Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/118

 Before concluding the first part of my subject—the Management of Infancy—let me again urge upon you the importance—the paramount importance—if you wish your babe to be strong and hearty,—of giving him as little opening physic as possible. The best physic for him is Nature's physic—fresh air and exercise and simplicity of living. A mother who is herself always drugging her child, can only do good to two persons—the doctor and the druggist!

If an infant from his birth be properly managed,—if he has an abundance of fresh air for his lungs,—if he has plenty of exercise for his muscles (by allowing him to kick and sprawl on the floor),—if he has a good swilling and sousing of water for his skin,—if, during the early months of his life, he has nothing but the mother's milk for his stomach,—he will require very little medicine—the less the better! He does not want his stomach to be made into a doctor's shop! The grand thing is not to take every opportunity of administering physic, but of using every means of withholding it! And if physic be necessary, not to doctor him yourself, unless it be in extreme and urgent cases (which in preceding and succeeding Conversations I either have or will indicate), but to employ an experienced medical man. A babe who is always, without rhyme or reason, being physicked, is sure to be puny, delicate, and unhealthy, and is ready, at any moment, to drop into an untimely grave!

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON INFANCY.

115. In concluding the first part of our subject—Infancy—I beg to remark. There are four things essentially necessary to an infant's well-doing, namely, (1) plenty of