An Ancient Treatise on PERFECT HEALTH from an English Doctor --- Being Everything you ever wanted to know about DISEASE, PROPER DIET, MOTHERHOOD and HAVING HEALTHY BABIES. (This was written by an early researcher in the holistic movement.)To understand health, you must understand disease. Know this: that the laws of nature have been broken long before disease ever manifests. Disease is a crisis, which means an effort on the part of the body to eliminate pent-up toxins. It is a systematic house-cleaning, and would not be necessary if irrational living had not brought on enervation, checking elimination and causing Toxemia. I must declare that there is no logic--absolutely no common-sense--in breaking every law of nature, as conventional civilization does, and, when retribution comes, endeavor to sidestep the consequences by getting under the cover of cure or prevention, which in no wise corrects outlawry or its penalty.
Thinking people can know, if they want to, that disease is not what medical science teaches--namely, symptom-complexes caused by extraneous influences--and that it may not be prevented or cured by vaccines or serums. Disease, so-called, is nature's way of curing. A cold is elimination of toxin. To stop the symptoms means to stop elimination, which means forcing the organism to retain the toxins and gradually grow a larger toleration, until life is overwhelmed by a so-called acute disease or a chronic organic disease, which may end in the destruction of some important organ, or life itself.
Disease is auto-house-cleaning, and all the treatment necessary is rest of body and mind. So-called treatment or curative measures are positively obstructive.
Isn't it a fact that immunity to disease is natural? Man breaks down his immunity by building Toxemia and a cesspool under his diaphragm The only reason why people are ever sick is because their resistance is broken down. I say broken-down resistance advisedly; for if people who are subject to so-called epidemics are educated into proper living--proper care of their bodies--and they then live accordingly, they rise above the so-called disease-producing influences.
TOXEMIA is the basic cause of all diseases. To prevent Toxemia, avoid enervation in children. FATIGUE. Of all the nerve-destroying influences to which children are subjected, the most pernicious are those that cause fear--fear of failing in school; the displeasure of teacher and parents; stupid scolding by parents, whose only excuse is grouchiness from their own torpid livers, brought on them from eating bacon, eggs, liver, hot bread, and coffee for breakfast, or some other as vicious indulgence, which causes domestic bickering. Unhappy homes are a constant menace to the health of children. Parents should spare children an exhibition of their venom.
Standing at the head of the list of causes of enervation in children is Fear. We as a people overlook the real menaces to health, and teach bacteriology, infection, contagion, etc. And, to immunize against these so-called influences, we vaccinate and contaminate the blood of children, thereby adding an ally to Toxemia and fear, to break down resistance still further.
Just why the profession reasons so grotesquely concerning health, diseases, and their causes and treatment, is beyond understanding. The most obvious truth should be that 100 per cent health is all the immunization which an animal or a man needs. This being true, why not "get down to brass tacks," discard our rag-baby delusions concerning germs, contagions, infections, etc., and be taught by the obvious--namely, that health is the normal state, and that any influence that lowers nerve-energy lowers the health standard? Germs cannot be a cause, because they are ubiquitous--ever-present. If they are the cause of disease, no one would ever reach the state called health. So-called epidemics, contagions, and infections do not influence normal, healthy children. Who are the children that make up the sick list? They are found in homes where discontent, scolding, complaining, nervousness, loud voices, sharp rebukes, threatenings, fault-finding, disputes, arguing, castigating, are the daily routine. Real love and kindness are crowded out. Everyone is grouchy, and there appears to be a rivalry in seeing who can make the most cutting retorts. No care is given to eating, and little to the proper preparation of food. The best food will disagree when temper, irritation, and grouch prevail.
Unpoised parents always have nervous children. Such homes have much use for doctors--medical men who talk of germs, pure milk, vaccine, serum, contagion, and a lot of inane bunk on that order, but not a word concerning the pure milk of human kindness, love, and sympathy.
Fear in the homes and schools is the cause of about all the so-called diseases that belabor health officers and cause them to issue their bulls ordering vaccination, quarantine, tonsillotomy, tests, etc., etc.
Fear enervates; Toxemia follows; after which any old so-called disease may start. Then complicate it by "regular treatment," and "say, boy!" you are in line for any unusual usual disease.
That children are made sick by fear is not strange when we think of how fear is taught to children by parents and teachers, and then followed up by three professions--preachers, doctors, and lawyers; the latter enforcing the mandates of the doctors. The bogy devil and hell have gone out of fashion, but have been supplanted by the fear of germs and the dreadful diseases they cause, and the more dreadful brews concocted to scare away microscopic witches.
These various usurpers of nervous energy are worthy an illuminating essay each; for all play a part in the denaturing of man, and by building enervation, lay the foundation for all so-called diseases by causing retention of toxin in the blood. When enervation is produced, elimination is checked, and Toxemia is established; then deterioration of the organism begins, subtilely at first, manifesting on organs most stressed by use and abuse, showing up as functional derangements, which subside, to recur at longer or shorter intervals, until organic change (pathology) is established.
Lack of harmony in the homes is one of the most constant causes of enervation followed by Toxemia, and then the diseases "peculiar to children."
Children suffer from this cause. Even the infant is made sick by the mother's milk, when the latter is irritated by the domestic infelicities occurring daily. Mothers are often subjected to the bestiality of sensual husbands, which prenatally curses the child; and the pernicious influence often remains throughout its life. Read Tilden's "Toxemia Explained."
Care of Prospective Mothers During Pregnancy
PROSPECTIVE mothers should hold in their consciousness the ideals on the lines of which they would have their children evolve. A passive wish will not etch into the nervous system of the prospective child a formative desire--the mother must live her desires. Honesty must be lived--not simply paying debts agreed upon, but doing unto others as she would have others do unto her. This commandment, which is the foundation of ethics, is acted upon perfunctorily and ostentatiously by convention; but there is no soul-building force in it, and the mothers who would transmit ideal traits to their children must live them. In the performance of this function they may fool their neighbors, their friends, and their God; but they cannot fool the laws of biology--the laws of their being.
The grasping merchant prince transmits kleptomania to his beautiful daughter; the sins committed in secret are declared from the housetops; the tippling mother transmits dipsomania to her son; and the lustful parents stamp nymphomania on the daughter and libertinism on the son.
The reckless disregard for law and order that is racing rampant throughout the world is the materialization of the unholy practices etched into the plastic nervous system of children by parents.
Mothers, would you have your children normal, self-controlled, and happy? Then you must be. Do you want to have a normal--which is an easy--labor, and be able to nurse your child? Then live normally; avoid gluttony; control your emotion; learn to be poised; study (not read) "Toxemia Explained," and the "Cook Book." Cultivate the study and thinking habits. Enlarge your vocabulary by daily reference to a good dictionary. We cannot without words learn to think--stamp ideal habits on our children. We shall not need prohibition and other stupid laws when the mothers of our country cease to be food-drunkards and sensualists.
Fathers who are unwilling to do their part in the betterment of the coming race should not assume the responsibility.
Men and women must know more concerning their influence in shaping the lives of their children. Excesses of parents dull, and even inhibit, the moral development of children. Moral idiots are begotten in lust and conventional drunkenness. If the race is deteriorating, the fault lies in the habits and daily doings of parents.
If a mother wishes to have an obedient child--one that is sensible and lovable--she should live a sensible and lovable and obedient life herself, practicing self-control continually. If a mother would have a normal child, she must live a normal life.
Exercise.--All through pregnancy the tensing exercises, as given in my book, "Toxemia Explained," should be practiced daily. For the first few months, all the exercises may be used. As time goes on, the exercising may be a little less vigorous, selecting those exercises which do not bring much strain on the abdomen.
A limited amount of walking, housework, etc., may be carried on, always being careful about overstraining when lifting.
Bathing.--During this period the body should be kept particularly clean by giving the skin plenty of attention, so as to keep the skin-circulation as active as possible and elimination perfect. A warm sponge-bath should be taken, either night or morning, a thorough dry-towel rubbing should be given at night, or vice versa. Once a week the sponge-bath may be replaced with a hot-tub soap and water-bath, being careful not to soak the body too long in hot water. Hot-water bathing is enervating.
Douches.--If there is any leucorrhea, or any other discharge from the vagina, a douche should be taken each night before retiring, until it has subsided. Use quite warm water, with a tablespoonful of salt to the gallon of water.
Enemas.--If the bowels fail to move during the day, before retiring at night use a small enema of a pint of water. Put it into the bowels, allow it to remain for a short time, and then solicit a movement. If no results are obtained, do not worry--just let the bowels alone. If they do not move during the next day, repeat the enema at night.
Kidneys.--At least once a month, from the beginning of pregnancy, the urine should be examined by someone qualified to do so, to ascertain that all is well and no albumin is showing in the urine.
Corsets.--If a proper amount of exercise is taken regularly before pregnancy, and the ligaments and muscles of the abdomen and pelvis are so strengthened, very little support will be necessary. It is better to have as little binding as possible; but, if a support is necessary, there are some well-fitting maternity corsets on the market which are a great help. Supports are not necessary when eating and exercise are correct in amount.
Eating Habits.--The mother should not change her habits of eating during this period, except to see that she does not overeat. The breakfast should be light--merely a little fruit, such as apples, pears, oranges, grapefruit, berries, or any fresh fruit, according to season.
At noon, have a vegetable soup, prepared according to the directions given in the "Cook Book." Follow this with a good big combination salad.
At night, have the regulation Tilden dinners: meat one day, with two cooked, non-starch vegetables and a combination salad; the alternate days, a decidedly starchy food in place of the meat, with the vegetables and salad.
All fancy foods, such as pies, cakes, and desserts of all kinds, should be sidestepped. Just live as simply as possible.
Prospective mothers should watch their weight during pregnancy. Just before confinement a woman should not weigh more than ten pounds above her regular weight. At the beginning of pregnancy the increase in weight should be very little and the gain very gradual. If the weight increases too rapidly, the intake of food should be cut down, so as to hold the weight down.
Mothers should not follow the custom of eating for two, building excess weight, and suffer from the symptom-complexes of swollen limbs, varicose veins, kidney burden, Toxemia, surgery, enlarged womb, uterine catarrh, misplacements, fibroid tumor, and, in ten to twenty years, uterine cancer, etc. Children born of such parents develop into mediocre human animals. Their most characteristic inherited tendencies are appetite and passion. They mature early, and their sex-complex drives them into lust and every excess that gives a thrill. They soon bring on pronounced enervation and imperfect elimination, establishing chronic Toxemia, after which the organism subtilely builds organic disease. The tubercular diathesis builds pulmonary tuberculosis, after going through all the preliminary crises of Toxemia--namely, all the so-called catarrhal diseases. The mind and nervous system have their symptom-complexes. The glandular--the ductless and duct glands--have their share of composite derangement wished on them by Toxemia, occupation, and habits.
A child born of a gluttonous mother may die of childbirth injuries, or subsequent so-called diseases caused by disagreeing mother's milk or the hazards of post-natal readjustment
What is meant by post-natal readjustment is that a plethoric infant (a fat baby) will continue obese, and come to a premature end unless he is properly reduced. To do so requires much time Readjusting means proper food and exercise, continuing over a period long enough for the cell-tissue to be biologically educated out of its hydropic habit. Obesity is a disease, and, as in the case of all so-called diseases, when the cause is removed nature must have time to return to the normal.
Few fat people have the self-control to live in a manner, and for a sufficient length of time, for nature to get back to the normal. The same is true of all those suffering from all other so-called diseases. Should the fat boy live to maturity, his reproductive function will lack virility; and should he reproduce, the progeny would lack virility and vitality, and would die early. Most children of this type die within the second year, or suffer with digestive derangements, lose weight, become underweight from malnutrition, and continue throughout a life of thirty to seventy years of semi-invalidism. Fat babies are prone to die of diseases "peculiar to children." They do not bear up well under the so-called contagious diseases.
Morning Sickness.--Morning sickness is nature's punishment for past sins committed. Prospective mothers who have morning sickness have abused their privilege in all lines. They have sought pleasure to excess, have danced too much, and have imprudently cooled the body after being heated, by sitting in a draft, drinking too much water or soda-fountain beverages, or chilling the stomach too frequently with ices; and in their every-day lives they have eaten too much, too frequently, and of improper food combinations, and neglected to masticate and insalivate starchy foods properly. Instead of eating a reasonable amount morning, noon, and night, many have eaten five times a day, and sometimes oftener. The human body has its limitations, and everyone should try to learn what they are, and then respect them. The commonest drunkenness is food-drunkenness. Physical and mental pleasures enjoyed to excess are a form of drunkenness, and sooner or later bring on enervation. Those who are enervated fail to eliminate the waste-products of the body as fast as necessary, and toxins are retained in the system, bringing on what I define as Toxemia. People in this state are in line for catching colds, coughing, and having the lighter forms of so-called diseases, such as colds, headache, sore throat lasting a few days, fits of indigestion, constipation, and other so-called diseases.
A young woman getting married, after bringing on this state of her organism, is almost invariably troubled with morning sickness, because in all such cases there is a gastro-intestinal indigestion, if not catarrhal inflammation. A sensitive, catarrhal stomach is the commonest derangement of people who ordinarily pass as normal or healthy. Pregnancy in such subjects is accompanied by an extraordinary state of the stomach, which is called morning sickness--often it is an all-day sickness. These subjects continue abusing themselves with irregular eating and imprudent eating, which aggravates the so-called morning sickness. Those troubled with morning sickness should fast a reasonable length of time, and, when indulging in food, they should take a little fruit for breakfast. If fruit irritates the stomach, or the stomach rebels by becoming nauseated, this feeling should pass off before any more food is taken. If the discomfort lasts during the forenoon, no food should be taken at noon. Hot water, sipped slowly, in place of food, should bring some relief, and, to quiet the irritation of the stomach, hot water may be sipped at intervals all the forenoon. If the afternoon is spent in comfort without nausea, a light dinner should be indulged in in the evening--a small piece of broiled steak, a lamb chop, or any other meat desired, with one or two properly cooked vegetables and a combination salad. Bread or starches in any form should not be eaten. Certainly no eating of an improper character should be indulged in, such as cake, ice-cream, custard, as these will increase the nausea and prolong a recovery.
When comfortable, plain eating should be the rule: in the morning, if the stomach will accept it, a piece of dry toast, eaten without butter, masticating each morsel until liquefied in the mouth, and then followed with orange juice and water half and half, or any table beverage ordinarily used, except tea or coffee; at noon, fruit; and in the evening, the regulation dinner, similar to the one mentioned above. Avoid heavy eating until the nausea has entirely disappeared; then respect digestive limitations. Remember that self-control is transmissible.
Care of the Breasts After Childbirth.--Breast-pumps are builders of abscesses, if they are not used properly. When mothers are forced to their use, they should have them manipulated by someone who is well skilled in their use. I never advise the use of the breast-pump unless absolutely necessary. If there is no abuse or bruising of the breasts, there will be no cause for abscesses.
If for any reason it is necessary to dry up the breasts, it is not necessary to resort to the breast-pump to draw off the accumulated milk. This is often the cause of abscess. It is not necessary to take away the milk. If the breasts become feverish and swollen, the mother should lie down and put dry warm or hot applications over them. They may be painful for a short time, but it does not take more than a day or two to start the drying-up of the milk. This procedure is much safer and quicker than the use of the breast-pump. The milk dries up very rapidly after it has once started to do so. After about twenty-four hours of being swelled to the fullest capacity, the breasts begin to decline.
If the nipples become inverted, they should be drawn out daily and gently massaged. The nipples may be hardened by gentle massage and daily washing with cold water.
Miscarriage and Abortion.--The word "abortion" means throwing-off of the foetus before the third month. It may be criminal abortion or brought on accidentally. After the third month it is called miscarriage. Abortions are frequently caused by over-excitement, long and tiresome rides, lifting and straining in housework, or excessive venery. This last-named cause is common to those wives whose consorts are sadly in need of knowledge of the true relationship of husband and wife. Excess brutalizes both husband and wife, breeds contempt, and often curses children before birth.
Mothers should keep quiet following an accident of the above-described kind. They should use hot douches three times a day. If there is pain, the family physician should be called. If no disagreeable symptoms appear, perhaps all that is necessary will be to use hot douches two or three times a day. No drugs are to be used in the douche, except a little salt or soda. When a disagreeable odor develops, a good doctor is needed. Cleanliness is the main thing; but, if there is any discomfort or fever following, a physician should be called who will give intra-uterine treatment. Neglect may cost a life.
General Care of Children
CARE AT BIRTHIF THE labor has been hard--if the mother has been in labor from six to twenty-four hours, and is quite worn out the baby should be anointed with some bland oil, like olive or cottonseed oil, wrapped in cotton, and laid away where it can be perfectly quiet and warm for twenty-four hours. Babies, under such circumstances, are pretty well worn out, and they should not be handled enough to bathe and dress them soon after birth, as is common. Pay no attention to feeding--rest is all that is necessary. In twenty-four hours the child should be bathed in warm water--soft water, if possible--using the best castile soap, or a toilet soap that is known to be mild. If everyone connected with the case will be better satisfied to have a bandage on the child, put one on. I always acquiesce in this superstition--in fact, I acquiesce in all superstitions that are innocent; slight variations without a difference that do not amount to anything; anything to keep people from worry and anxiety. After the child is dressed, it may be put to the breast.
Concerning the wearing apparel: If wool is used, it should be very soft. Linen is better, and soft cotton will do. I do not believe in dresses. A long, soft, cotton-flannel or linen gown is about all that is necessary to put on a child. A change of gowns can be made without tiring the child. When gowns are used, they can be changed as often as is necessary without much trouble.
If the child has come into the world tired because of the mother's long or hard labor, it is perfectly natural for its body to be a little sore. This causes it to be restless, and it needs its position changed often. After the washing, the body should be anointed with oil, and gently rubbed with a soft hand from head to foot to rest it Aside from slipping on a gown, nothing but changing the position or giving it the breast is necessary, night or day. Feeding at night should never be started.
It is a very great mistake to put a newborn baby on exhibition, because handling it, throwing a strong natural or artificial light into its face, so people may inspect it, loud talking, laughing, etc., in the same room where the baby is, use up its nerve-energy and creates more or less enervation.
WHEN BABY BEGINS TO NOTICE
Do not feel that it is necessary to entertain babies. They should be left alone, to learn how to entertain themselves. Babies and children who have entertainment furnished them make very dependent grown people--the kind who are lonesome and homesick when a time comes, which it will, for them to take a rest cure. Children brought up without education in self-entertainment and self-control break all laws of man and nature, and end in hospitals, penitentiaries, and premature death. Every child should be allowed enough time to become acquainted with, and learn to entertain, itself. All that is necessary until a child is able to turn itself over in bed is to change its position. Eternal attention builds an egotism that is ruinous.
BABYHOOD TO FULL MATURITY
Bathing.--The baby should be given a daily bath from birth, but not a daily soaking. Many children suffer from depletion of their vital energy by being overbathed---soaked--in water. The daily bath should be given quickly, using warm water--neither very hot nor very cold. The sponging-off of the body should be followed with a brisk, soft dry-towel rubbing. Your children need to be bathed in a warm room.
Two or three times a week for the first three months a baby's body may be anointed with oil, rubbed well, and then the surplus wiped off with a soft cloth.
Once a week a warm soap-bath may be used, thoroughly scouring the body and rinsing well.
The temperature of all baths should be about blood-heat. During hot summer weather, after the second year, a cool bath may be used; but children that have weakened hearts should not be subjected to cool or cold water.
The less soap used, the better. Of course, with growing, active children it is necessary to use some soap, in order to keep them clean; but the use of much soap ruins the self-cleansing function of the skin.
The bath, from babyhood up, may be given at the most convenient time, either morning or evening. Many homes are not warm enough in the morning for bathing in comfort. However, it is well to establish a regular bathing hour.
Children should be taught early to keep their bodies clean. Hot houses and clothes make bathing necessary, and the skin which is not cleansed properly has a peculiar odor. As soon as they are old enough, they should be taught to take their own daily baths. Water of about blood-heat may be drawn in the tub to the depth of a few inches. The child may squat or stand in the water, and, using a sponge or the hand, bring the water well over the body, using a little soap on the parts requiring special attention. The soap should be thoroughly rinsed off. Then follow with a brisk towel-rubbing.
A short rubber hose, with spray attachment on the end, allows the bath to be given quickly, and the child enjoys its use.
Children should be taught to keep the genital organs clean--washing them as often as the face, eyes, and ears. This cleanliness will remove the cause of irritation which leads to self abuse. Irritation from lack of cleanliness is followed by rubbing of the itching parts--the genitals--and this ends in onanism.
The entire surface of the body must be kept clean. The skin is just as much an organ of the body as the stomach, liver, etc., and a neglected organ becomes diseased. Then, through sympathy, other organs become less efficient. Cleanliness leads to godliness.
The mucous membrane lining the intestinal tract, air-passages, etc., is the skin within, and it is in sympathy with the skin without. Neglect to either reflects on the other. It is no uncommon thing to see people suffering from indigestion due almost entirely to a neglected surface of the body.
And so-called skin diseases, including eruptive diseases, follow on the heels of gastro-intestinal derangements brought on from carelessness in eating. Intestinal putrescence is the basic cause of eruptive diseases.
Air- and Sun-Baths.--As soon as it is possible, put the child on its face--I mean allow it to lie on its stomach. When the weather is warm and the room comfortable, and the sun shines through the window, very young babies can be given sun-baths. Put a soft comforter on the floor, and put the child down on it, face down. There is no danger of its smothering. Children treated in this manner will walk earlier than children who are kept on their backs continually. It is a mistake to leave a child on its back all the time. That is the reason why I suggest that when very young they should be changed from side to side. The sun-baths, to start with, should not be of long duration--say, five or ten minutes. The babies then can be left nude on the floor out of the sun for quite a while, if awake. When a child goes to sleep, or appears sleepy, it should be put in its bed. The child must be watched during the sun-bath. Those of low resistance may become chilly, and they should be returned to bed at once. The next air-bath should be in a warmer room, watching the child to avoid chilling. Many children are forced into ill-health because of lack of air and an overheated state of the surface of the body.
Young children should be taken out of doors on all warm, sunny days; but they should not be chilled. Resisting cold uses up nerve-energy. When the feet are cold, it becomes a constant drain on the nerve- energy, and will soon bring a child to a state of enervation that leads to indigestion.
Older children should not be allowed to sit with cold or damp feet. This chilling will hinder digestion.
Care of Beds and Sleeping-Rooms.--The beds should be scrupulously clean. Bed-pads should be used on top of mattresses, so that they can be replaced frequently. It is a very great mistake to allow children to sleep on mattresses without pads; for the mattresses will become soiled so frequently that it will be a source of great expense to replace them as often as cleanliness and the children's health demands. If pads are used, they can be washed and changed often.
The sleeping-rooms of children should be aired thoroughly through the day. Beds should be opened, and, if possible, the bed-clothing should be put in the sun.
Clothing.--Children should sleep in nightgowns, which should be changed as often as twice a week.
During the hot weather, when the days and nights are warm, as they are in many of the southern and central states, babies should not be overdressed. They should sleep under light covering. When the nights are pleasantly cool, they should sleep in pajamas with closed bottoms at the feet.
In very hot weather, babies should be dressed as lightly as possible. To go almost naked is a great comfort to children in hot weather; but when cold weather comes they should have sufficient clothing to keep from chilling.
Clothing that children wear should be of a washable nature--not too heavy. Why should a child be overclothed in a warm house? The feet of children should be watched, and kept dry and warm. Overshoes for winter weather should always be used, and the overclothing should be heavy enough to protect them from the weather. I do not advocate wool next to the skin. Cotton or linen is good enough. Underwear is not necessary. Care for the skin, and teach it to be a protector and not to need protection.
Overheated houses and overclothing cause enervation of the skin; and an enervated skin does not protect the body well. The clothing in the home and schoolhouse, if well heated, should be light even in winter; and then, when the children go out of doors, the outer clothing may be of a much heavier weight--long overcoats and high overshoes and leggings, if they are to play in the snow.
Children should wear long stockings in cold climates. It is all right to have them wear short socks in a temperate climate all the year around, but in the colder climates the long stockings should be used when the weather begins to get cold.
Mothers who are aware of the fact that they are not strong and that consequently their children are not strong, should give their children more careful attention than the mother who knows that she is husky and her children are husky. Too many mothers try to harden their children after they have a bad start at birth. There is so much difference between children that different rules of care must be applied to different families.
Babies Must Be Kept Warm.--All young children must be watched carefully, to see that they do not chill at night; or, for that matter, they must not chill at any time, day or night. If a child is to thrive, it must be kept warm. To allow a sick or frail child to chill every day will eventually kill it, no matter how good care it may receive otherwise. The feet should be felt frequently, to make sure that they are warm. Artificial heat should be used, if necessary. Even in the summer time the feet may chill without artificial heat. A woolen blanket should be used to wrap the feet in when there is danger of chilling. A sickly child has no power to warm its own body, and it must be warmed artificially.
Care of Napkins.--The baby's napkins should be changed as soon as they are wet. When the napkin is removed, the body should be sponged and cleansed wherever the parts are wet. The napkins should always be washed before they are used again. To use a napkin that has been wet with urine and dried without washing causes a great deal of skin irritation. Cleanliness will cure all skin irritations of this kind.
Perfume or talcum powders with a decided odor should not be used; for such odors cover the body odors and often mislead. The odor of the body is a sign which mothers need in caring for their babies. It is all right to use a little plain cream on the irritated parts after washing thoroughly, and a little plain talcum powder; but do not overdo this.
Poised Mothers.--Poised mothers reflect this quality in their children. Mothers who have no self-control and no poise should not expect to have poised children. The habit of poise should be formed long before conception, and then continued during the nursing period and on through maturity.
Weight.--The weight of the child, even at birth, depends much on the build of the parents. One should not expect to find a so-called fat baby where the mother and father are of the long, lean type. This is why the rules and tables for weights of children are so absurd. They do not take into consideration at all the parentage of the child.
When mothers watch their eating, and restrict themselves during pregnancy so as to have a normal and natural childbirth, the baby should weigh from three to six pounds. The rule is that there is no gain the first week, and neither is there much of a loss. In fact, children that are born of mothers who restrict themselves during pregnancy do not gain so much the first year as overfed children of overfed mothers, but they are much safer, so far as health is concerned, than those who gain so rapidly. Such children will be much more healthy and active. The gain during the first six months is usually from three to six pounds. There is nothing like the mother's milk to keep the gain in weight regular. Changing from one food to another always interferes with the proper development and gain in weight of the child. There are many things which occur during the first year to interfere with the steady increase in weight, and it is bound to vary from time to time. Mothers should not worry so much about the weight of their children, but pay more attention to their physical comfort, letting that be the guide in their care.
The fat child is supposed to be healthy, but a slender, wiry child always has a better chance for development and maturity than the overfat, roly-poIy child. A fat child is an incumbered child.
Teething, Talking and Walking. --There is no hard and fast rule which can be laid down regarding the proper age for walking, talking, and teething in babies.
As to walking, parents who eat beyond their needs, making themselves stupid and dull, should not expect to have a child that will walk early in life. It will have a slowly developed nervous system, and this may handicap it for life. An active child, born of active parents who have had some self-control in their early lives, will walk early. Such children may walk at nine months of age. If walking is delayed too long, up to the approach of the second year, there has probably been a little paralysis--infantile paralysis--so light that it has not been noticed, that is retarding the walking in the child.
As to talking, it is governed by about the same principles as walking. Active, bright children, born unincumbered, will talk earlier than sluggish, heavy children. It is usually the small--or what is known as the undersized--child that talks early--at nine months or even earlier. By the end of the first year the child should begin to talk; but, if this has been delayed, the cause may be the same as the cause of delayed walking--a slight paralysis.
As to teething, there is also a great variety in this particular function in babies. Even in the same family the date for the appearance of teeth varies. Usually about the fiifth month the two central lower teeth begin to appear, and then the four upper teeth in the center about the eighth month. From the end of the first year to the eighteenth month the other front teeth follow. At the end of the first year the child usually has six teeth, at eighteen months twelve, at two years sixteen, and at two years and a half, twenty teeth.
If children have trouble at teething time, it is due to overfeeding, which brings on indigestion. If the teeth are slow in developing, there may be a lack of some of the body-building elements in the food that is being used.
Care of the Eyes and Month.--Sprue is a whitish, stringy-like substance that collects in the mouth, under the tongue and around the gums--in fact, all over the inside of the mouth when the condition is bad. It is caused by too frequent feeding from a mother who has eaten too much of the starchy foods. If a child is properly fed, and not fed more than three or four times at the most in the daytime, and not at all during the night, there will be no trouble of this kind.
If, however, the condition appears, it can be overcome without much trouble if the mother who is nursing the child will cut out all the starchy food for a few days and eat more freely of the fresh fruits and raw vegetable salads, together with the regulation dinner in the evening, consisting of meat, cooked vegetables, and salad.
I do not approve of any of the mouth-washes that are suggested to be used at such a time. This is merely palliation, and the real cause, not being recognized and done away with, will build more trouble in the future. It means that the mother is building an acid condition through her overeating on starch; and this will build further trouble for her also later on.
There should be little or no trouble with the eyes of a baby, if it is properly cared for. One of the principal things to watch is the cleansing of the wash-cloth that is used on the baby's eyes. In fact, the wash-cloth should be used on the body of the child, but a small piece of cotton should be used on the eyes, mouth, and the parts of the body where there is any secretion to be removed. Then the cotton can be thrown away and a new piece used each time. The eyes should be bathed in warm water. If there seems to be some irritation, a little salt may be added to the water, but nothing else.
Daily Habits at School Age.--Children just beginning school should retire at eight o'clock at night in winter. Those who have been in school several years may remain up until nine o'clock. In the summer time, when school is not in session, the retiring time may be an hour later for each age.
School children would be able to do twice as much work at school, and very much better work, if arrangement could be made for an hour of sleep, or at least rest on the bed, at noon. Parents would do well to demand two hours at noon, so that the children may come home and have an hour of rest--rest, not recreation--and then take time to eat their lunches and not be compelled to rush the food into the stomach. Children not of school age should have a one-hour rest every day after the noon meal. Those under four should also have an hour of rest during the forenoon.
Children should not have home studies. They should take just such work in school as they can do during the school hours. The plan of having to spend the entire evening preparing the lessons for the next day is a tremendous handicap for children.
Sleep.--As stated above, children of school age need rest aside from the night's sleep. Babies under two or three years should have as much sleep as they can possibly get. If a child is restless and cannot sleep, it means that the nervous system is worn out, and it needs to have food kept from it until the nerves have had time to settle down. Then the amount of food should be kept within the digestive limitations, as evidenced by a poised state of the nerves. Mothers need a rest in the middle of the day, as well as the children, therefore the habit should be built of mother and child going to bed for a rest after the noon meal. Remember that it takes nerve-energy for digesting food; and there is nothing which renews nerve- energy so quickly and safely as sleep and rest.
Feeding Birth to Maturity
IF NURSING
FIRST TO FOURTH MONTH
HOW often should a child be fed? This is a question that will continue to be asked as long as children are born, and the answer will vary according to the prejudices, superstitions, and customs of the locality in which they are born. If babies are allowed to rest as they should, without handling and fondling, they may be fed about three times a day for one or two days. A child that is permitted to rest all it can, and has not been injured in childbirth, will probably not awake oftener than three times in twenty-four hours. It is a very silly, foolish thing to awaken a child to put it to the breast. I have found that for the first three or four days after birth the baby will sleep nearly all the time--probably twenty-three and one-half hours out of twenty-four.
At the beginning of the second week or the end of the fourth or fifth day, the child should be nursed every four hours during the day--at six and ten o'clock in the morning, and at two and six o'clock in the afternoon; absolutely no night feeding.
After it is a week or so old, it may be fed one-half to one teaspoonful of orange juice and water before the regular ten o'clock nursing time.
If, between meal times, the child is fretful, or does not seem to be resting well, the nurse should gently turn it from one side to the other, and then let it alone. It should not be taken up. It is not hungry, and it is not thirsty; so why be giving yourself any uneasiness about the child being sick or not being fed often enough?
How long should a child be nursed? That depends entirely upon how fast the milk comes from the mother's breast. Where the milk flows freely and easily, the child should get all that it needs in from three to five minutes. Where the milk comes hard, the child may have to nurse ten or fifteen minutes. This will have to be found out by watching the child. If it seems to be satisfied in about five minutes, put it away where it cannot be disturbed by having its bed jostled and hearing a lot of noise. The custom is to feed a young child every two hours. Those who are wedded to this belief should watch the stools. When there are any white flakes or minute curds showing in the movements from the bowels, it means that the child is being nursed too often or too long at a time. Cut the amount down. If it is nursing five minutes, cut it down to three minutes. If it is nursing ten minutes, cut it down to five minutes It is a very dangerous thing to continue to feed a child the same amount when evidences of indigestion, such as milk curds, begin to manifest themselves in the bowel movements. If this is attended to early, there will be no danger of constipation, and the indigestion that necessarily will soon follow. It is criminal carelessness to allow anything of this kind to run on until the child is sick. Indigestion has been running on for some time before such symptoms as a feverish condition, vomiting, or diarrhea will show up. When children get to the age where they do not sleep all the time, the hours of feeding should not be changed, if they are being fed every four hours through the day. Increase the length of time of nursing as the child appears to need more nourishment.
Concerning the feeding, common-sense should enable a mother to increase the amount of nursing as needed by the child as it grows older.
FOURTH MONTH TO ONE YEAR
I do not believe in feeding children very much other than milk in the first twelve months. Those who have normal, healthy mothers should thrive very well for the first year if kept entirely on the mother's milk, plus fruit and vegetable juices. After a child is three months old, it should be taking a feeding of fruit and vegetable juices daily.
It should have orange juice, or a combination of spinach, tomato, and lettuce juices. The spinach and lettuce should be run through a vegetable-mill, or bruised, and the juice extracted. A teaspoonful of this vegetable juice, with a teaspoonful of orange juice, in four to six teaspoonfuls of water, can be given preceding the ten o'clock feeding. From week to week the amount of vegetable juice is to be increased, and the amount of nursing decreased, until from the fourth or sixth month the child will be taking nothing except fruit and vegetable juices at this time of day. At a year of age, vegetable and fruit pulp may be given. By that time various vegetables can be used--carrots, turnips; in fact, any fresh, succulent vegetables. The standbys, however, are lettuce, tomato, and spinach, with orange juice. In the summer time, during the corn season, a cob of corn can be scraped, and the juice expressed and used with the other vegetable juices.
Children fed plenty of fruit and vegetable juices, at least once a day, will thrive very much better than children who are kept exclusively on the mother's milk, or fed on cooked cereals. Catarrh, enlarged tonsils, adenoids, gastritis, colds, "flu"--in fact, all the "diseases peculiar to children"--are built by the acid of cooked cereals dressed with sugar. Butter, sweet foods, and candy are catarrh-builders; then add to this improper feeding the stupid custom of removing effects (tonsils and adenoids), and continuing the cause, and we have a picture of today's doings.
Teeth are removed, sinuses drained, and other operations performed, made necessary by feeding baby wrongly; and health is expected to return without removing the cause--wrong living. This is stupidity. Children whose mothers have eaten a large-sized vegetable salad every day during their pregnancy will be better off than children who are born of mothers who eat in the conventional way.
WEANING
If the mother is healthy and giving all the food the child needs, and if the child is showing a wholesome condition, it should continue to nurse until about one year of age. If an ideal child is desired, nothing will be given but the mother's milk, with the exception of about once a day a little orange juice; and this should help keep the child in full health and thriving. I do not mean a big, fat, roly-poly baby; for that does not mean a normal condition. Strong and well proportioned is all that any one should desire a child to be.
At the beginning of the tenth month, nursing of the breast may be preceded by giving two ounces of "fifty-fifty"--half milk and half water (one ounce of milk and one ounce of water); then let the baby finish, or satisfy its desire, with the mother's breast. For about a week the above amount of fifty-fifty will be given. Then increase to four ounces of fifty-fifty preceding the breast nursing. This may be continued for two weeks longer. At the beginning of the fourth week increase the fifty-fifty to six ounces. This is to be continued to the beginning of the sixth week, when it may be increased to eight ounces. Continue this amount until the child is one year of age; then use the tables for artificial feeding for that age.
If the mother's milk begins to fail, as many do the third or fourth month, a mixture in the proportion of about one-third milk and two-thirds water may be given after the child has taken all it can get from the mother's breast. It may have all of the milk-and-water mixture it desires, but the stools should be watched. When white curds appear, it would indicate that a little much of the artificial mixture of milk and water is given. Cut down the proportion of milk in the mixture, using more water than called for, until the curds disappear. Then increase again to the mixture as first given. As the mother's milk appears to decrease, feed according to the schedule outlined for artificial feeding for that age.
A great many people have the idea that the child should be weaned when menstruation appears. This should not be an arbitrary rule if the mother is normal and the child is normal. If, however, there are symptoms that the child is not thriving, it can be weaned and put on regular schedule for that particular age.
ARTIFICIAL FEEDING
FIRST YEAR
It is unfortunate when mothers cannot nurse their babies for the first year. Many children get a wrong start the first year of life, and are more or less perverted, in a digestive or nutritional way, throughout life. Real mothers should have a care concerning the future of their children and be willing to make almost any personal sacrifice for their good. Mothers who are self-indulgent to the point of gluttony, or sensual in any way should know that they are building a like legacy for their children. Gluttony causes hard labors. Injuries received during hard labors lead to uterine diseases, tumors, cancer, and many derangements calling for surgery, with often negligible benefit. Leaving the mothers out of the question, children are often injured; and many are infected by the mother's milk, caused by the mother's injuries taking an a slight septic inflammation. These are the circumstances that often make artificial feeding of children necessary.
Modified Milk.--The milk of cows, goats, and mares, "modified," is the best substitute for mother's milk. Reduction by adding water is about all the modification that is necessary. Or add ATOLE, Simmered whole grain GRUEL. BROWN RICE toasted lightly, ground to powder, simmered in water til thick as cream.
A healthy, well-cared-for cow--a common cow --is better than the Alderney or Jersey, because the milk of the latter is too fat.
Care of Milk.--Cleanliness is positively necessary. Keep the milk in clean bottles and on ice. Do not heat it above the body temperature--about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The supply for the whole day's feedings may be prepared in the morning all at one time and kept on ice until used. The mixtures of milk and water should be thoroughly shaken before a portion is taken out to be heated for a feeding.
2-1/2 oz. each feeding to begin with;
4 feeds per day; 6 and 10 a.m., 2 and
6 p.mAt the beginning of the second month, a half to one teaspoon of orange juice and water may be given preceding the 10 a. m. feeding of milk.
At the beginning of the third month, spinach, tomato, and lettuce may be run through a vegetable-mill or through a coarse sieve. A teaspoonful of this combination vegetable juice and a teaspoonful of orange juice in four to six teaspoonfuls of water may precede the 10 a. m. feeding of milk.
The fruit and vegetable juice with water preceding 10 a. m. feeding should be increased, and the amount of milk taken should be decreased, until at four to six months the milk should be dropped entirely and only the juices taken at that feeding.
At one year of age, the vegetable pulp may be taken along with the vegetable and fruit juices.
The proportions of milk and water should be adhered to as given above, but the two and a half ounces may be gradually increased as the baby shows a desire to take more. As to the rapidity of the increase, that all depends upon the condition of the baby. The best check on the amount to be taken is in watching the stools. If there are any white specks or curds appearing in the stools, the amount of the feed should be cut down; and if that does not bring results, decrease the amount of milk and increase the amount of water until the baby's toleration point is found. Then, as the baby gets back to normal, increase the proportion of milk, and also increase gradually the amount of the feed.
If the fruit and vegetable juices cause any trouble, drop them and go back to the milk feed entirely; then try it again more diluted, and increase more gradually. There are no cut-and-dried formulas which can be laid down for the care and feeding of babies. General information can be given, but each baby is a law unto itself and must have its particular needs met with proper treatment.
If all goes well, the three feedings of fifty-fifty, with the one feeding of vegetables and fruits, may be continued through the remainder of the first year.
Sugar (milk sugar), lime, and cream are added to hydrated milk by most specialists; but I never have, for I do not believe in fattening children. Why? Because there is more sickness among fat, "ideally healthy" children than among the thin and slender.
So-called "undernourished children" are sick children. Most of them once belonged to the fat brigade--King Doc's reserves--which are only brought on un-dress parade for the picture-show camera-man, and strictly for "health education."
Stockmen bring their pick to expositions to show what ideal animals are like; but they never report the mortality. The same is true of the fat-baby shows. There is no report how these little lumps of hydrocarbon fare in the next five years--how many die of "disease peculiar to" (fat) "children," how many are operated upon for enlarged tonsils and adenoids, or what percentage die from tuberculosis, rheumatic diseases, kidney disease, etc., within the next five to twenty years.
SECOND YEAR
FIRST SIX MONTHS
For the first six months of the second year the child should be fed fifty-fifty three times a day, and a vegetable and fruit combination for the fourth meal.
The fifty-fifty may be given at 6 a. m., 2 p. m., and 6 p. m.; the fruit and vegetable meal at 10 a. m.
The fifty-fifty is made by combining half warm milk and half hot water. Whole milk should be used, and the fifty-fifty should be prepared fresh for each feeding.
As to the amount to be given at a feeding, the child should be allowed to take about what is desired, the stools being watched as a guide for overeating. If small white milk curds appear in the bowel movements, it means that more milk is given than can be digested. Change the milk then from fifty-fifty to one-third milk and two-thirds water; until the stools become normal. Then return to the fifty-fifty. If reducing the milk to one-third does not bring results, do not hesitate to reduce it still more, increasing the proportion of water until curds disappear from the stools then return to fifty-fifty.
At any time when the digestion seems all right, but there is no increase in weight, increase the amount of fifty-fifty given, but do not increase the amount of milk without increasing the amount of water also. Keep the proportion fifty-fifty, milk and water.
For the vegetable and fruit meal at 10 a. m., the vegetables and fruit may be run through a sieve or vegetable-mill, and both the juice and the fine pulp fed to the child. About all may be given that is desired. There is not so much danger of overfeeding on this food as of overfeeding on milk and heavier foods, although it must be remembered that it is possible to overeat on the most perfect of foods and bring on digestive troubles.
SECOND YEAR
LAST SIX MONTHS
For the last six months of the second year the meals should be cut down to three at the regular times.
The first meal may consist of fifty-fifty, followed with fruit.
The second meal may be of fifty-fifty and raw vegetables. For the raw vegetables, any may be used that are desired, such as lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, etc. They may all be run through a vegetable-mill before serving.
The third meal should be of fifty-fifty, and followed with cooked vegetables--any of the green vegetables, not including the potato, which is too starchy. A vegetable puree may be given occasionally.
The child does not need anything in the line of starch until the third year is reached.
THIRD YEAR
(TWO YEARS OF AGE)
The feeding for the third year may be the same through the entire twelve months.
For the first meal of the day, every other day oatmeal, or any of the cooked cereals, may be cooked to a jelly, and then reduced with water to the consistency of good thick cream or buttermilk. This is to be eaten as slowly as possible with a teaspoon. All desired may be given, followed with orange juice. The alternate days, use thoroughly dried whole-wheat toast in place of the cooked cereal, followed with prunes, baked apple, or orange. Prunes or baked apple may take the place of orange juice.
For the second meal, fifty-fifty, followed with raw or cooked vegetables.
The third meal should be the heavy meal. Tender lamb-stew may be followed with a vegetable potpourri and a raw vegetable salad. The potpourri may be made by cutting up four or five vegetables--any except the potato--into coarse pieces, and cooking until tender in just enough water to keep from burning. Season with salt and butter.
The lamb may be alternated with raw egg beaten up with orange juice or milk, followed with vegetable potpourri and raw vegetable salad.
If the child is of good weight, it will probably get along better with the meat dinner for the third meal each day. If, however, the child is of light weight, the meat may be used for the third meal of the day about four times a week, and about three times during the week use one of the decidedly starchy foods in place of the meat with the potpourri and raw vegetable salad. The meat and starch dinners may be alternated. For the starchy dinners, a change may be made each day, using either baked potato, corn bread, whole-wheat bread, or rice, etc. The breads should be well dried out, so as to stimulate thorough mastication. They may be eaten with a little butter-- unsalted preferred--and followed with the rest of the meal. Milk may be substituted for meat or egg.
No Salt or Sugar Has Been Recommended.--I have not prescribed salt or sugar. Why add these condiments, when all children would thrive much better without them? If a salt-and-sugar habit is not developed in childhood, fiends for these life and health abbreviators are not so liable to be evolved after childhood.
Salt and sugar cause thirst, and thirst causes excess weight in some children and grown people, and poverty of tissue in others. The foundation for lifelong ill-health is often laid in childhood, in which salt and sugar play a large part, and to which rapid eating--failing to chew properly--adds very largely.
Medical nomenclature has a whole list of diseases peculiar to children. This peculiarity is largely built by feeding them starch with protein.
Eating milk and starch--milk and cereal or bread--at the same meal is a dietetic error that builds intestinal putrescence.
Why do I insist on no starch and protein at the same meal? Because I would prevent the "contagious" diseases "peculiar to children." The eruptive diseases will be done away with forever when children are no longer fed starch and meat or milk in the same meal. Intestinal putrefaction is the so-called contagion that is supposed to be the cause of infectious diseases epidemics. This is more fully explained in another chapter.
If it were not for teaching children table manners by example, they should be fed at a side table, or in a separate room, to keep them from wanting food which they see older people eat, but which is unfit for them.
FOURTH YEAR (three years of age ) TO SCHOOL AGE
Beginning with the fourth year: For breakfast, toasted bread and butter, which must be eaten dry, then follow with fruit; or give fresh fruit and all the milk desired.
At noon, toasted bread, vegetable soup made without meat or milk, and combination vegetable salad; or fruit salad (apple, orange, grapes), or any combination desired; in winter, the Delicious apple.
At dinner in the evening, toasted whole-wheat bread, Shredded Wheat, corn bread, or baked potato, with a reasonable amount of unsalted butter; follow with vegetable puree, or vegetable or fruit salad. Prepare the puree as follows: Cook equal parts by weight of spinach, cabbage, carrot, potato, and celery; run through, or rub through, a sieve or fruit-strainer; no dressing is necessary. A puree can be made of any combination of vegetables. Evening meals may vary: corn bread, butter, and salad; baked potatoes, or any toasted or dry bread, and unsalted butter, combination salad, ground or not, no dressing, or a salad of fruit if desired. Vegetables should be cooked tender and made into a puree, or the child may eat the vegetables without making them into a puree.
Dry or toasted whole-wheat bread should be the regular bread for children. Change occasionally to Shredded Wheat or other dry breads.
Children must be taught to eat dry breads before eating other foods at a meal, and positively no drinking should be allowed while eating. Americans will become toothless unless they learn to masticate and insalivate the foods, and unless they learn to feed their children in such a manner as not to produce intestinal putrescence, which cultivates "diseases peculiar to children"; keeping in mind that putrescence is built by feeding starch and protein in the same meal. Putrescence is at the bottom of early breaking-down of the teeth.
If the child is of good weight, the above starchy dinners may be alternated with a meat meal. Well- cooked lamb-stew, eggs, chicken, or fish, being the lighter meats, are the best for children. The meat should be followed with a large combination salad, and perhaps one cooked vegetable. Use the meat meals for about four nights a week, and the starch dinners for about three nights, where the weight is good. If the child is thin and needs weight, the starch dinners more often would suit better.
It is generally understood that meat should not be fed to children. This is true when it is taken in the same meal with starch, but the combinations of meat or milk and bread, or cottage or cream cheese and any food made from grains are altogether to blame for any bad results.
SCHOOL AGE
The undernourished child is a bugbear of about all mothers and most doctors. This fear has no foundation in fact, except in famine-stricken countries. In this country, overfeeding and sickness are universal. The fact is that sickness is expected--indeed, looked for--by everybody, and a child that has no sick report up to five years of age is a rarity--a rara avis.
Parents should know what causes enervation in children and know that an enervated child cannot digest food--any kind of food--as well as when not enervated. A child, when very tired, should not be given hearty food. If possible, it should be sent to bed supperless, or given fruit juice only.
Children often play too hard, and become nervous, cross, and hysterical. When parents see their children becoming nervous, loud, and boisterous, they should stop their playing and have them lie down until rested.
All the so-called epidemic diseases of children affect only those with a cultivated gastro-intestinal irritability, with frequent flares of indigestion--"catarrhal fevers." At the risk of springing an Irish bull, I will say that a child who is well will not be sick. A well-cared-for child--one free from petty indigestions--is free from enlarged tonsils, adenoids, etc.
Children should be fed three times a day, but they should not be urged to eat. When fussy for food at off hours, if they cannot take a piece of dry bread and eat it with a relish, they have appetite, not hunger. Clamoring for food, with no desire for plain, wholesome foods, is an indication of a morbid state--food-drunkenness--and should be corrected by withholding all food until a relish for plain food returns. Unless such strenuous measures are adopted, with children or grown people, disease of a serious nature will develop.
Children returning from school clamoring for food may be given an apple or orange.
Rapid eating, with insufficient chewing, must lead to digestive derangements. This is one of our national bad habits.
As soon as teeth are developed, a child should be taught to masticate well.
Several years ago I went on record as opposing the eating of starch (bread and cereals) and fruit together, because I observed fermentation frequently following that combination. I have since learned that the fermentation was caused by the milk that is almost invariably fed with bread, and insufficient insalivation, and by fresh bread and milk in combinations.
Breakfast.--Some form of starch such as toasted whole- wheat bread or Shredded Wheat, followed with fresh or sweet dried fruits. The bread should be well dried out and then toasted. Eat the starch first. Swallowing of starch should be delayed until the starch begins to turn sweet in the mouth, which it will do if the butter is unsalted and the bread carries but little. Those who would know when starch turns to sugar should demand bread and butter without salt. No one can insalivate moist or fresh bread as much as is necessary to insure the perfect digestion of starch; hence only dry or toasted bread should be eaten, and without salt in the bread and butter.
Occasionally a cereal may be taken in the winter time, dressed with a little butter and salt. The cereal should be cooked to a jelly. But only children in the best of health should be allowed this food, and then they should be taught to hold the cereal in the mouth long enough to mix it thoroughly with saliva before swallowing.
When the starch is all finished, fruit may be taken. Avoid the tart fruits where there is a sensitive state of the stomach. In winter time, use the Delicious apple or winter pear. When fresh fruit cannot be had, use dried prunes and pears, soaked over night, not cooked.
The black fig is a fine winter fruit food. In the summer time, fresh or cooked fruit (not too acid) may be eaten. Uncooked apples, or any cooked fruit, may be served. Occasionally baked apple may be given in place of uncooked fruit. When the meal is finished, teakettle tea, as much as desired, may be given. Cream and hot water (teakettle tea) after starch meals; milk and hot water (fifty-fifty) after fruit and cottage cheese or milk meals.
Lunch.--For lunch, toast and butter, as recommended for breakfast. Follow with a vegetable soup and salad. For children under seven years of age, the vegetables may be run through a vegetable-mill. The salad may be dressed with oil and lemon, or not, at the pleasure of the child. If no oil is used on the salad, more butter may be used on the toast.
Dinner.--Vegetable soup or puree, baked apple, prunes, or any cooked fruit, dressed with fifty-fifty milk and cream. Follow with as much fiftyfifty (milk and water) as the child wants.
If possible, feed children toasted bread that has been made without salt. Much bread contains a disagreeable amount of salt for even grown people who masticate and salivate as they should. Bolting food enables many people to eat bread so briny that it would be rejected if properly masticated. The popular craze for candy would be ameliorated if everyone would masticate and salivate starch as he should.
Children should be taught correct eating habits. Those who eat with the usual "limited express" speed will never know how much more bread they consume than they need. Such children should learn perfect mastication and salivation. "As a twig is bent, the tree is inclined"; hence the child should be taught to masticate. Ingrown habits are seldom, if ever, eradicated.
For children that are robust, full of "pep," and carrying good weight, the above dinners are sufficient. Where a child is lacking in "pep," and also in weight, the evening meal may be a little more substantial. Use meat one night and some form of starch the next, with a combination salad and one cooked vegetable. The lighter forms of meat should be used, such a lamb, chicken, fish, or eggs. The starches should be of the dry form most of the time, so as to produce thorough mastication. Occasionally baked potato, rice, or macaroni may be used. It is usually necessary, when the soft starches are used, constantly to insist on thorough mastication, in order to bring about the proper mixture of the starch with saliva in the mouth and prevent fermentation from taking place.
BREAD AND MILK FOR CHILDREN
NOT AN IDEAL FOOD--OFTEN A POISONBread and milk eaten together is a dietetic error; for it is eating starch and protein together. When we go to nature for our food, we may eat her compounds of starch and protein with impunity; for her compounds are blends of starch and protein, plus palpable and impalpable digestive elements, the latter securing or insuring perfect digestion. But when nature's food is analyzed and synthesized in our laboratories and kitchens, the aids to digestion are lost. Then, when eaten, indigestion follows.
Almost daily someone calls my attention to inconsistencies in my writings, saying that I have changed my opinion on many things; that my present writings nullify and make void much that is in books and magazines which I have written before. Yes, I am moving on, and I intend to make my present work obsolete, if possible. No one knows this better than I do! but since when has it become a crime to grow, to move on? People who are consistent are not growing. I would rather retire from the practice of my profession than be compelled to give up the use of the discoveries I have made in the past two years. My book, "Toxemia Explained," boils down and abridges much that has gone before, and the Cook Book gives my latest views regarding food and food combinations.
I have taught the error of eating meat and bread together for a number of years, but I have not until recently made the rule apply to all protein foods and starches. The "Cook Book" gives but few menus containing starch and milk. This will cause a mild storm of protest from many ex-patients, old and new readers. Some, no doubt, will turn to other health teachers in their pique; but they will wabble back in time. The majority will pursue the even tenor of their way and continue milk or fifty-fifty with starch, declaring the old teaching good enough for them. The old, moss-grown antediluvians, with their protest that "what was good enough for my sires is good enough for me," will be heard; for they are in at every food reform, and they will be heard on every hand declaring: "Bread and milk have been eaten always; bread and milk have been eaten together since bread has been made and cows have been milked." Yes, and diseases that are built by starch and protein continue to fill hospitals.
Milk, when not tinkered with, is a perfect food, containing all the elements necessary for bodybuilding, and is digested by the mouth and stomach secretions. Starch is digested by the mouth secretions. When the two are eaten together, the starch ferments, acid forms, and catarrh is built. All so-called diseases begin with catarrh.
The human animal is endowed with vitality which, if wisely conserved, may continue its life from one hundred to one hundred and fifty years. From the fact that the average life is not fifty years it is obvious that something is radically wrong in our manner of living, bringing about the assassination of the entire human race every fifty years. If we could guillotine the assassin--the hydra-headed monster whose heads are in continuous consultation, conspiring and evolving new and subtle schemes for inveigling the human family into camouflaged debaucheries, causing disease, premature aging, and death--we could in a few generations have youth and virile manhood coming into its greatest efficiency from seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-five years of age. The sensualism taught by this old hydra is made plausible to minds befogged by the drunkenness of sensualism, when assured that disease is the will of God and unavoidable, and attacks the ascetic as well as the indulgent. Besides, apprehension is assuaged by the great Science of Medicine, assuring immunity to all who submit to being immunized in time!
Disease is the sequence of wrong eating and sensualism-- overindulgence and pleasure-madness.
The commonest form of overindulgence is in eating, which develops, sooner or later, a sensitization--a systemic antipathy or aversion--to some particular kind of food. For example The excessive use of bread and milk, or bread and meat, in enervated and toxemic subjects, brings on a catarrhal state of the mucous membranes. In children this state is marked by frequent colds and catarrhal fevers. All the so-called diseases of childhood, including the eruptive fevers, are variations of one and the same "disease."
If children were never overfed, or fed when enervated, tired, or emotionally excited, they would be able to digest milk and bread together; but this is an ideal, the carrying out of which is possible, but not probable. Hence, to insure better health, and avoid putrescent infection contingent on eating starch and protein together, children should be given toasted whole-wheat bread, and instructed in perfect mastication and insalivation. When the bread is eaten, it may be followed with fruit, or teakettle tea made of cream and hot water, not milk and hot water.
Milk has been the subject of more controversy than any other food. The hue and cry of public health officers has been "pure milk--milk free from germs--milk from healthy cows," etc., etc. Cleanliness is certainly next to godliness--and far ahead of most godliness; but there is a world of knowledge that enters not into the calculations of the genial host of the laborator--namely, what is the digestive capacity of the child that is to be fed pure milk? If fed too much, the milk will ferment; for every child's digestive apparatus contains bacteria, and if fed beyond its capacity with certified milk, pasteurized milk, or milk passed by censors of high or low degree, it will decompose, without apologies to the highest tribunal of milk inspectors on earth. And, when it does, it is as disease-producing as the vilest of the vile. The food inspector's jurisdiction ends at the mouth of the baby, and with the teeth, adenoids, tonsils, and immunization of school children; but when adenoids and enlarged tonsils arrest the attention of the doctor, who is an ally of the public health and pure food commission, it is long after pure milk has been regularly fed into a seething gehenna of fermentation beneath the diaphragm of the child.
Fermentation from starch and decomposition from protein--milk--establish gastric catarrh; which means that the mucous membrane of the throat and stomach has become the seat of vicarious elimination of toxin, which fails to be eliminated in the regular way. Those crises of Toxemia are diagnosed tonsilitis or gastritis; and when there is much putrescence from the protein of the milk or other animal food, the type of sore throat will be ulcerative or diphtheritic. Scarlet fever, measles, and whooping-cough are varying types of a few of the symptom-complexes or so-called "diseases peculiar to children," but which are basically Toxemia--the first, last and only specific disease that animal life is heir to. All other so-called diseases are crises or systemic revolts, in which toxin is vicariously expelled from the body, and along with it any extraneous toxic or infectious material that may have fortuitously gained entrance.
Bread is cheap, and, to encourage its consumption by everybody, it has been dubbed "the staff of life." This is certainly not so. White flour has received the condemnation of dietists of high and low degree; and, if it were not for its intrinsic merits, it would have been consigned to the limbo of oblivion long ago. White flour has better keeping qualities --it remains in status quo much longer than the flours made from whole grain, because it is freed, in bolting of extraneous elements that force degeneration. If millers could clean wheat--remove parasites, smut, and fungi--whole-grain flours would keep equally well with white flour.
People with full digestive power can protect themselves from a large intake of fungi, but there is a limit to even the most robust digestions. Large bread-consumers come to the end of their toleration, marked by digestive derangements; and there is no cure except to limit the amount to within their toleration. Nerve-energy must be equal to the demand required to keep elimination equal to disintegration of tissue, if not, this toxic waste is retained, bringing on Toxemia--the foundation of all so-called diseases.
When the system is continually taxed by endeavoring to overcome ferments of all kinds--all kinds of stimulants, from bread, alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, and food excesses--energy is used up, enervation checks elimination, and Toxemia results. Then all kinds of symptom-complexes so-called diseases--become imminent. What the type will be depends upon what organs or tissues are stressed most from habits and environments. Stomach derangements follow abuse to this organ.
When bread and milk are eaten together, the organism has two enemies to resist. (Food eaten to excess becomes an enemy.) If an excess of bread is eaten, and fresh fruit and vegetables follow, the latter helps the digestion of the starch by opposing fermentation. If milk is taken with the starch, both ferment, and catarrh follows. Milk, when not tampered with by pasteurization, and the cow not being poisoned by vaccination, has per se self-protection--resistance to fermentation; but when starch is added, it ferments easily. But fresh fruit and vegetables (uncooked) taken with milk help its digestion.
Delicate men, women, and children are continually suffering from periodic attacks of indigestion brought on from eating bread beyond their toleration. The whole grain carries a digestant which, if not ruined in cooking, will aid the mouth secretions in its digestion. If milk is taken, it stimulates gastric secretion, which is acid, and the mouth secretion is alkaline. One neutralizes the other, leaving the bread and milk to take on a pathological fermentation instead of a physiological fermentation, and indigestion and catarrh follow.
Most people remember that when they were children and asked for more chicken, meat, fish or eggs, they were told: "No, you cannot have more unless you eat bread with it." Natural hunger calls for one food--a mono-diet; but mixing food has been taught, and bread, the staff of life, has been urged, and even forced. Today, in restaurants, the bread supplied is a gluttonous amount, while other foods are served in such frugal portions that people are forced to eat bread or leave the table with appetite unsatisfied. Hunger and appetite are not the same. Appetite is built by overeating.
LOST APPETITE
There are very few subjects talked more about, and about which there is less known, than feeding of children--malnourishment, loss of appetite, underweight, etc., etc.
Medical science generally is now guessing that vitamins have all to do with the nutrition of children. The vitamine insanity will follow the insanity on calories and ductless glands to death unwept and unsung. A few absolutely solid facts concerning the cause of disease in children will stop this everlasting search to find the cause of malnutrition.
It seems impossible for the medical mind to grasp one great, big, prominent fact about the disease of children, and that is that a child can eat too much, and that when it eats too much it loses its appetite. If the child were permitted to go without food until a demand was made by natural hunger, and if it were then fed plain, wholesome food, with very little of the palate-ticklers, it would not be long before full health would be established.
Someone was kind enough to send me a clipping entitled "Cause of Lost Appetite." The article starts out by saying: "Parents with offspring that have to be forced to eat will be glad to know that scientists are on the trail of the reasons back of lack of appetite." I do not care who the individual is who wrote that sentence; if he could possibly know the amount of stupidity that will give birth to such stuff, I do not believe he would have the nerve to undertake to teach the public health. In the first place, parents are fools, and made fools of by the average doctor, when they force children to eat. No one should be forced to eat. No good ever comes from it, and many children are made invalids by being importuned by mothers egged on by doctors.
The best possible remedy for lost appetite in a child is to keep food away from it until a real desire returns; then such a child will eat with a relish any of the staple foods. With the majority of people, when they undertake to coax a child to eat, the food offered is almost invariably unsuitable--in fact, the worst selection possible out of a dietary that has brought on the child's ill-health and loss of appetite, and of a character that is inclined to disturb the stomach and increase the child's ill-health, rather than to benefit it.
There is just one constant cause of lost appetite, and that is enervation, causing Toxemia. Overeating, imprudent eating, wrong food combinations, pushed to the point of satiety, are auxiliary causes. There is just one way to get away from this terrible affliction of lost appetite, and that is to go without food until the tongue is clean, the breath sweet, and the patient shows in every movement that health is restored. Many children are brought to me suffering with petit mal. What is the matter with them? Very few of them have a normal hunger. They all have appetite. They will eat something that is not fit for them to eat, and perhaps only nibble at that. Such cases I put to bed, and they are given no food until they have all the appearance of health. Then they are fed very little for perhaps a week, and the food is usually a little fruit, with raw-vegetable salads. As improvement takes place, hunger returns. A reasonable amount of whole-wheat bread is then added to the dietary, a few well-cooked vegetables, and later on milk; still later on, an egg or a very little meat once or twice a week. When I get through with these children, they will eat "out of your hand," and they will eat anything. It does not take an X-ray to find out whether they are sick; for health is pictured upon their countenances and upon the use they make of their bodies.
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