Page:The physical training of children (IA 39002011126464.med.yale.edu).pdf/261

 Genuine fresh milk, then, is one of the grand preventives, as well as one of the best remedies, for rickets. Many a child would not now have to swallow quantities of cod-liver oil if previously he had imbibed quantities of good genuine milk. An insufficient and a poor supply of milk in childhood sows the seeds of many diseases, and death often gathers the fruit. Can it be wondered at, when there is so much poor and nasty milk in England, that rickets in one shape or another is so prevalent?

When will mothers arouse from their slumbers, rub their eyes, and see clearly the importance of the subject? When will they know that all the symptoms of rickets I have just enumerated usually proceed from the want of nourishment, more especially from the want of genuine and of an abundance of milk? There are, of course, other means of warding off rickets besides an abundance of nourishing food, such as thorough ablution, plenty of air, exercise, play, and sunshine; but of all these splendid remedies, nourishment stands at the top of the list. I do not mean to say that rickets always proceeds from poorness of living—from poor milk. It sometimes arises from scrofula, and is an inheritance of one or of both the parents. Rickety children, if not both carefully watched and managed, frequently, when they become youths, die of consumption. A mother, who has for some time neglected the advice I have just given, will often find, to her grievous cost, that the mischief has, past remedy, been done, and that it is now "too late!—too late!" 271. ''How may a child be prevented from becoming Rickety? or, if he be Rickety, how ought he to be treated?''

If a child be predisposed to be rickety, or if he be actually rickety, attend to the following rules:

Let him live well, on good nourishing diet, such as on tender rump-steaks, cut very fine, and mixed with mashed