OUR BABIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 9, 5 October 1918, Page 5

OUR BABIES

l'3J HYGItIA.I PiiSllihed .under the auspices of the Hpynl New Zealand Society for tho Health ot Women and Children. "It is wiser to put up a fenpo at tho •top ot a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." ' TWENTY-THREE HOITB OTJRE. (Continued.) We repeat Dr. Northrup's summary of essentials in his plea for pure cool air. Essentials. (1) The twenty-three hour cure or twentythreo hour treatmont consists in living twenty-three out of the twenty-four horns in-the beet obtainable cool, flowing, freeh air. i (2) The quality of cold or cool flowiiiß fresh air is essential. Cold air may bo stale. Air may bo oxygenated and free of odours and yet be warm. The air should be flowing frely and cold. (3) Cold, fresh, (lowing air has uniformly certain' effects upon young patients. First they-sleep.' They remain ciuiet eo long as they are in the open air, [ind sleep most of the time. The ouictinpr effect is well proved. Second, they take more food, and assimilate it better. (4) Patients in the open air rarely catch cold, much less ofton than those kept habitually in -warm rooms. Eventful Career of Month-old Bott|e-Fcd Weakling. "The baby had been bottle-fed from the outset; he had been kept in a room-tem-perature of TOdeg. to ?2deg. I'abr., carefully guarded from draughts, which means from the ingress ofi fresh air, and fed on a preparation made' up in the house from the family milk supply. When ho came under my care he ivas not a proud specimen. He was thin, barely Raining, at all, jumping and jerking, and Bleeping indifferently. The family wero extremely anxious about him. . . ■ Since the

baby did not thrive on modified milk alone, I resolved to modify him also. _ I inaugurated a living in improved duality of air. The month was December (tho freezing midwinter of New York),' and tho child four weeks old. Delicate to an extreme degree would be the words to express the child's condition. "To restate tho proposition: the infant was four weeks old, the'month was December, the indications in regard to its care required the twenty-three hour treatment. I may aid the house vras very large, facing -south, situated half a block from Central Park, on a wide street. What is , more to the point the nurse was excellent, and in the end I ; yotod hor the best nurse I have-over known.

"Gradually the windows were opened, the doors into halls closed; the crib, which stood at first in tho far corner, was gradually ndvanccd to the open windows, and finally, after a couple of weeks, the infant'ivas put in a. laundry basket with an improvised carriage hood, and passed out on tho balcony. Family friends who knew the baby's delicate beginning of life were horrified, for tho weather was about average for December. The whole proceeding was frankly pronounced brutal, and predictions of awful accidents filled tho conversation of chance callers. Tho father, who had .a slight suspicion that this new boy baby was going to, be a great pride to his. family name (and the baby's flret namo hinted at raro links in famous historic lineago), had unconfossod anxieties and sroaris all to himself. For a. fow days the .advance was slow and uncertain. At least nothing happened. Then tho father's faco cleared a little, and tho nurse's face wore nn expression of quiet courage, and even of hope.\

. Out in a Laundry Basket, "A month later! Scene on the first njorning aftor a snowstorm: mornius bright, b'uow gleaniing, waßon ■wheels whistling nad grouniiiff. Unby Bear the window, wrapped in iia blankets, basket and window showing evidence, of thenurse's intentionß.. In due timo tho window oponed and snapped shut,. and the baby was out lor his airing. The father, whoso future lawyer or Bdldier'-son -was thUB. punched out into tho elements in a thirty-live cent laundry "basket, was discovered hovering near, and, tho only expression which escaped him was, 'Ah, the poor little man;' and ho -departed. . The thermometer on the casement near the basket registered ' lOdeg. Pahr. I saw it myself. •,.--. "I mention these incidents because they belong to the subjoot. I inako no mention of drugs, for ho never has had any, except ono, ov .two doses of castor oil. WTion the father disappeared, loaving his child in the basket alongside a thermometer registering lOdeg. Fahr.. and could raise no protest, only murmur, 'Poor little man!' the day,was won. The baby must be thriving. ■ : '■ "'So it was. Tho boy jjained, slcot, piped for his meals, and slept acain. Tho room was swimming with nir. On rainy and'. snowy daya ho was broimhl just within Uie dry gpots on' tho balcony, and when the suets of rain became, boisteroush,e- was brought' in, arid the thirty-five cent, laundry basket -was placoA on a low table- between two windows; There never was a north-east storm in midwinter or a combination of snow, rain, slueh,'or slcot which kept him from having all the bracing effect which comes of cold, fresh, flott- ' his little life, now of nearly seven months, he hae not lost moro than one day of feedings. Ho had. no colds, he regularly ga-ined, all his functions were normal, and no ono would over call him delicate. He has lost all nervousncßS, is simply very bright, almoet too bright and. alert for his own good.-and is round, plump, happy, normal "For twenty-three hours each day ho has lived in the cold air. The twenty-fourth ■has been devoted .to bathing. It is elmply astonishing to what he became accustomed. Ho -would lie on the. bed without extra cover and kick and shout in a cold room in which one not accustomed to it would fear to loiter. . During tho -winter nearly everybody in tho houso had influenza. Tho oarty.in'the.basket escaped. Every iday and every night was the. same to him. All "was a joke, lie loved' cpmpany, he- cooed aiid gurgled, and' thought it all fun. The last word from the country/ is. ."Ho's fit to burst his : skin from fat.'"

Why Did the Grown-ups Catch Cold? ■ Thie is not the least interesting part of Dr. Northrup's narrative., Tlie adults no doubt coddled themselves in warm, stuffy rooms, took little exercise. • and ■if they became a little chilled were not ih a condition to resist the host 'of invading microbes.which Ho in wait for all of us. , In the closing remarks after the discussion which, followed ,the reading of liic paper, Dr. Northrup said-.— An Hour or Tiro is Not-All Day. The idea to' bo emphasised is that people- will nay the .child is, ltept out ' all day when perhaps it has been out but an hour or two; that is what ■ brought oiit this paper. The word "hospitalism" has talten leave of tho books of-'tho Presbyterian Hospital for ever. Wo dropped the temperature of ■ tho room and improved the ventilation. The resultß have been so.Rood that everybody from the superintendent to' the elevatorinoy and the man that takes'out the ashes, is interested and convinced. . . ■ .That, however, is not what I had first in mind. It is simply to keen the child well out in: tho open nir many hours a day, and I purposely limited it to private practice. In a hospital you can do what you like, but in private practice, where there is perhaps a. dotinc itrandmother and, many' friends, it is the moat difficult thing to have your ideas carried out., The more thnv Jove thn children the more they will snuf- all tho windows to guard them from draughts. I always feel tiuite sure about a patient that is out-doo": it is safe if it is clear out-doors. If before a open window and the warm room is behind it, the cass is less safe.

If every bullet had found its billst (ill tho combatants or>_botli sides would have been iviped out in the first three months of tlie war. : '