TALKS ON HEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19721, 11 December 1926, Page 14 (Supplement)

TALKS ON HEALTH

BY A FAMILY DOCTOR.

THE BANNS FORBIDDEN Young men, you must not marry anaemic girls. 1 forbid the banns’. You must wait until the chosen one is stronger. It is mistaken kindness to marry an anaemic girl. It is cruelty in many cases. The poor thing can hardly support herself; how can you expect her io support the burdens of married life? Young men. when you have finished looking at the moon, do use your sense. How can a bloodless mother produce healthy offspring? All your bits of overtime will go in doctor’s bills. There is no substitute for mother’s milk for a baby. You must believe that —all substitutes are makeshift. A_nd how can a bloodless mother produce enough nourishment for a growing infant? A sickly wife made more sickly by the troubles of married life and a sickly infant do not make a very charming outlook. You must wait six months or a year. Yon must get the best advice, and you must give up smoking cheap cigarettes and spend the money for her. Milk is an excellent corrective for anaemia.

Lacking Self-Control. The seeds sown in a child’s brain pomp to maturity in later years. There are’ men and women who appear to possess little or no self-control; they arc nervous and ill at ease in the most harmless of situations. They can scarcely say “How do you do?’’ without blushing and looking confused, they lie awake imagining all sorts of disasters. They feel that if once they could make their brains placid they would fall into a blissful slumber. When called upon to meet an emergency’ they generally fail or collapse, or do anything but meet it with a brave face. Now one reason for all this is that when they were children their growing minds were subjected to some unnecessary shock. A Stnpid Practice. I am writing this for no other purpose than to condemn the stupid parents. nurses, or daily helps who try to frighten children into obedience. It is very wicked to tell a little child that a black bogey-man will come and carry him off if he does not go to sleep, and then leave the child alone in the dark. Perhaps some of us can remember our terror in the night and the intense relief when someone came in to us. What seems only a joke to a growh-up is a thoughtless piece of cruelty to a little child. The dark is always terrifying; the creaking is alarming; even elderly people may experience an eric feeling, when they are in strange and lonely houses, w’hen they lie in the dark and try to convince themselves that the noise they hear outside in the passage is not really Lady Mary coming along carrying her head under her arm. The Bogey-Man. I am not going to have the children] terrified by thoughts of bogey-men. 1 shall severely punish anyone I catch tormenting a little one put in their charge by arousing fear in his mind. Many of us are frightened out of our wits by blackbeetles, mice, or spiders. What. then, must be the state of mind of a tiny child who has been told that a cruel black man is coming into the nursery to gobble her up? The Bed-Time Romp Going to bed is a most solemn pro reeding, and it should always be carried out in the same way. First of ail comes a romp with Daddy. This is most important, in fact, more important than something out of a bottle. 1: Daddy is away all day, he should take the opportunity of seeing as much of the children as posible in the evening. The romp is so good for the children; it makes them happy. Forgive me, also, for mentioning that it is good for Daddy’—it keeps him young. 1 have no objection to Daddy pretending to be a lion, because it is easy to see that he is not a lion: you have only io look at his face; besides, the lion is a noble beast. A romp is the best preventive of cold feet in the winter. The Bath. The best fun about a good-night romp is that it can be performed in the scan- i ties: of clothing. Remove that cloying I collection of garments, including stays and seven other things, and behold the child’s joy! We children do like to be free. Please, if you must smother us up in layers of materials of every description during the day, be merciful and let us have a romp at night with very little on. Then comes the bath, be-’ cause it is pleasant to feel and smell i clean, and habits begun in childhood: are continued in later years. After the; bath comes a little bit of supper—a sweet biscuit or two. and some warm milk. After supper the tooth-brush. Kindly note that the reverse' proeees must be avoided. If you clean the teeth first and then take food, the bits of food stick about the mouth and the acids formed corrode the teeth. The Good-Night Talk. Th«n *,-» bed and a nice talk w’ith Mummy. If there has been a rumpus, please make it up; do not let the child be unhappy at night. You have been so good, mother, in attending to th n child’s body: please, now give a little attention to your baby’s mind and soul. I Never believe that a tiny child has no ' mind worth speaking of —you might as well say she has no skeleton or no brain ' within that little cranium. Do soothe ■ the child and let her sleep well. I must insist on this. I am always meeting children who are nervous and overstrung; their minds are jarred; every morning they begin another day with a sense of fear. If ever they get to understand, they will feel no very loving sentiments towards those who destroyed the happiness of their childhood. Whatever thn future may have in store for the children, give them

peaceful nights in their childhood; fill their little minds with gentle thoughts: make them beleive that it is a very nice world and that thev are safe a.:long as their parents are near. Banish the frightening method, the putting in dark cupboards, and all the r<-.- t of such ignorant conduct, and let us only remember them as we remember the thumbscrew and the rack of former ages. Helpful Hints. Remember that a hand or an arm shows less tendency to bleed if it is held up. If you try the simple experiment of raising the right hand above the head and keeping the left hanging at your side for one minute, you will find that the right hand is quite pale compared with the left, showing that less blood is flowing through it. Similarly a foot, when bleeding should be raised on a chair while the patient lies on his back on the floor. No alcohol should be given. The patient should be made comfortable with cushions or coats, he should have whatever he likes to eat, and all his attendants should assume a cheerful manner. Anyone poking his head in lhe room and asking in a low whisper whether “pore old Bill has gawn yet” should he dealt with faithfullv.

Don’t OveTStrain. While stressing the importance of training and supervision throughout childhood, a word of warning is necessary. Over-training may be nearly as harmful as lack of training; the overtrained child may later react in an abnormal way. An atmosphere of constant supervision and correction produces tension and strain harmful to both mother and child. The training process should not be apparent. The lines once laid down in a general way. as it wore, the end to be attained should not be obscured by the means of attaining it. An ov-or-anxious, devoted mother may sadly defeat her own ends, becoming tired and “nervy” herself, and making the child’s life a burden by reason of constant washing, brushing tidying, and correction. A sense of proportion is all important— l a constant sifting of essentials. A mother’s sight needs to be very specially developed—to see and not to see. There are at times when dirty hands and a torn pair of pants call for no comment at all. How many children must be perpetually bewildered by tho erratic way in which censure and punishment is meted out to them with equal emphasis he the transgression a soiled frock or more or less wilful disobedience.