OUR BABIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2382, 24 December 1908, Page 9 (Supplement)

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygeia.)

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children.

TWENTY-THREE HOUR CURE (Continued.)

Wo repeat Dr. Northrup’s summary of essentials in his pica for pure cool air.

ESSENTIALS

(1) The twenty-three hour cure or twenty-three hour treatment consists in living out of the twentv-iour hours in the best obtainable, flowing, fresh air.

(2) The quality of cold or cool flowing fresh air is essential. Cold air may bo stale. Air may be oxygenated and free of odours and yet bo warm. The air should be flowing freely and cold. (3) Cold, fresh, flowing air has uniformly certain effects upon young patients". First they sleep. They remain quiet so long as they are in the open air, and sleep most of the time. The quieting effect is well proved. Second, they take more food, and assimilate it better.

(4) Patients in the open air rarely catch cold, much loss often than those kept habitually in warm rooms. EVENTFUL CAREER OF MONTHOLD BOTTLE-FED WEAKLING.

“The baby has been bottle-fed from the outset; he had been kept in a room-temperature of 70deg. to 72deg. Fahrenheit,, carefully guarded from draughts, which means from the ingress of fresh air, and fed on a preparation made up in the house from the family milk supply. 'When he came under my care he was not a proud specimen. He was thin, barely gaining at all, jumping and jerking, and sleeping indifferently. The family were extremely anxious about, him. . Since the baby did not thrive on modified milk alone I resolved to modify him also. I inaugurated a living in improved quality of air. The month was December (the freezing midwinter of New York), and the child four weeks old. Delicate -to an extreme degree would be the words to express tho child’s condition. “To restate the proposition: the infant was four weeks old, the month was December, the indications in regard to its care required the twentythree hour treatment. I may add the house was very large, facing south, situated half a block from Central Park, on a wide street. IVhat is more to the point, the nurse was excellent, and in the end I voted her the best nurse, I have ever known.

“Gradually the windows xycre opened, the doors into halls closed: the crib, which stood at first in die far corner, was gradually advanced to tlie open windows, and finally, after a couple of weeks, the .infant- was put in a laundry basket with an improvised carriage hood, and passed out on the balcony. Family friends who knew the baby’s delicate beginning of life were horrified, for tho weather was about average for December. The whole proceeding was frankly pronounced brutal, and predictions of awful accidents filled the conversation of chance callers. The father, who had a slight suspicion that this new boy baby was going to be - a great pride to his family name (and the baby’s first name hinted at rare links in famous historic lineage), had unconfessed anxieties and groans all to himself. For a few days the advance was slow and' uncertain. At Least nothing happened. Then the father’s face cleared a little, and the nurse’s face wore an expression of quiet courage,, and even of hope. OUT IN A LAUNDRY BASKET. “A month later. Scene on the first morning after a snowstorm: morning bright, snow' gleaming, waggon wheels whistling and groaning. Baby near the window, wrapped in its blankets, basket and window showing evidence of tlie nurse’s intentions. In . J ue ' time - tho window opened and snapi.ee shut, and the baby was out for his airing. Thefather, whose future lawyer or soldier son was thus punched out into tlx© elements in 'a thirty-five-cent. laundry basket,., was discovered hovering near, and the only expression which escaped him was,. ( Ah, the poor little maul’ and

lie departed. The tbermometci on •tlio easmcint near the basket i entered lOdeg. Fahr. I saw it mjsoti. _ “i mention these incidents Ucau.»e. they belong to the subject. 1 no mention of drugs, tor be ne ■’ has had .any, except one or two of castor oil. When the faillei Uu appeared, leaving las chad in basket alongside a thermometer ientering iOdtg. Fahr., and could a - no protest, only murium, lon it K man V tlio day was won. ilie naoy must bo tin mug. . , • rr n “Bo it was. The baby ktmed, slept, "piped tor his meals, and b ' again, M lie room was swimming vain an-. Oil rainy 'and snow days tie brought jusl within the dry spots on the balcony, and when tne gusts oi rain b.emne boisterous no *“ l j' brought nr, and the tjmiy-nve ceu t laundry basket was placed on table Lfw-ui two winnows, . never was -a norm-cast etcum m ***-•• winter or a combination of miovv, i foil, slush, or sleet which kept him from having all the bracing eftem winch'comes of colcL fresh, howi-g a ’ l ‘ RESULT.— During his little life, now of nearly seven- months, lie lias not lost more than one day of ieeuings. He had no colds, ho regularly gained„ all his functions were normal, and no one would ovei' cull ium ciciicate. Ho had lost all nervousness, is simply very bright, almost too bngb and alert for his own good, and is round, plump, happy, -normal. For twenty-three hours each day lie has lived in the cold air. Iho twenty-fourth has been devoted to bathing. It is simply astonishing to wil’dt bo became- accustomed* ile would lio on the bed without extra cover and kick and shout m a cold room in which one not accustomed lO it would fear to loiter. During the winter nearly everybody in the house had influenza. The party m the basket escaped. Every day and every night was the same to him. All was a joke. He loved company, no cooed and gurgled, and thought it all mu. The ..last word from the country is. ‘lie’s fit to burst his skin from rat.’ ” WHY DID THE GROWN-UPS CATCH COLD ?

This is not the least interesting part of Di. Northrup's narrative. The adults no doubt coddled themselves in warm, stuffy rooms, took little exercise, and if they became a little chilled were not in a condition to resist the host of invading microbes which lie in wait for ali or us.

In the closing remarks after the discussion which followed the reading of his paper, Dr. Northrup said:— AN HOUR OR TWO IS NOT ALL DAY.

The idea to be emphasised is that people will say the child is kept out all day when perhaps it has been out but an hour or two ; that is what brought out this paper. The word “hospitalism” has taken leave of the books of the Presbyterian Hospital for ever. Y> o dropped the temperature of the rooms and improved the veil illation. ~ The results have been so good that everybody, from the superintendent to tlio elevator boy and the man that takes out the ashes, is interested and convinced. That, however, is not what I had first in mind. It is simply to •keep the child well out in the open air many hours a day. and I purposely limited it to private practice. In a hospital you can do what you like, but in private practice, where there is perhaps a doting grandmother and many friends, it is the most difficult tiling to have your ideas carried out. The moro they love the children the more they will shut all the windows to guard them from draughts. 1 always feel quite sure about a patient that is out-doors. If before an open window and the warm room is behind it, the case is less sale.