Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her ChildrenChavasse, Pye Henry
Science
Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children
Chavasse, Pye Henry
Child care; Children -- Health and hygiene; Infants -- Health and hygiene
Learning ought to be put out of the question, attention must be paid
to his health alone, or consumption will probably mark him as its own!
Let him live as much as possible in the open air; if it be country, so
much the better. Let him rise early in the morning, and let him go to
bed betimes; and if he be old enough to use the dumb-bells, or what is
better, an India-rubber chest-expander, he should do so daily. He
ought also to be encouraged to use two short sticks, similar to, but
heavier than, a policeman's staff, and to go, every morning, through
regular exercises with them. As soon as he is old enough, let him have
lessons from a drill-sergeant and from a dancing master. Let him be
made both to walk and to sit upright, and let him be kept as much as
possible upon a milk diet, [Footnote: Where milk does not agree, it may
generally be made to do so by the addition of one part of lime water
to seven parts of new milk. Moreover, the lime will be of service in
hardening his bones, and, in these cases, the bones require
hardening.] and give him as much as he can eat of fresh meat every
day. Cod liver oil, a tea-spoonful or a dessert-spoonful, according to
his age, twice a day, is serviceable in these cases. Stimulants ought
to be carefully avoided. In short, let every means be used to nourish,
to strengthen, and invigorate the system, without, at the same time,
creating fever. Such a child should be a child of nature, he ought
almost to live in the open air, and throw his books to the winds. Of
what use is learning without health? In such a case as this you
cannot have both.
264. _If a child be round-shouldered, or if either of his
shoulder-blades have "grown out," what had better be done_?
Many children have either round shoulders, or have their shoulder
blades grown out, or have their spines twisted, from growing too fast,
from being allowed to slouch in their gait, and from not having
sufficient nourishing food, such as meat and milk, to support them
while the rapid growth of childhood is going on.
If your child be affected as above described, nourish him well on milk
and on farinaceous food, and on meat once a day, but let milk be his
staple diet; he ought, during the twenty four hours, to take two or
three pints of new milk. He should almost live in the open air, and
must have plenty of play. If you can so contrive it, let him live in
the country. When tired, let him lie, for half an hour, two or three
times daily, flat on his back on the carpet. Let him rest at night on
a horse-hair mattress, and not on a feather bed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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