OUR BABIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 521, 27 November 1912, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

N (By Hygeia). I Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Women and Children. " It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." A DOCTOR'S MISLEADING ADVICE. Some remarks on the hygiene of children, by Dr Woods Hutchinson, which have appeared in several newspapers throughout the Dominion during the past month are so specious and the same time so wrong headed and misleading, that they ought not to be allowed to pass unchallenged. Dr Woods Hutchinson is not, as described, one of America's foremo°fc authoritise on hygiene. I should rather say he is an attractive paradoxical, quasi - scientific popular American writer who knows the effectiveness of boldly and dogmatically assailing commonly - accepted views and proclaiming the converse to be true. Some of the things that Dr Hutchinson proclaims need no comment indeed, scarcely need proclaiming. All will agree with him that a child ought to have plenty of sleep and that "healthy outdoor play tends to build up the child's body, mind, and judgment." Indeed, I would go so far as to assent to the spirit of what the author conveyed some years ago in more arresting terms, When denouncing the wrong of founding schools without proper play grounds. "J.f it comes to he a question of a school withuut a playground, or a playground without a school, give me the plav ground!" Here the emphasis justifies the exaggeration. But what is to be said of a d«ctor who ignores the fact that even the progeny of the higher animals are not left to the guidance of blind instinct alone, but are subjected to proper discipline and training by their mothers in such matters as obedience, cleanliness, etc. What is to be said of the doctor who proclaims appetite and desire to be the all-sufficing and only safe guides for childhood? With Dr Hutchinson mere assertion sometimes takes the place of reason and argument, thus: — "The child knows what it wants better than its parents. Let a child make its own moral code. Do not preach. . . We think we are older than our children, when, as a matter of fact, they are older than we, at least racially speaking. Their instincts have been growing for eight or nine million years, and they must mean something. Let a child develop in accord with his instincts." As we all know, children tend -at times to be wilful, disobedient uiitruthful, etc. Are such tendencies to be allowed: to develop unchecked, or should the little ones be guided and helped by its elders? Under the temptations of modern concentrated foods, fancy cooking, and candy shops children tenJ to jver-eat, ann to eat in season and out of season. But Dr Hutchinson scouts building up self-restraint and disicpline, saying that the child's instincts and desires should be the sole guides, even as to eating and drinking. Whatever it wants to do and whatever and whenever it wants to eat the child is sure to be right! He writes:— "There is an old saying that one should rise from the table wanting just a little bit more. This is an exploded theory. Be it a large meal or a small tit-bit that a child craves for, in nine times out of ten it ought to have it. The rigid rule that three meals a day are enough for anyone, young and old, active or inactive, is all nonsense. A healthy child can enjoy and assimilate, and very often needs, six meals a day. In fact, the human stomach Is geared for continuous performance." If there is one thing that the physiological research of the last ten years has proved more conclusively than another regarding dietetic habits of civilised man, it is that, young or old, we all tend to eat too much—that we'all eat and drink too often and that three meals a day with no food between suffice for anyone. On reading the following in a recent work by Dr Woods Hutchinson I really thought at first that he was writing ironically, but 1 have come to the conclusion that, carried away by his own persuasiveness, and scribbling in an office far away from wife7and weans, he really thought that the following truly awful regimen was the way of wisdom for children —at least for the American child: — THE DAY'S MARCH.

Here is a rational and physiologic day's march through this stage of his life's journey for a healthy growing boy or girl of from five to seven years of age: 8 a.m., breakfast, consisting chiefly of milk, eggs, bacon, ham, fish, mutton chops, with butter, bread, toast, griddle cakes, or cookies and fruit or preserves; and if a hot drink be desired, weak cocoa. Starches of all sorts, except bread, should be used only as a supplement to or "fille" with milk, eggs, meat, or fish, or if taken alone, should have plenty of sugar and cream on them. The sugar and cream, for instance, eaten with a dish of cereal, form the most valuable part of the dish. 10.30, lunch, consisting of bread and milk, sandwiches, ham, beef, cheese, or eggs, cookies, cake, bread and jam, bread and "lasses," nuts, particularly roasted or salted, and fruit. 12.30, dinner, consisting of meat particularly beef, mutton, or pork, potatoes, peas, lettuce, celery, and onions, with plenty of dessert consisting of sweet puddings, pie, omitting the bottom crust, cake, honey preserve, or fresh fruit. If the child has been playing in the opekj air the greater part of the morn-

these, or even of the desserts, withoul serious danger to his digestion, save during the first few days or weeks, when hj« is placed upon this unrestrained sugar and sweet ration. Half of our "high-strung," "difficult" nervous modern children are sugar hungry and often sleep-hungry as well. Plenty of sugar has almost as sweetening an effect upon the disposition as it has upon the flavour of food. 4 o'clock, afternoon tea, consisting of cookies, sandwiches, doughnuts, bread and butter, cake, jam, nuts, or almonds with either milk or weak cocua. 6 o'clock, supper, consisting of eggs, fish, or some light meat or cheese dish, potatoes, a salad vegetaole with bread and butter, toast, tea or other hot cakes, ham, cookies or fruit with milk or weak cocoa. Games or entertaining reading or stories until 7.30 or 8 according to age, then bad. It is a good thing to leave a glass of milk or crackers on a chair beside the bed, so that if the child wakes up in the night and is hungry he can help himself; and particularly have these where he can get at them early in the morning before the regular breakfast hour. For the credit of the leading American physicians of the day it is only fair to say that their advice as to the feeding of children is on moderate and sensible lines', and they are practically unanimous in their condemnation of spoiling children in the way recommended above by Dr Woods Hutchinson. They are as much opposed to stuffing children to too frequent feeding, to promiscuous indulgence in Sv,eets, etc., as Dr Hutchinson is in favour of these injurious practices.