A great error in the dietetic management of such children is but too frequently committed by parents. They suppose that because their child is weakly and delicate, that the more animal food it takes the more it will be strengthened, and they therefore give animal food too early, and in too great quantity. It only adds to its debility. The system, as a consequence, becomes excited, nutrition is impeded, and disease produced, ultimately manifesting itself in scrofula, disease in the abdomen, head, or chest. The first seeds of consumption are but too frequently originated in this way. A child so indulged will eat heartily enough, but he remains thin notwithstanding. After a time he will have frequent fever, will appear heated and flushed towards evening, when he will drink greedily, and more than is usual in children of the same age; there will be deranged condition of the bowels, and headach,--the child will soon become peevish, irritable, and impatient; it will entirely lose the good humour so natural to childhood, and that there is something wrong will be evident enough, the parent, however, little suspecting the real cause and occasion of all the evil. In such a child, too, it will be found that the ordinary diseases of infancy, scarlet fever, measles, small pox, etc., will be attended with an unusual degree of constitutional disturbance; that it will not bear such active treatment as other children, or so quickly rally from the illness. "Strength is to be obtained not from the kind of food which contains most nourishment in itself, but from that which is best adapted to the condition of the digestive organs at the time when it is taken." SUGAR.--This is a necessary condiment for the food of children, and it is nutritious, and does not injure the teeth, as is generally imagined. "During the sugar season," observes Dr. Dunglison, "the negroes of the West India islands drink copiously of the juice of the cane, yet their teeth are not injured; on the contrary, they have been praised by writers for their beauty and soundness; and the rounded form of the body, whilst they can indulge in the juice, sufficiently testifies to the nutrient qualities of the saccharine beverage."[FN#13] Sweetmeats, on the other hand, are most indigestible, and seriously injurious. [FN#13] Elements of Hygiem. Philadephia, 1835. SALT.--This is necessary for the health of a child; it acts as a stimulant to the digestive organs, and if not allowed in sufficient quantity with the food, worms will result.[FN#14] It may, therefore, be added in small quantity, and with advantage, even to the farinaceous food of infants. Salted meats, however, should never be permitted to the child; for by the process of salting the fibre of the meat is so changed, that it is less nutritive, as well as less digestible.