Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/144

 highly dangerous and even poisonous character, containing chromic acid, lead, copper, mercury, and arsenic, are commonly used in the coloring of such articles."

If a child be never allowed to eat cakes and sweetmeats, he will consider a piece of dry bread a luxury, and will eat it with the greatest relish.

159. Is baker's or is home-made bread the most wholesome for a child?

Baker's bread is certainly the lightest; and, if we could depend upon its being unadulterated, would, from its lightness, be the most wholesome; but as we cannot always depend upon baker's bread, home-made bread, as a rule, should be preferred. If it be at all heavy, a child must not be allowed to partake of it; a baker's loaf ought then to be sent for, and continued to be eaten until light home-made bread can be procured. Heavy bread is most indigestible. He must not be allowed to eat bread until it be two or three days old. If it be a week old, in cold weather, it will be the more wholesome.

160. Do you approve either of caraway seeds or of currants in bread or in cakes—the former to disperse wind, the latter to open the bowels?

There is nothing better than plain bread: the caraway seeds generally pass through the bowels undigested, and thus might irritate, and might produce, instead of disperse wind. Although caraway seeds whole are unwholesome, yet caraway-tea, made as recommended in question 97, is an excellent remedy to disperse wind. Some mothers put currants in cakes, with a view of opening the bowels of their children; but they only open them by disordering them. 161. My child has an antipathy to certain articles of diet: what would you advise to be done?

A child's antipathy to certain articles of diet should be respected: it is a sin and a shame to force him to eat what