OUR RABIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 14, 15 January 1913, Page 3

OUR RABIES.

(By Hygeia.)

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Health of Worn©:? and Children.

“It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.”

THE CURSE OF SUMMER

'As this is the season during which Summer Diarrhoea tends to become rife among babies, it is important to emphasise the fact that the disease generally attacks infants who have been more or less out of sorts for come time previously. The immediate cause of the diarrhoea is fermentation and poisoning due to rapid growth and multiplication of microbes in the stomach and bowels. The seed is sown by the million along the course of the alimentary icanal in milk which has not been properly safeguarded from contamination and fermentation in the dairy, the milk cart, and the home—especially the latter. Imperfectly cleansed, unscalded milk jugs and feeders, the use of “long-tube feeders,” and the failure to rapidly cool the milk in water (If not quite cool at the time of delivery), together with failure to keep the milk jug loosely covered in a cool, outdoor safe, instead of in the house —these are the means by which the “Enemy sows tares” in the delicate interior of the little child. It is pitiable to think that in nine cases out of ten the “enemy” is not the Devil, but a loving mother—a mother ignorant of the simple-laws and needs of child life, careless or incompetent as to their fulfilment—a lurid example of' the loving devilry of ignorance ! GROWING THE TARES.

However, even tares won’t flourish on soil unsuited to their growth, and fortunately a single sowing with, tainted milk rarely causes grave illness unless the soil (the system of the baby) has been previously prepared fpr the microbes by some lack of attention to primary hygienic needs. I do not mean that the baby has necessarily been what would be called “ill” or even “ailing” before an attack of severe diarrhoea, but in the majority of cases it would be found, on careful inquiry, that at least he had not been doing quite as well as usual for some little time. If the. baby had been weighed he would probably have been found not to be growing at the normal rate, due to some irregularity of feeding,, excess or deficiency in the food allowance, or unsuitable food. The baby had pro- . bably been falling off in spirits and appetite, had been more fretful ajid restless than usual, and may have been troubled with constipation, colic, or some such sources of discomfort and disturbance of the system. Such conditions predispose to “catching diarrhoea” just as they predispose to “catching cold” or getting any other form of illness, and the risk is greatly increased if any of the factors esI eential for the perfect health and : fitness of the baby .(not only the food and the feeding) have been receiv- ■ ing insufficient attention. (See “What Every Baby Needs, Whether Well or 111,” on the first and second pages of the Society’s books' “Feeding and 1 Care of the Baby” and “What Baby ' Needs.”) , . , The mother is often much surprised when the doctor says: “I think your baby has been upset by your keeping , him too much in this stuffy room,” 1 or “by too frequent or irregular feedJ ing,” or “by not giving him enough i outing and exercise,” or by “not I keeping him too much muffled up, I or “by your exposing his poor little ] bare legs in the go-cart,” or “by alj lowing him to lie sweltering under l the canopy of his pram with the sun shining down on it,” or “by the use | of the long-tube feeder or the dummy.” , tii The mother replies incredulously, “Oh, it can’t be any of those things; he lias had the long-tube feeder, etc.* j. a ll along; 1 have never treated him I any different from flic beginning, and 1 you know how splendidly he has been doing until the last day or two.” Parents have great difficulty in rcal- ■ king that hostile influences like the i above, which may seem to do the bdby no harm though continued for months, will have been quietly leading him all the time to such a weakening of the system that the baby will be liable to

cateii any ailment that may be going the rounds, and, having become ill,

will show little power of recovery. An attack of Summer, diarroea, which would he quickly thrown off by a healthy baby, may lead to the death of one whose body has been less soundly built.