OUR BABIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3142, 11 February 1911, Page 4

OUR BABIES.

- Published under the auspices of the j Society for the Health of Women and j Children. c “It is wiser to .put up a fence at < the top of a precipice than to main- i tain r.n ambulance at the wottom. i (By “liygeia.”) J 1 ADDRESSES OF PLUNKET NURSES i AND SECRETARIES IN NORTH ISLAND. < 1 Wellington.—Plunkct, Nurse APDonakl, J 73 Aro street. Tel. 2425. Hon. »ec., < Mrs. M‘Vicar, 45 Majoribanks : street, City. Tel. 2624. Auckland. Pliurket Nurse Chappell, Park street. Tel. SSI. Office of Soc- : iety, 2 Chancery street-. Tel. 829. Office hours Tuesdays and Fridays, 2.20 to 4 p.m. Hon. sec., Airs. AY. 11. Parkes, Alannoto, tiymonds street, Tel. 240. Napier.—Plunkct Nurse Donald, Atasonic Hotel. Tel. 87. Hon. sec., Airs. • E. A. AA r . Henley, P.O. Box 64. Tol. 147. New Plymouth.—Plunkct; Nurse Alur- ' ray, Imperial Hotel. Tel. 123. Office, Town Hall, Wednesdays and Fridays, 2 to 4 p.m. Hon. sec.. Airs R. J. Aiatthews, Fitzroy. Tel. 104. _ . Society’s Baby Hospital, Karitane 1955. Demonstrations on points or interest to mothers are given by the matron every Wednesday afternoon from 2.30 to 3.30. All mothers invited. Messages may be left at any time at the Plunkct Nurses’ Offices or private addresses. Tlie Society’s official eheex oi' instructions, written bv Dr. Trilby King, price 3d (postage free), and all other information available from the lion, secretary of each branch. PLUNKET NURSES’ SERVICES FREE. THE COLD BATH. For the last few weeks I have been dealing with the advantages of a daily cold bath, followed by active exercise, for healthy infants who have passed the age oi 18 months or two years. ALy -special reason for devoting so much space to this subject just now is the fact that tire summer season is the best of all times for instituting the cold bath, whether one is dealing with normal children. whom' one wants to maintain in good health and render still more vigorous. robust, and resistive to disease, or whether one has the charge of a delicate ailing child, whose system lacks the tone and stamina necessary for the proper nutrition and growth of the body, necessary also as a basis for tlie high spirits and radiant joy of perfect childhood. At this stage I am prepared to hear the mother of the Victorian out (the typical) mother of the last century, whose mistaken ideas have done so much to impose on the race our latterday curse of indifference as to maternity' and inability to fulfil its calls) — I am prepared to hear this mother or many irrational prejudices exclaim with uplifted hands: "Cold bathing lor delicate babies ! Is it* not had enough to suggest such hard usage for the strong? Are wo not to be allowed to tenderly shield and protect our infants when they are sick? AYliat new outrage is this?” I leave the answer to Air. Emmett Holt, professor of diseases of children at Columbia University. Professor Holt is universally recognised as possibly the highest authority of the day on this subject. He says under the heading "The Cold Sponge or Shower Bath” : THE COLD BATH OR SHOWEII BATH. This should ho -given in the morning before breakfast, and in a warm room. The child should stand in a . foot-tub containing warm .water enough to cover the feet, then a large sponge holding about a pint of water at a temperature of from 40dcg to 60deg Fabr. should he squeezed three or four times over tlie chest, . shoulders, and spine- of the child, the skin being rubbed meanwhile. I he bath should not last more than half a minute. It- should be followed by a brisk rubbing until a thorough reaction is established. This is very useful at all ages, but a particularly valuable tonic in. delicate children. It may be used in those only 18 months old'. Not the least of the beneficial results is the full expansion of the lungs from tlie strong cry which the hath usually excites. In younger in- , fonts a- cold plunge may lie substituted. This should he merely a single dip of the entire body in water at- a temperature of 50deg to GUtleg Falir. In order that beneficial results shall follow the cold plunge or cold sponging, a good reaction must he established?’ if children Hack sufficient vitality to secure this, and if they remain ■pale, pinched, and blue for same time after the hath, it must be di-scon- . tinned altogether, or water of a higher temperature used'. (From “Diseases of Infancy and Childhood,” by Dr. L. Emmett Holt. Page 57.) WHAT OTHER NATIONS ARE SAYING AND DOING. The above is the typical point of View of those whose opinion carries most weight in the United .States to-day; but I am prepared to find some mothers not willing to rely on American testimony alone, and inclined to trust rather to the more conservative physicians of the Old World. In this connection, prejudice against our cousins across the Atlantic is entirely misplaced, because during the last quarter of a century they have given infinitely more minute and painstaking attention to solving the • difficult problem “how best- to rear and educate our children” than any other •branch of the human race. In spite of great- strides in scientific and material progress, the Old World as a whole has lagged sadly behind in dealing with tlie recognised and. acknowledged tendency to racial degeneration which has dogged j the footsteps of our advancing civilisation,- and is summed up by the “Engcnists” to-day in the phrase “Eugenics or Extinction/’ However, of late years the Old World has been gradually waking up here and there to the need of paying some attention to things other than wealth, political economy, material progress, the advance of science in gen-, oral, and the nature and needs of plants 1 and the lower animals. The health, fit- ■< ness, and happiness of man himself are i beginning to lie realised is also w-orth • more than a mere passing thought. Men and women of hard common sense find ; themselves to-day echoing and paraphrasing tlie thoughts of Ruskin and re- l peating with more or less conviction i

hat the wealth of nations; lies in the reople themselves—in life itself, — not n mere hoardings and accumulations,: ,vbother of things material or of the mdless “information” and so-called “knowledge” of the schools. / THE LEAD IN GERMANY. In Germany practical- scientific ob- p serrations and researches dealing with the fundamental needs of child life, << undertaken during the last- 10 years, have clone much to make up for the \ apathy and neglect of the past. German physicians have long been pre-eminent in everything concerning bathing. They have spared no pains in order to arrive at reliable, finite .conclusions regarding the effects of water applied under varying conditions as to A temperature and duration of exposure, n etc. As tlie outcome of all that patient I research, we are left- in no manner or J? doubt concerning the enormous all-round \ benefits-derivable from the morning “cold t tub,” followed by a brisk rub clown and } active exercise. It was the Germans A who first of all clearly- formulated and a enunciated the conditions under which 1the greatest benefit might be derived 1 from cold bathing. They showed eon- ] clusively that in general, within reason- 1 able limits, the colder the water the 1 \ more invigorating was the effect on the i whole system, provided that the iinmer- ( sion or effusion was of short duration 1 —only momentarily at first, and oven j this stage arrived at by a suitable grad- i rial lowering day by day of the tempera- 1 tare of the water used. Granted these 1 I precautions (along with rapid undress- -I ing. vigorous rubbing down and quick I •dressing, followed by active exercise where possible, by the use of a .sufficiency of suitable warn:- wrappings to ensure prompt, comfortable reaction) — granted these things, it has been found that “hardening” by cold bathing is the . most powerful and heneficient agency ( for assuring physical and mental vigor • when the nursling stage of infancy is ' passed, and well cm into old years. •FIRST LINE OF DEFENCE. Along with proper feeding, fresh air and exercise, cold bathing has proved to < be the most efficient of all barriers against delicate constitution and the tendency to catch cold or fall a prey to consumption and other invaders ol the system. Further, it is found that the growth and development of the body are promoted, not stunted (as some bad supposed would be the case) by the use of measures comprehensively embraced under tlie term “hardening’’— .judiciously carried out. ILLUSTRATE 1) CASES. These conclusions, I.may say, are in entire accord with numerous practical experiences that have come under my own personal observation in connection with my work- of the Society for the Health of Women and Children during the last four years. In illustration 1 shall give some striking letters, next week, dealing with the case of a child with whom 1 have been kept more or less in touch for over three years —a child who from a state of great feebleness and delicacy lias been brought into a condition of vigor and robustness beyond that of the average child through deliberate systematic care and attention by parents in. Southland— the coldest province in the Dominion. — who have spared no pains in carrying into practice the hardening principles which I have been engaged in outlining —principles which will lie found embodied throughout the Society’s hook, “The Feeding and Care of the Baby,” in various places, from cover to cover, and discussed in some detail as regards cold bathing- in the last few issues of our column.