OUR BABIES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 263, 4 August 1915, Page 3

OUR BABIES.

(BY HYGEIA.) (Published by request of the Taihapc Plunket Society.) EXCESS OE WATER IN THE AIR. SHOULD FOG, OR MIST BE EXCLUDED FROM OUR SLEEPINGROOMS? A mother writing about her baby says;— We give her as much fresh air as possible, but we have such dreadful fog here at night that it would be too severe to allow too much to enter the bedroom, so we thought it wiser to shut it out.

The notion that fog or mist is harmful if admitted to the bedroom is still common. This erroneous idea dates back to-tho times when ague was prevalent even in England, to say nothing of the evil effects of “night miasma,’* which have been associated right down to our times with Roman marshes and other swampy regions.

The fear of night air was founded on the fact that exclusion of the fogs and mists of evening tended to lessen greatly the risks of ague and other malarial manifestations. In reality the mist itself had nothing to do with the. poisoning of the system; but it is only quite recently that science has shown the real source of danger—namely, the mosquitos. These insects are liable to swarm in at the open windows in damp localities, and, of course, thev are more or less excluded when the windows are closed before sundown. The Mosquito the Real Enemy. We know now that the so-called poisoning by night, air disappears as we banish the mosquito. The mists of Panama, Manila, and other formerly deadly places in the tropics may now be freely admitted to bedrooms, provided the haunts of the mosquito have been rendered uninhabitable to these pests by covering their abiding places with a thin film of petroleum. There was no country in the world whore night air was more dreaded than the Southern States, tho Gulf of Mexico, and Panama; yet it is from the Americans thomsglves that we have the clever saying:—“Tho only dormer o' night air is that yon keep it bottled up in your bedroom.”

Saturation with vapour is a perfectly natural state of the atmosphere w most of the world, beiua the prevailing condition near the coast, and at sea. and anywhere else when it is rainin' l -.

Manv people are foolish enough to stay at homo themslves. and to "keep their children indoors also, simnlv because it happens to he a. cold, damp, foggy, or rainy dav. In reality, there is no more lame or la 'ix excuse than this, for failng to go out and take exercise. Who does not know" the exhilarating feeling of coming hack after an hour or so of vigorous tramping' through the rain and sleet? No one ever catches cold from Such exposure, or from breathing such air; but people are always "catching their death of cold* ■ or becoming consumr^'ras through fear of f»-eph o‘v nnd of the dampness inseparable from wet Aveath-

er and coastal regions. At one time it was thought that Sanatoria for Consumptives would have to be restricted to high, dry, inland regions; but new this is known not to 1)0 the case. Many Phthisis Sanatoria are situated in comparatively damp places, and some are even located in regions where mist is a prevailing feature. \er the patients recover, so long as a few simple rules are observed —namely:— (1) Living day and night in pure outside air, including mst and fog if it happens to be there. (2) Avoidance of fires and coddling indoors, but provision of suitable and sensible clothing, bedding, and good footwear. Boots shouXl not only be comfortable and conducive to the taking of active exercise, but they should be made of sound leather and not of kid or paper. () The taking of simple diet, regularity of all habits, and avoidance of excess in any direction. People living in specially misty places have sometimes said to mo:—“I am sure you can have no idea what it is like here sometimes at nihgt. There is often cold, driving mist, that makes everything damp. Surely you would not have us keep the windows wide open at such times.” My answer m unhesitatingly, “Yea!” In point of fact, in my own neighbourhood I have known a dense mist to persist day and night for a week; but this has never been made an excuse for keeping the windows otherwise than wide open at night, a’ncl no such excuse would be listened to at the Karl tune Baby Hospital in misty weather. To close the windows at such times wouVJ be to increase, not to lessen, the riA s of catching cold. I ecu imagine the mother saying impatiently:—

Arc there no Virtues in Clear. Dry Air? Certainly there arc. Nothing is more bracing and exhilarating than a change from the damp coast to the clear, brisk air. blue skies, and bright sunshine, of some high, inland locally; and no change is more likely to (Usual chrome colds os-, coughs: but the sarrm is often true of a change from inland to ihe seaside. In any case, most of us have to habituate ourselves to living op the cnast. and our children shouV? Pe brought up hardy and vigorous by being accustomed to open air day and night and neveror being coddlod. Indeed. th o** 0 ** dv-rhl all abhor closed windm'-R m.l fstnffv bed v uoms. as any natural child dons -if he has been brought up to sleepb*" with open windows, or hotter still, steeping on an open balcony. I knOAT little children in Dunedin n r.uof.-r-"0 ; : --i frj'inv'yprl "ho never sleep anywhere else but on an open balcony. They are hardy, rosv-faced Ittle cherubs, and nothing would upset them more than unr proposal to m;t their cots indoors. In all- part? of Ne--Zealand I have found that whera there is a choice between b-dreoms nr.d balconies or verandahs, the children are ahvays eager to sleep n-K-jPg. Co’nmen-sopag Provisions. Of co”rso. if there P-"-. ing m ; «t —either on a bal"OV>- o- n andah or in a bedroom, there is no rmeo

to be in the current. The use of screens, or the placing of beds out or the lino of draught, can bo left to the people's common-sense—at least they could easily devise means of fending the bed if they would study the illustrations on pages (15 and GO of the Society's Book, l( Feeding and Care of Baby," and read the simple, practical directions in the text.