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
A child ought never to be permitted to sit with his back to the fire;
if he be allowed, it weakens the spine, and thus his whole frame; it
causes a rash of blood to the head and face, and predisposes him to
catch cold.
Let a nurse make a point of opening the nursery window every time that
she and her little charge leave the nursery, if her absence be only
for half an hour. The mother herself ought to see that this advice is
followed, pure air is so essential to the well-being of a child. Pure
air and pure water, and let me add, pure milk, are for a child the
grand and principal requirements of health.
Look well to the DRAINAGE of your house and neighbourhood. A child is
very susceptible to the influence of bad drainage. Bad drains are
fruitful sources of scarlet fever, of diphtheria, of diarrhoea,
&c. "It is sad to be reminded that, whatever evils threaten the health
of population, whether from pollutions of water or of air,--whether
from bad drainage or overcrowding, they fall heaviest upon the most
innocent victims--upon children of tender years. Their delicate frames
are infinitely more sensitive than the hardened constitutions of
adults, and the breath of poison, or the chill of hardships, easily
blights their tender life."--_The Times._
A nursery floor ought not to be _washed_ oftener than once a week; and
then the child or children should, until it be dry, be sent into
another room. During the drying of the floor, the windows must, of
course, be thrown _wide_ open.
The constant _wetting_ of a nursery is a frequent source of illness
among children. The floor ought, of course, to be kept clean; but this
may be done by the servant thoroughly sweeping the room out every
morning before her little charge makes his appearance.
Do not have your nursery wall covered with green paper-hangings. Green
paper-hangings contain large quantities of arsenic--arsenite of copper
(Scheele's green)--which, I need scarcely say, is a virulent poison,
and which flies about the room in the form of powder. There is
frequently enough poison on the walls of a room to destroy a whole
neigbourhood.
There is another great objection to having your nursery walls covered
with _green_ paper-hangings; if any of the paper should become loose
from the walls, a little child is very apt to play with it, and to put
it, as he does every thing else, to his mouth. This is not an
imaginary state of things, as four children in one family have just
lost their lives from sucking green paper-hangings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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