Page:Book of health.pdf/7

Rh A. Meal-pap, pancakes, and tough, heavy and fat meats.

Q. What harm do they do?

A. They obstruct the bowels: and children’s bellies get, by those indigestible meals, hard and swelled.

Q. What food is most suitable for children ?

A. Pure, unadulterated, new milk, and gruel; bread or biscuit boiled with water only, or mixed with milk.

Q. Is it proper to chew the food before you give it to children?

A. No. It is disgusting and hurtful.

Q. What is in general to be observed with regard to the feeding of children?

A. That they be regularly and moderately fed, and their stomachs not loaded with milk or other things. It is therefore necessary to prevent people from giving children sweetmeats, or food out of season; the feeding of the child ought to be entirely left to its mother.

Q. Do affectionate careful mothers act right when they take their infants with them to bed?

A. No. It is hurtful and dangerous: children ought, therefore, to lie by themselves.

Q. Is it necessary to keep infants very warm?

A. No. They must not be kept too warm.

Q. Is it good to cover their heads?

A. By no means; it causes humours to break out. From the hour of birth the head of a child ought to be kept uncovered. Mothers will find that, even in the coldest night, when they lay their hands on an infant’s head, it is always warm.

Q. Children are eager to stare at every thing, particularly at the light; what is to be observed with regard to this?

A. They ought to be immediately turned so as to have the object in a direct line before them; they