." I have repeated this quotation becauso it seems to me such an excellent introduction to an interesting and instructive interview with Dr. Harry Campbell, .which appeared recently iu one of the London newspapers. I give the account of this interview just as it was printed dt Home. .. SCOTCH SPECIALIST'S ATTACK ON PORRIDGE. ■ Milk Puddings, Condemned; A Scots doctor, and a Campbell, has attacked porridge! The "Daily Sketch".happened to meet Dγ Harry Campbell yesterday. Dr. Campbell is the nerve specialist of Wimpole Street, chief of staff to tho West tlnd Hospital for nervous diseases, and the question was raised by a philanthropist's recent gift of £5000 towards providing cheap false teeth, for the poor. ' "Wβ are a pap-fed nation," said Dr. Campbeil. "The Scotch have the worst teoth in the world, ■ with the English people *a good second. Do you know fcbat in' Ureat Britain there are:

. 200 million bad teeth. ■ '•> : 200 millioft socket abscesses. 30 million root abscesses. And they are preventable. "Not one per cent., of our children go through their first , denture, which lasts from the age of six months to seven years, without a speck of decay." ; TEETH OUT, OF WOftK. "Why? Because'wo give their teeth no work to do. We feed them on pap— on ; porridge, bread,and'milk, milk puddihgs, rice- puddings, buns, and cakes. "The teetn are to chew with. ■'■ For all the.use we put them to, we might ae ivell not have them. Particularly should ■children be taught to .chew .'their food and given crusts arid long French loaves to exercise their teeth on. : ' ' . "Later on in life, if the beginning has been it does not 'matter so much: because we eat more meat then, and that needs chewing. ■'.:•; . . ENGLISHMEN'S LOST JAWS. ' "I tell you that not a single normal jaw_ has been bred in Great Britain during this' generations—the 'generation of pap. When a man or woman comes in to me with'abnormal jaw, I : say to myself, 'You're from abroad.' ■ "'ihe shape' of tho mouth, the breath, and health of the blood and tho digestion all.suffer from ignorance of proper diet. .' The important question of today is not the, Home Rule controversy, but the education of people in tho care of, their mouths.' ,'■" ;■ , "You- will find good teeth- amongst the Jewish population of the East "End; but' there the poor mothers feed their childrencarefulJy..and v scientuioally, and you will fuid-that. they, give them crusts and'hones, with their food, so that their teeth 'can' have something to do. . ' ■ .

' [Memo, by "Hygoia."—Add to> this that Jewish.babies start life by beiug suckled for' the first year, and get plenty of , mouth exercise in that way. The Jews have an almost religious repugnance to faihtre iii maternal duty and resorting to artifioial feeding in early infancy.] '■ "Down with pap, and porridge, and bunsl Give the children of a great people.their proper crusts I" : COMMENT BY "HI'GEIA."

The above digest .'of what Dr. Harry Campbell said to the reporter does rather scant justice to, the forcible Views of a physician who is recognised all over the world as a. clear ■ and profound exponent of the disastrous results of the habits of modern civilisation in regard to food and feeding. ■ ■'• . He shares this position with another doctor of great ability—namely, Dr. Sim Wallace, a leading London dentist, who looks at the matter very practically from the point of view of .his own epecialty, a.nd is quite iu accord with Dr. Harry Campbell. They both insist on the need for regular daily exercise for- the rmwtli and surrounding parts, from birth" onwards; and they" show how the parts which dominate the dealiug with food, and the proper,take of air, at the ports of entry, are fashioned well or ill in mouth, nose, and throat during the first year or so of life—the main, determining factors for good or ill. being active, vigorous use and exercise on the one hand, or relative passivity and idleness on the other. For the first .-'.'year, ,breast-feeding, plenty of pure cool air, plenty of outing, 'and plenty of vigorous exercise afford the ideal conditions,' while , indolent bottle-feeding with a large-holed tcat, v aggravated by leading * a stuffy coddled, lazy life, provide the opposite extreme. ' %'. '~'

We had several long talks with Dr. Campbell and Dr. Sim /Wallace,' and found them'greatly in sympathy with what the Society is doing in New Zealand—indeed, they, both of them, expressed their willingness to write articles on the lines started in this column, provided something similar could be done in a consistent,, authoritative Way in England. When quoting the figures referred to nbove, as to the enormous number of decayed teeth present in the average mouth, Dr. Harry Campbell enlarged on the disastrous, effects' of this on digestion, owing to' the constant stream of microbes passing from the cavities and other suppurating regions of decayed teeth into the stomach—let.alone the infections of the tonsils- and throat arising from the same cause. : OTHER GOOD HARD FOODS'. It would be; very, wrong to suppose that these reformers limit themselves, in the way of hard food, to such things us crusts. They strongly advocate that, from- whatever source derived, a large proportion of the food should bo siich as demands • active chewing; they both strongly condemn the spoiling of meat by mincing before it is eaten, and they both strongly recommend tho daily "uso of raw ripe apples or other such wholesome natural foods.

BLACK BREAD. In connection with the general superiority of the teeth of Jewish children in London slums referred to by Dr. Harry Campbell, I may say that the best teeth we saw at Home were those of East End Russian Jews, wlio said that their main food in childhood had been hnrd black rye bread.- I have remnrked excellent teeth aJseiriicre among people fed on Tye bread—due, no doubt, to the hard .work it oiiiaifs in niasticatioii, and tho consequent full supply of blood to jaws and. teeth. In Scotland of old, honest, plain, hard •oatcalfos—not spoiled by being . made luxurious and easy to eot by mixing the meal with fat—supplied the necessary exercise which made *ip for papfeeding with porridge-.