OUR BABIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2450, 15 March 1909, Page 5

OUR BABIES.

(By Hygeia.) Published. under the auspices of the Society for the Promotion of the Health of Women and Children . QUACK FOODS AND MEDICINES. Anxious, expectant mothers write from time to time asking whether this or that patent food or patent medicine, which has been ' strongly recommended to them would be likely to prove beneficial. One can reply in general to all such inquiries that repeated investigations into similar substances have only served to show that the claims put forward are without foundation. Health cannot be bought or sold in packets or bottles. WENDELL HOLMES ON QUACKERY. Dr Oliver Wendell Holmes said half a century ago—“ There is no offence or danger in expressing the opinion that the community is still overdosed. The best proof of it is that no families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries .... Somebody buys all the quack medicines that build palaces for the mushroom —say, rather, the toadstool —millionaires. Who is it? These peoplo have' a constituency; of millions. The popular belief is all hut universal that sick persons should feed on noxious substances. A doctor was called not long since to a man with a terribly sore mouth. On inquiry he found that the man had picked up a box of unknown pills, in Howard street, and had proceeded to tako them, on general principles, pills being good for people. They happened to contain mercury, and lienee the trouble for which he consulted our associate.” The more we know of life the more obvious it becomes that health and vigor depend on very simple and more or less universally attainable conditions. There is no short cut to bodily fitness. The way is the same for all. All the progress that has been made during the last century in the science of medicine and surgery_ lias not served to advance us appreciably beyond tlio ancient Greeks as to the fundamentals for health. Indeed, it is only quite recently that we have attained to as clear a view as the ancients had regarding absolute essentials. They realised the conditions under which alone their ideal—the sound mind in the sound body—could be attained, and they handed down their imperishable conclusions to us and to all time. The fresh open air; exercise; moderation and regularity in food, drink, and habits generally; bathing; occupation; pleasurable recreation, etc. —these were recognised as the first necessities cf healthy living 2500 years ago, and there is practically nothing to add now. Or all factors hearing on the perfect health for mother and offspring the most essential is EXERCISE. 1. Sensory Exercise. —Stimulation through all sense channels, but specially stimulation through the skin by contact with the changing open air and sunlight, and stimulation through vision by light and the changing pageant of the outside world. 2. Motor Exercise. —In _ general when peoplo speak of exercise they mean essentially “voluntary motor exercise” (exercise of muscles through the will): but sensory functioning, sensory exercise, is ' even more important, because this is what “runs us,” this is the main source of stimulation of all our bodily machinery—including even the voluntary muscles, which, though under the control of the will, do most of their work and are kept in tone without the intervention of thought, or even the arousing of consciousness. As for the essential vital organs (nerve-centres, heart, lungs, digestive and excretary organs, etc.), they depend for their activities almost entirely on the stimuli coming to them through the sensory nerves. One cannot possibly overstate the advantages of active, open-air life. Most of our physical disabilities come from living in houses and not outside them! . Looking at what I have written, I am afraid that the right impression may not be conveyed. In upholding the need for sensory and reflex stimulation as contrasted with exercise of the voluntary muscles alone (if that were possible), I have been writing from the point of view of simple healthy outdoor exercise and recreation, contrasted with formal Sandow or breathing exercise done indoors for a short time each day. Of course, the latter does good, but a game of tennis, or —if one wants a less strenuous and less violent form of recreation (as is desirable during pregnancy) —a game of croquet where procurable, is infinitely better than any mere formal exercise, because almost all the senses are engaged as well as all the .-muscles, and there is also the enjoyment of the game and the associated social diversion. It goes without Saying that walking is excellent, and forms for most of us the staple form of recreative exercise but unless there are other resources as well, walking in the form of forced constitutionals is apt to become irksome, tiring, and monotonous. COTTAGE GARDENING.

The tending of a feiv favorite flowers, and even the growth of some small fruit and vegetables, in one s own garden is not beyond the reach 01 most mothers in these days of independent suburban cottages,. yet how few avail themselves of their advantages. The window gardens of Londoners, living in a vast crowded city, show how much could be done, to make the surroundings of our own homes a greater source of health and attraction to the whole family, and at the same time a way to health foi the wifo and mother who needs something to draw her out into the open air and sunshine.

OVERTAXED MOTHERS. Of courso there are some mothers lvhoso hands are so full from morning till night that they can scarcely find a moment for escape into the open air from the cares of housework and the tending of a numerous family of small children. What are such women to do, especially when another baby is expected? We can only suggest cooperation with a neighbor, if one. is available, who is willing to, take joint charge for, say, an hour or so every day in return for similar friendly help, in order that both mothers may feel securo of a daily respite for rest and outing. Surely a satisfactory arrangement could often be made with a helpful neighbor’s girl. It must be borne in mind that for. tho_ woman day long with