CHILDREN THEIR HEALTH AND HAPPINESS

A Ready Reference Book for Mothers Who Desire to Know How to Bring Up Their Children In Health

BY DR. J. H. TILDEN

COPYRIGHT 1928 BY J. H. TILDEN Denver, Colorado

(This book first appeared at the Soil and Health Library, an important source of books
on holistic agriculture, holistic health, self-sufficient living, and personal development)

FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
Care of Prospective Mothers During Pregnancy
General Care of Children
CARE AT BIRTH
WHEN BABY BEGINS TO NOTICE
BABYHOOD TO FULL MATURITY
Feeding Birth to Maturity
IF NURSING
FIRST TO FOURTH MONTH
FOURTH MONTH TO ONE YEAR
WEANING
ARTIFICIAL FEEDING
FIRST YEAR
SECOND YEAR
FIRST SIX MONTHS
SECOND YEAR
LAST SIX MONTHS
THIRD YEAR
FOURTH YEAR (three years of age ) TO SCHOOL AGE
SCHOOL AGE
BREAD AND MILK FOR CHILDREN NOT AN IDEAL FOOD--OFTEN A POISON
LOST APPETITE
Diseases of Children--So-Called
INHERITING DISEASE
INDIGESTION IN BABIES
INDIGESTION IN CHILDREN UNDER 10 YEARS OF AGE
CONSTIPATION IN BABIES
GRINDING TEETH
APPENDICITIS
GASTRO-ENTERITIS AND COLONITIS
CHOLERA INFANTUM
RICKETS--RACHITIS (RA-KI-TIS)
PARASITIC DISEASES
WORMS
SNIFFLES--COLDS--CORYZA
SORE THROAT
TONSILITIS
EARACHE
CROUP
CATARRHAL--SIMPLE AND SEPTIC OR DIPHTHERITIC
ERUPTIVE DISEASES
EXANTHEMATOUS OR ERUPTIVE FEVERS Measles, Scarlatina, Diphtheria, varicella (Chicken-pox), Variola (Smallpox), Typhoid Fever.
MUMPS
PNEUMONIA--BRONCHITIS
INFANTILE PARALYSIS
ENURESIS NOCTURNAL
BED-WETTING IS A LIGHT FORM OF NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN
CHOREA--ST. VITUS DANCE
PRICKLY HEAT
CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS OR SPOTTED FEVER
PETIT MAL A LIGHT FORM OF EPILEPSY
SEBORRHEA--A SCALP DISEASE OF BABIES--DANDRUFF
ECZEMA
HIVES
HERNIA
DISEASES OF THE GENITAL ORGANS
CIRCUMCISION
VULVITIS AND VAGINITIS
VACCINATION
CONVULSIONS
KISSING THE BABY
IS CRYING INJURIOUS?
HOLDING THE BREATH
PACIFIERS

FOREWORD

    THE laws of nature--or God, if you please--have been broken before disease manifests. Disease is a crisis, which means an effort on the part of the body to eliminate pent-up toxins. It is a systematic house-cleaning, and would not be necessary if irrational living had not brought on enervation, checking elimination and causing Toxemia. I must declare that there is no logic--absolutely no common-sense--in breaking every law of nature, as conventional civilization does, and, when retribution comes, endeavor to sidestep the consequences by getting under the cover of cure or prevention, which in no wise corrects outlawry or its penalty.

    Thinking people can know, if they want to, that disease is not what medical science teaches--namely, symptom-complexes caused by extraneous influences--and that it may not be prevented or cured by vaccines or serums. Disease, so-called, is nature's way of curing. A cold is elimination of toxin. To stop the symptoms means to stop elimination, which means forcing the organism to retain the toxins and gradually grow a larger toleration, until life is overwhelmed by a so-called acute disease or a chronic organic disease, which may end in the destruction of some important organ, or life itself.

    Disease is auto-house-cleaning, and all the treatment necessary is rest of body and mind. So-called treatment or curative measures are positively obstructive.

    Isn't it a fact that immunity to disease is natural? Man breaks down his immunity by building Toxemia and a cesspool under his diaphragm The only reason why people are ever sick is because their resistance is broken down. I say broken-down resistance advisedly; for if people who are subject to so-called epidemics are educated into proper living--proper care of their bodies--and they then live accordingly, they rise above the so-called disease-producing influences.

     INTRODUCTION

    TOXEMIA is the basic cause of all diseases. To prevent Toxemia, avoid enervation in children. Of all the nerve-destroying influences to which children are subjected, the most pernicious are those that cause fear--fear of failing in school; the displeasure of teacher and parents; stupid scolding by parents, whose only excuse is grouchiness from their own torpid livers, brought on them from eating bacon, eggs, liver, hot bread, and coffee for breakfast, or some other as vicious indulgence, which causes domestic bickering. Unhappy homes are a constant menace to the health of children. Parents should spare children an exhibition of their venom.

    Standing at the head of the list of causes of enervation in children is Fear. We as a people overlook the real menaces to health, and teach bacteriology, infection, contagion, etc. And, to immunize against these so-called influences, we vaccinate and contaminate the blood of children, thereby adding an ally to Toxemia and fear, to break down resistance still further.

    Just why the profession reasons so grotesquely concerning health, diseases, and their causes and treatment, is beyond understanding. The most obvious truth should be that 100 per cent health is all the immunization which an animal or a man needs. This being true, why not "get down to brass tacks," discard our rag-baby delusions concerning germs, contagions, infections, etc., and be taught by the obvious--namely, that health is the normal state, and that any influence that lowers nerve-energy lowers the health standard? Germs cannot be a cause, because they are ubiquitous--ever-present. If they are the cause of disease, no one would ever reach the state called health. So-called epidemics, contagions, and infections do not influence normal, healthy children. Who are the children that make up the sick list? They are found in homes where discontent, scolding, complaining, nervousness, loud voices, sharp rebukes, threatenings, fault-finding, disputes, arguing, castigating, are the daily routine. Real love and kindness are crowded out. Everyone is grouchy, and there appears to be a rivalry in seeing who can make the most cutting retorts. No care is given to eating, and little to the proper preparation of food. The best food will disagree when temper, irritation, and grouch prevail.

    Unpoised parents always have nervous children. Such homes have much use for doctors--medical men who talk of germs, pure milk, vaccine, serum, contagion, and a lot of inane bunk on that order, but not a word concerning the pure milk of human kindness, love, and sympathy.

    Fear in the homes and schools is the cause of about all the so-called diseases that belabor health officers and cause them to issue their bulls ordering vaccination, quarantine, tonsillotomy, tests, etc., etc.

    Fear enervates; Toxemia follows; after which any old so-called disease may start. Then complicate it by "regular treatment," and "say, boy!" you are in line for any unusual usual disease.

    That children are made sick by fear is not strange when we think of how fear is taught to children by parents and teachers, and then followed up by three professions--preachers, doctors, and lawyers; the latter enforcing the mandates of the doctors. The bogy devil and hell have gone out of fashion, but have been supplanted by the fear of germs and the dreadful diseases they cause, and the more dreadful brews concocted to scare away microscopic witches.

    These various usurpers of nervous energy are worthy an illuminating essay each; for all play a part in the denaturing of man, and by building enervation, lay the foundation for all so-called diseases by causing retention of toxin in the blood. When enervation is produced, elimination is checked, and Toxemia is established; then deterioration of the organism begins, subtilely at first, manifesting on organs most stressed by use and abuse, showing up as functional derangements, which subside, to recur at longer or shorter intervals, until organic change (pathology) is established.

    Lack of harmony in the homes is one of the most constant causes of enervation followed by Toxemia, and then the diseases "peculiar to children."

    Children suffer from this cause. Even the infant is made sick by the mother's milk, when the latter is irritated by the domestic infelicities occurring daily. Mothers are often subjected to the bestiality of sensual husbands, which prenatally curses the child; and the pernicious influence often remains throughout its life. Read Tilden's "Toxemia Explained."

    

Care of Prospective Mothers During Pregnancy

    PROSPECTIVE mothers should hold in their consciousness the ideals on the lines of which they would have their children evolve. A passive wish will not etch into the nervous system of the prospective child a formative desire--the mother must live her desires. Honesty must be lived--not simply paying debts agreed upon, but doing unto others as she would have others do unto her. This commandment, which is the foundation of ethics, is acted upon perfunctorily and ostentatiously by convention; but there is no soul-building force in it, and the mothers who would transmit ideal traits to their children must live them. In the performance of this function they may fool their neighbors, their friends, and their God; but they cannot fool the laws of biology--the laws of their being.

    The grasping merchant prince transmits kleptomania to his beautiful daughter; the sins committed in secret are declared from the housetops; the tippling mother transmits dipsomania to her son; and the lustful parents stamp nymphomania on the daughter and libertinism on the son.

    The reckless disregard for law and order that is racing rampant throughout the world is the materialization of the unholy practices etched into the plastic nervous system of children by parents.

    Mothers, would you have your children normal, self-controlled, and happy? Then you must be. Do you want to have a normal--which is an easy--labor, and be able to nurse your child? Then live normally; avoid gluttony; control your emotion; learn to be poised; study (not read) "Toxemia Explained," and the "Cook Book." Cultivate the study and thinking habits. Enlarge your vocabulary by daily reference to a good dictionary. We cannot without words learn to think--stamp ideal habits on our children. We shall not need prohibition and other stupid laws when the mothers of our country cease to be food-drunkards and sensualists.

    Fathers who are unwilling to do their part in the betterment of the coming race should not assume the responsibility.

    Men and women must know more concerning their influence in shaping the lives of their children. Excesses of parents dull, and even inhibit, the moral development of children. Moral idiots are begotten in lust and conventional drunkenness. If the race is deteriorating, the fault lies in the habits and daily doings of parents.

    If a mother wishes to have an obedient child--one that is sensible and lovable--she should live a sensible and lovable and obedient life herself, practicing self-control continually. If a mother would have a normal child, she must live a normal life.

    Exercise.--All through pregnancy the tensing exercises, as given in my book, "Toxemia Explained," should be practiced daily. For the first few months, all the exercises may be used. As time goes on, the exercising may be a little less vigorous, selecting those exercises which do not bring much strain on the abdomen.

    A limited amount of walking, housework, etc., may be carried on, always being careful about overstraining when lifting.

    Bathing.--During this period the body should be kept particularly clean by giving the skin plenty of attention, so as to keep the skin-circulation as active as possible and elimination perfect. A warm sponge-bath should be taken, either night or morning, a thorough dry-towel rubbing should be given at night, or vice versa. Once a week the sponge-bath may be replaced with a hot-tub soap and water-bath, being careful not to soak the body too long in hot water. Hot-water bathing is enervating.

    Douches.--If there is any leucorrhea, or any other discharge from the vagina, a douche should be taken each night before retiring, until it has subsided. Use quite warm water, with a tablespoonful of salt to the gallon of water.

    Enemas.--If the bowels fail to move during the day, before retiring at night use a small enema of a pint of water. Put it into the bowels, allow it to remain for a short time, and then solicit a movement. If no results are obtained, do not worry--just let the bowels alone. If they do not move during the next day, repeat the enema at night.

    Kidneys.--At least once a month, from the beginning of pregnancy, the urine should be examined by someone qualified to do so, to ascertain that all is well and no albumin is showing in the urine.

    Corsets.--If a proper amount of exercise is taken regularly before pregnancy, and the ligaments and muscles of the abdomen and pelvis are so strengthened, very little support will be necessary. It is better to have as little binding as possible; but, if a support is necessary, there are some well-fitting maternity corsets on the market which are a great help. Supports are not necessary when eating and exercise are correct in amount.

    Eating Habits.--The mother should not change her habits of eating during this period, except to see that she does not overeat. The breakfast should be light--merely a little fruit, such as apples, pears, oranges, grapefruit, berries, or any fresh fruit, according to season.

    At noon, have a vegetable soup, prepared according to the directions given in the "Cook Book." Follow this with a good big combination salad.

    At night, have the regulation Tilden dinners: meat one day, with two cooked, non-starch vegetables and a combination salad; the alternate days, a decidedly starchy food in place of the meat, with the vegetables and salad.

    All fancy foods, such as pies, cakes, and desserts of all kinds, should be sidestepped. Just live as simply as possible.

    Prospective mothers should watch their weight during pregnancy. Just before confinement a woman should not weigh more than ten pounds above her regular weight. At the beginning of pregnancy the increase in weight should be very little and the gain very gradual. If the weight increases too rapidly, the intake of food should be cut down, so as to hold the weight down.

    Mothers should not follow the custom of eating for two, building excess weight, and suffer from the symptom-complexes of swollen limbs, varicose veins, kidney burden, Toxemia, surgery, enlarged womb, uterine catarrh, misplacements, fibroid tumor, and, in ten to twenty years, uterine cancer, etc. Children born of such parents develop into mediocre human animals. Their most characteristic inherited tendencies are appetite and passion. They mature early, and their sex-complex drives them into lust and every excess that gives a thrill. They soon bring on pronounced enervation and imperfect elimination, establishing chronic Toxemia, after which the organism subtilely builds organic disease. The tubercular diathesis builds pulmonary tuberculosis, after going through all the preliminary crises of Toxemia--namely, all the so-called catarrhal diseases. The mind and nervous system have their symptom-complexes. The glandular--the ductless and duct glands--have their share of composite derangement wished on them by Toxemia, occupation, and habits.

    A child born of a gluttonous mother may die of childbirth injuries, or subsequent so-called diseases caused by disagreeing mother's milk or the hazards of post-natal readjustment

    What is meant by post-natal readjustment is that a plethoric infant (a fat baby) will continue obese, and come to a premature end unless he is properly reduced. To do so requires much time Readjusting means proper food and exercise, continuing over a period long enough for the cell-tissue to be biologically educated out of its hydropic habit. Obesity is a disease, and, as in the case of all so-called diseases, when the cause is removed nature must have time to return to the normal.

    Few fat people have the self-control to live in a manner, and for a sufficient length of time, for nature to get back to the normal. The same is true of all those suffering from all other so-called diseases. Should the fat boy live to maturity, his reproductive function will lack virility; and should he reproduce, the progeny would lack virility and vitality, and would die early. Most children of this type die within the second year, or suffer with digestive derangements, lose weight, become underweight from malnutrition, and continue throughout a life of thirty to seventy years of semi-invalidism. Fat babies are prone to die of diseases "peculiar to children." They do not bear up well under the so-called contagious diseases.

    Morning Sickness.--Morning sickness is nature's punishment for past sins committed. Prospective mothers who have morning sickness have abused their privilege in all lines. They have sought pleasure to excess, have danced too much, and have imprudently cooled the body after being heated, by sitting in a draft, drinking too much water or soda-fountain beverages, or chilling the stomach too frequently with ices; and in their every-day lives they have eaten too much, too frequently, and of improper food combinations, and neglected to masticate and insalivate starchy foods properly. Instead of eating a reasonable amount morning, noon, and night, many have eaten five times a day, and sometimes oftener. The human body has its limitations, and everyone should try to learn what they are, and then respect them. The commonest drunkenness is food-drunkenness. Physical and mental pleasures enjoyed to excess are a form of drunkenness, and sooner or later bring on enervation. Those who are enervated fail to eliminate the waste-products of the body as fast as necessary, and toxins are retained in the system, bringing on what I define as Toxemia. People in this state are in line for catching colds, coughing, and having the lighter forms of so-called diseases, such as colds, headache, sore throat lasting a few days, fits of indigestion, constipation, and other so-called diseases.

    A young woman getting married, after bringing on this state of her organism, is almost invariably troubled with morning sickness, because in all such cases there is a gastro-intestinal indigestion, if not catarrhal inflammation. A sensitive, catarrhal stomach is the commonest derangement of people who ordinarily pass as normal or healthy. Pregnancy in such subjects is accompanied by an extraordinary state of the stomach, which is called morning sickness--often it is an all-day sickness. These subjects continue abusing themselves with irregular eating and imprudent eating, which aggravates the so-called morning sickness. Those troubled with morning sickness should fast a reasonable length of time, and, when indulging in food, they should take a little fruit for breakfast. If fruit irritates the stomach, or the stomach rebels by becoming nauseated, this feeling should pass off before any more food is taken. If the discomfort lasts during the forenoon, no food should be taken at noon. Hot water, sipped slowly, in place of food, should bring some relief, and, to quiet the irritation of the stomach, hot water may be sipped at intervals all the forenoon. If the afternoon is spent in comfort without nausea, a light dinner should be indulged in in the evening--a small piece of broiled steak, a lamb chop, or any other meat desired, with one or two properly cooked vegetables and a combination salad. Bread or starches in any form should not be eaten. Certainly no eating of an improper character should be indulged in, such as cake, ice-cream, custard, as these will increase the nausea and prolong a recovery.

    When comfortable, plain eating should be the rule: in the morning, if the stomach will accept it, a piece of dry toast, eaten without butter, masticating each morsel until liquefied in the mouth, and then followed with orange juice and water half and half, or any table beverage ordinarily used, except tea or coffee; at noon, fruit; and in the evening, the regulation dinner, similar to the one mentioned above. Avoid heavy eating until the nausea has entirely disappeared; then respect digestive limitations. Remember that self-control is transmissible.

    Care of the Breasts After Childbirth.--Breast-pumps are builders of abscesses, if they are not used properly. When mothers are forced to their use, they should have them manipulated by someone who is well skilled in their use. I never advise the use of the breast-pump unless absolutely necessary. If there is no abuse or bruising of the breasts, there will be no cause for abscesses.

    If for any reason it is necessary to dry up the breasts, it is not necessary to resort to the breast-pump to draw off the accumulated milk. This is often the cause of abscess. It is not necessary to take away the milk. If the breasts become feverish and swollen, the mother should lie down and put dry warm or hot applications over them. They may be painful for a short time, but it does not take more than a day or two to start the drying-up of the milk. This procedure is much safer and quicker than the use of the breast-pump. The milk dries up very rapidly after it has once started to do so. After about twenty-four hours of being swelled to the fullest capacity, the breasts begin to decline.

    If the nipples become inverted, they should be drawn out daily and gently massaged.

    The nipples may be hardened by gentle massage and daily washing with cold water.

    Miscarriage and Abortion.--The word "abortion" means throwing-off of the foetus before the third month. It may be criminal abortion or brought on accidentally. After the third month it is called miscarriage. Abortions are frequently caused by over-excitement, long and tiresome rides, lifting and straining in housework, or excessive venery. This last-named cause is common to those wives whose consorts are sadly in need of knowledge of the true relationship of husband and wife. Excess brutalizes both husband and wife, breeds contempt, and often curses children before birth.

    Mothers should keep quiet following an accident of the above-described kind. They should use hot douches three times a day. If there is pain, the family physician should be called. If no disagreeable symptoms appear, perhaps all that is necessary will be to use hot douches two or three times a day. No drugs are to be used in the douche, except a little salt or soda. When a disagreeable odor develops, a good doctor is needed. Cleanliness is the main thing; but, if there is any discomfort or fever following, a physician should be called who will give intra-uterine treatment. Neglect may cost a life.

    

General Care of Children
CARE AT BIRTH

    IF THE labor has been hard--if the mother has been in labor from six to twenty-four hours, and is quite worn out the baby should be anointed with some bland oil, like olive or cottonseed oil, wrapped in cotton, and laid away where it can be perfectly quiet and warm for twenty-four hours. Babies, under such circumstances, are pretty well worn out, and they should not be handled enough to bathe and dress them soon after birth, as is common. Pay no attention to feeding--rest is all that is necessary. In twenty-four hours the child should be bathed in warm water--soft water, if possible--using the best castile soap, or a toilet soap that is known to be mild. If everyone connected with the case will be better satisfied to have a bandage on the child, put one on. I always acquiesce in this superstition--in fact, I acquiesce in all superstitions that are innocent; slight variations without a difference that do not amount to anything; anything to keep people from worry and anxiety. After the child is dressed, it may be put to the breast.

    Concerning the wearing apparel: If wool is used, it should be very soft. Linen is better, and soft cotton will do. I do not believe in dresses. A long, soft, cotton-flannel or linen gown is about all that is necessary to put on a child. A change of gowns can be made without tiring the child. When gowns are used, they can be changed as often as is necessary without much trouble.

    If the child has come into the world tired because of the mother's long or hard labor, it is perfectly natural for its body to be a little sore. This causes it to be restless, and it needs its position changed often. After the washing, the body should be anointed with oil, and gently rubbed with a soft hand from head to foot to rest it Aside from slipping on a gown, nothing but changing the position or giving it the breast is necessary, night or day. Feeding at night should never be started.

    It is a very great mistake to put a newborn baby on exhibition, because handling it, throwing a strong natural or artificial light into its face, so people may inspect it, loud talking, laughing, etc., in the same room where the baby is, use up its nerve-energy and creates more or less enervation.

    
WHEN BABY BEGINS TO NOTICE

    Do not feel that it is necessary to entertain babies. They should be left alone, to learn how to entertain themselves. Babies and children who have entertainment furnished them make very dependent grown people--the kind who are lonesome and homesick when a time comes, which it will, for them to take a rest cure. Children brought up without education in self-entertainment and self-control break all laws of man and nature, and end in hospitals, penitentiaries, and premature death. Every child should be allowed enough time to become acquainted with, and learn to entertain, itself. All that is necessary until a child is able to turn itself over in bed is to change its position. Eternal attention builds an egotism that is ruinous.

    
BABYHOOD TO FULL MATURITY

    Bathing.--The baby should be given a daily bath from birth, but not a daily soaking. Many children suffer from depletion of their vital energy by being overbathed---soaked--in water. The daily bath should be given quickly, using warm water--neither very hot nor very cold. The sponging-off of the body should be followed with a brisk, soft dry-towel rubbing. Your children need to be bathed in a warm room.

    Two or three times a week for the first three months a baby's body may be anointed with oil, rubbed well, and then the surplus wiped off with a soft cloth.

    Once a week a warm soap-bath may be used, thoroughly scouring the body and rinsing well.

    The temperature of all baths should be about blood-heat. During hot summer weather, after the second year, a cool bath may be used; but children that have weakened hearts should not be subjected to cool or cold water.

    The less soap used, the better. Of course, with growing, active children it is necessary to use some soap, in order to keep them clean; but the use of much soap ruins the self-cleansing function of the skin.

    The bath, from babyhood up, may be given at the most convenient time, either morning or evening. Many homes are not warm enough in the morning for bathing in comfort. However, it is well to establish a regular bathing hour.

    Children should be taught early to keep their bodies clean. Hot houses and clothes make bathing necessary, and the skin which is not cleansed properly has a peculiar odor. As soon as they are old enough, they should be taught to take their own daily baths. Water of about blood-heat may be drawn in the tub to the depth of a few inches. The child may squat or stand in the water, and, using a sponge or the hand, bring the water well over the body, using a little soap on the parts requiring special attention. The soap should be thoroughly rinsed off. Then follow with a brisk towel-rubbing.

    A short rubber hose, with spray attachment on the end, allows the bath to be given quickly, and the child enjoys its use.

    Children should be taught to keep the genital organs clean--washing them as often as the face, eyes, and ears. This cleanliness will remove the cause of irritation which leads to self abuse. Irritation from lack of cleanliness is followed by rubbing of the itching parts--the genitals--and this ends in onanism.

    The entire surface of the body must be kept clean. The skin is just as much an organ of the body as the stomach, liver, etc., and a neglected organ becomes diseased. Then, through sympathy, other organs become less efficient. Cleanliness leads to godliness.

    The mucous membrane lining the intestinal tract, air-passages, etc., is the skin within, and it is in sympathy with the skin without. Neglect to either reflects on the other. It is no uncommon thing to see people suffering from indigestion due almost entirely to a neglected surface of the body.

    And so-called skin diseases, including eruptive diseases, follow on the heels of gastro-intestinal derangements brought on from carelessness in eating. Intestinal putrescence is the basic cause of eruptive diseases.

    Air- and Sun-Baths.--As soon as it is possible, put the child on its face--I mean allow it to lie on its stomach. When the weather is warm and the room comfortable, and the sun shines through the window, very young babies can be given sun-baths. Put a soft comforter on the floor, and put the child down on it, face down. There is no danger of its smothering. Children treated in this manner will walk earlier than children who are kept on their backs continually. It is a mistake to leave a child on its back all the time. That is the reason why I suggest that when very young they should be changed from side to side. The sun-baths, to start with, should not be of long duration--say, five or ten minutes. The babies then can be left nude on the floor out of the sun for quite a while, if awake. When a child goes to sleep, or appears sleepy, it should be put in its bed. The child must be watched during the sun-bath. Those of low resistance may become chilly, and they should be returned to bed at once. The next air-bath should be in a warmer room, watching the child to avoid chilling. Many children are forced into ill-health because of lack of air and an overheated state of the surface of the body.

    Young children should be taken out of doors on all warm, sunny days; but they should not be chilled. Resisting cold uses up nerve-energy. When the feet are cold, it becomes a constant drain on the nerve- energy, and will soon bring a child to a state of enervation that leads to indigestion.

    Older children should not be allowed to sit with cold or damp feet. This chilling will hinder digestion.

    Care of Beds and Sleeping-Rooms.--The beds should be scrupulously clean. Bed-pads should be used on top of mattresses, so that they can be replaced frequently. It is a very great mistake to allow children to sleep on mattresses without pads; for the mattresses will become soiled so frequently that it will be a source of great expense to replace them as often as cleanliness and the children's health demands. If pads are used, they can be washed and changed often.

    The sleeping-rooms of children should be aired thoroughly through the day. Beds should be opened, and, if possible, the bed-clothing should be put in the sun.

    Clothing.--Children should sleep in nightgowns, which should be changed as often as twice a week.

    During the hot weather, when the days and nights are warm, as they are in many of the southern and central states, babies should not be overdressed. They should sleep under light covering. When the nights are pleasantly cool, they should sleep in pajamas with closed bottoms at the feet.

    In very hot weather, babies should be dressed as lightly as possible. To go almost naked is a great comfort to children in hot weather; but when cold weather comes they should have sufficient clothing to keep from chilling.

    Clothing that children wear should be of a washable nature--not too heavy. Why should a child be overclothed in a warm house? The feet of children should be watched, and kept dry and warm. Overshoes for winter weather should always be used, and the overclothing should be heavy enough to protect them from the weather. I do not advocate wool next to the skin. Cotton or linen is good enough. Underwear is not necessary. Care for the skin, and teach it to be a protector and not to need protection.

    Overheated houses and overclothing cause enervation of the skin; and an enervated skin does not protect the body well. The clothing in the home and schoolhouse, if well heated, should be light even in winter; and then, when the children go out of doors, the outer clothing may be of a much heavier weight--long overcoats and high overshoes and leggings, if they are to play in the snow.

    Children should wear long stockings in cold climates. It is all right to have them wear short socks in a temperate climate all the year around, but in the colder climates the long stockings should be used when the weather begins to get cold.

    Mothers who are aware of the fact that they are not strong and that consequently their children are not strong, should give their children more careful attention than the mother who knows that she is husky and her children are husky. Too many mothers try to harden their children after they have a bad start at birth. There is so much difference between children that different rules of care must be applied to different families.

    Babies Must Be Kept Warm.--All young children must be watched carefully, to see that they do not chill at night; or, for that matter, they must not chill at any time, day or night. If a child is to thrive, it must be kept warm. To allow a sick or frail child to chill every day will eventually kill it, no matter how good care it may receive otherwise. The feet should be felt frequently, to make sure that they are warm. Artificial heat should be used, if necessary. Even in the summer time the feet may chill without artificial heat. A woolen blanket should be used to wrap the feet in when there is danger of chilling. A sickly child has no power to warm its own body, and it must be warmed artificially.

    Care of Napkins.--The baby's napkins should be changed as soon as they are wet. When the napkin is removed, the body should be sponged and cleansed wherever the parts are wet. The napkins should always be washed before they are used again. To use a napkin that has been wet with urine and dried without washing causes a great deal of skin irritation. Cleanliness will cure all skin irritations of this kind.

    Perfume or talcum powders with a decided odor should not be used; for such odors cover the body odors and often mislead. The odor of the body is a sign which mothers need in caring for their babies. It is all right to use a little plain cream on the irritated parts after washing thoroughly, and a little plain talcum powder; but do not overdo this.

    Poised Mothers.--Poised mothers reflect this quality in their children. Mothers who have no self-control and no poise should not expect to have poised children. The habit of poise should be formed long before conception, and then continued during the nursing period and on through maturity.

    Weight.--The weight of the child, even at birth, depends much on the build of the parents. One should not expect to find a so-called fat baby where the mother and father are of the long, lean type. This is why the rules and tables for weights of children are so absurd. They do not take into consideration at all the parentage of the child.

    When mothers watch their eating, and restrict themselves during pregnancy so as to have a normal and natural childbirth, the baby should weigh from three to six pounds. The rule is that there is no gain the first week, and neither is there much of a loss. In fact, children that are born of mothers who restrict themselves during pregnancy do not gain so much the first year as overfed children of overfed mothers, but they are much safer, so far as health is concerned, than those who gain so rapidly. Such children will be much more healthy and active. The gain during the first six months is usually from three to six pounds. There is nothing like the mother's milk to keep the gain in weight regular. Changing from one food to another always interferes with the proper development and gain in weight of the child. There are many things which occur during the first year to interfere with the steady increase in weight, and it is bound to vary from time to time. Mothers should not worry so much about the weight of their children, but pay more attention to their physical comfort, letting that be the guide in their care.

    The fat child is supposed to be healthy, but a slender, wiry child always has a better chance for development and maturity than the overfat, roly-poIy child. A fat child is an incumbered child.

    Teething, Talking and Walking. --There is no hard and fast rule which can be laid down regarding the proper age for walking, talking, and teething in babies.

    As to walking, parents who eat beyond their needs, making themselves stupid and dull, should not expect to have a child that will walk early in life. It will have a slowly developed nervous system, and this may handicap it for life. An active child, born of active parents who have had some self-control in their early lives, will walk early. Such children may walk at nine months of age. If walking is delayed too long, up to the approach of the second year, there has probably been a little paralysis--infantile paralysis--so light that it has not been noticed, that is retarding the walking in the child.

    As to talking, it is governed by about the same principles as walking. Active, bright children, born unincumbered, will talk earlier than sluggish, heavy children. It is usually the small--or what is known as the undersized--child that talks early--at nine months or even earlier. By the end of the first year the child should begin to talk; but, if this has been delayed, the cause may be the same as the cause of delayed walking--a slight paralysis.

    As to teething, there is also a great variety in this particular function in babies. Even in the same family the date for the appearance of teeth varies. Usually about the fiifth month the two central lower teeth begin to appear, and then the four upper teeth in the center about the eighth month. From the end of the first year to the eighteenth month the other front teeth follow. At the end of the first year the child usually has six teeth, at eighteen months twelve, at two years sixteen, and at two years and a half, twenty teeth.

    If children have trouble at teething time, it is due to overfeeding, which brings on indigestion. If the teeth are slow in developing, there may be a lack of some of the body-building elements in the food that is being used.

    Care of the Eyes and Month.--Sprue is a whitish, stringy-like substance that collects in the mouth, under the tongue and around the gums--in fact, all over the inside of the mouth when the condition is bad. It is caused by too frequent feeding from a mother who has eaten too much of the starchy foods. If a child is properly fed, and not fed more than three or four times at the most in the daytime, and not at all during the night, there will be no trouble of this kind.

    If, however, the condition appears, it can be overcome without much trouble if the mother who is nursing the child will cut out all the starchy food for a few days and eat more freely of the fresh fruits and raw vegetable salads, together with the regulation dinner in the evening, consisting of meat, cooked vegetables, and salad.

    I do not approve of any of the mouth-washes that are suggested to be used at such a time. This is merely palliation, and the real cause, not being recognized and done away with, will build more trouble in the future. It means that the mother is building an acid condition through her overeating on starch; and this will build further trouble for her also later on.

    There should be little or no trouble with the eyes of a baby, if it is properly cared for. One of the principal things to watch is the cleansing of the wash-cloth that is used on the baby's eyes. In fact, the wash-cloth should be used on the body of the child, but a small piece of cotton should be used on the eyes, mouth, and the parts of the body where there is any secretion to be removed. Then the cotton can be thrown away and a new piece used each time. The eyes should be bathed in warm water. If there seems to be some irritation, a little salt may be added to the water, but nothing else.

    Daily Habits at School Age.--Children just beginning school should retire at eight o'clock at night in winter. Those who have been in school several years may remain up until nine o'clock. In the summer time, when school is not in session, the retiring time may be an hour later for each age.

    School children would be able to do twice as much work at school, and very much better work, if arrangement could be made for an hour of sleep, or at least rest on the bed, at noon. Parents would do well to demand two hours at noon, so that the children may come home and have an hour of rest--rest, not recreation--and then take time to eat their lunches and not be compelled to rush the food into the stomach. Children not of school age should have a one-hour rest every day after the noon meal. Those under four should also have an hour of rest during the forenoon.

    Children should not have home studies. They should take just such work in school as they can do during the school hours. The plan of having to spend the entire evening preparing the lessons for the next day is a tremendous handicap for children.

    Sleep.--As stated above, children of school age need rest aside from the night's sleep. Babies under two or three years should have as much sleep as they can possibly get. If a child is restless and cannot sleep, it means that the nervous system is worn out, and it needs to have food kept from it until the nerves have had time to settle down. Then the amount of food should be kept within the digestive limitations, as evidenced by a poised state of the nerves. Mothers need a rest in the middle of the day, as well as the children, therefore the habit should be built of mother and child going to bed for a rest after the noon meal. Remember that it takes nerve-energy for digesting food; and there is nothing which renews nerve- energy so quickly and safely as sleep and rest.

    
 

Feeding Birth to Maturity


IF NURSING

FIRST TO FOURTH MONTH

    HOW often should a child be fed? This is a question that will continue to be asked as long as children are born, and the answer will vary according to the prejudices, superstitions, and customs of the locality in which they are born. If babies are allowed to rest as they should, without handling and fondling, they may be fed about three times a day for one or two days. A child that is permitted to rest all it can, and has not been injured in childbirth, will probably not awake oftener than three times in twenty-four hours. It is a very silly, foolish thing to awaken a child to put it to the breast. I have found that for the first three or four days after birth the baby will sleep nearly all the time--probably twenty-three and one-half hours out of twenty-four.

    At the beginning of the second week or the end of the fourth or fifth day, the child should be nursed every four hours during the day--at six and ten o'clock in the morning, and at two and six o'clock in the afternoon; absolutely no night feeding.

    After it is a week or so old, it may be fed one-half to one teaspoonful of orange juice and water before the regular ten o'clock nursing time.

    If, between meal times, the child is fretful, or does not seem to be resting well, the nurse should gently turn it from one side to the other, and then let it alone. It should not be taken up. It is not hungry, and it is not thirsty; so why be giving yourself any uneasiness about the child being sick or not being fed often enough?

    How long should a child be nursed? That depends entirely upon how fast the milk comes from the mother's breast. Where the milk flows freely and easily, the child should get all that it needs in from three to five minutes. Where the milk comes hard, the child may have to nurse ten or fifteen minutes. This will have to be found out by watching the child. If it seems to be satisfied in about five minutes, put it away where it cannot be disturbed by having its bed jostled and hearing a lot of noise. The custom is to feed a young child every two hours. Those who are wedded to this belief should watch the stools. When there are any white flakes or minute curds showing in the movements from the bowels, it means that the child is being nursed too often or too long at a time. Cut the amount down. If it is nursing five minutes, cut it down to three minutes. If it is nursing ten minutes, cut it down to five minutes It is a very dangerous thing to continue to feed a child the same amount when evidences of indigestion, such as milk curds, begin to manifest themselves in the bowel movements. If this is attended to early, there will be no danger of constipation, and the indigestion that necessarily will soon follow. It is criminal carelessness to allow anything of this kind to run on until the child is sick. Indigestion has been running on for some time before such symptoms as a feverish condition, vomiting, or diarrhea will show up. When children get to the age where they do not sleep all the time, the hours of feeding should not be changed, if they are being fed every four hours through the day. Increase the length of time of nursing as the child appears to need more nourishment.

    Concerning the feeding, common-sense should enable a mother to increase the amount of nursing as needed by the child as it grows older.

    
FOURTH MONTH TO ONE YEAR

    I do not believe in feeding children very much other than milk in the first twelve months. Those who have normal, healthy mothers should thrive very well for the first year if kept entirely on the mother's milk, plus fruit and vegetable juices. After a child is three months old, it should be taking a feeding of fruit and vegetable juices daily.

    It should have orange juice, or a combination of spinach, tomato, and lettuce juices. The spinach and lettuce should be run through a vegetable-mill, or bruised, and the juice extracted. A teaspoonful of this vegetable juice, with a teaspoonful of orange juice, in four to six teaspoonfuls of water, can be given preceding the ten o'clock feeding. From week to week the amount of vegetable juice is to be increased, and the amount of nursing decreased, until from the fourth or sixth month the child will be taking nothing except fruit and vegetable juices at this time of day. At a year of age, vegetable and fruit pulp may be given. By that time various vegetables can be used--carrots, turnips; in fact, any fresh, succulent vegetables. The standbys, however, are lettuce, tomato, and spinach, with orange juice. In the summer time, during the corn season, a cob of corn can be scraped, and the juice expressed and used with the other vegetable juices.

    Children fed plenty of fruit and vegetable juices, at least once a day, will thrive very much better than children who are kept exclusively on the mother's milk, or fed on cooked cereals. Catarrh, enlarged tonsils, adenoids, gastritis, colds, "flu"--in fact, all the "diseases peculiar to children"--are built by the acid of cooked cereals dressed with sugar. Butter, sweet foods, and candy are catarrh-builders; then add to this improper feeding the stupid custom of removing effects (tonsils and adenoids), and continuing the cause, and we have a picture of today's doings.

    Teeth are removed, sinuses drained, and other operations performed, made necessary by feeding baby wrongly; and health is expected to return without removing the cause--wrong living. This is stupidity. Children whose mothers have eaten a large-sized vegetable salad every day during their pregnancy will be better off than children who are born of mothers who eat in the conventional way.

    
WEANING

    If the mother is healthy and giving all the food the child needs, and if the child is showing a wholesome condition, it should continue to nurse until about one year of age. If an ideal child is desired, nothing will be given but the mother's milk, with the exception of about once a day a little orange juice; and this should help keep the child in full health and thriving. I do not mean a big, fat, roly-poly baby; for that does not mean a normal condition. Strong and well proportioned is all that any one should desire a child to be.

    At the beginning of the tenth month, nursing of the breast may be preceded by giving two ounces of "fifty-fifty"--half milk and half water (one ounce of milk and one ounce of water); then let the baby finish, or satisfy its desire, with the mother's breast. For about a week the above amount of fifty-fifty will be given. Then increase to four ounces of fifty-fifty preceding the breast nursing. This may be continued for two weeks longer. At the beginning of the fourth week increase the fifty-fifty to six ounces. This is to be continued to the beginning of the sixth week, when it may be increased to eight ounces. Continue this amount until the child is one year of age; then use the tables for artificial feeding for that age.

    If the mother's milk begins to fail, as many do the third or fourth month, a mixture in the proportion of about one-third milk and two-thirds water may be given after the child has taken all it can get from the mother's breast. It may have all of the milk-and-water mixture it desires, but the stools should be watched. When white curds appear, it would indicate that a little much of the artificial mixture of milk and water is given. Cut down the proportion of milk in the mixture, using more water than called for, until the curds disappear. Then increase again to the mixture as first given. As the mother's milk appears to decrease, feed according to the schedule outlined for artificial feeding for that age.

    A great many people have the idea that the child should be weaned when menstruation appears. This should not be an arbitrary rule if the mother is normal and the child is normal. If, however, there are symptoms that the child is not thriving, it can be weaned and put on regular schedule for that particular age.

    
ARTIFICIAL FEEDING

FIRST YEAR

    It is unfortunate when mothers cannot nurse their babies for the first year. Many children get a wrong start the first year of life, and are more or less perverted, in a digestive or nutritional way, throughout life. Real mothers should have a care concerning the future of their children and be willing to make almost any personal sacrifice for their good. Mothers who are self-indulgent to the point of gluttony, or sensual in any way should know that they are building a like legacy for their children. Gluttony causes hard labors. Injuries received during hard labors lead to uterine diseases, tumors, cancer, and many derangements calling for surgery, with often negligible benefit. Leaving the mothers out of the question, children are often injured; and many are infected by the mother's milk, caused by the mother's injuries taking an a slight septic inflammation. These are the circumstances that often make artificial feeding of children necessary.

    Modified Milk.--The milk of cows, goats, and mares, "modified," is the best substitute for mother's milk. Reduction by adding water is about all the modification that is necessary.

    A healthy, well-cared-for cow--a common cow --is better than the Alderney or Jersey, because the milk of the latter is too fat.

    Care of Milk.--Cleanliness is positively necessary. Keep the milk in clean bottles and on ice. Do not heat it above the body temperature--about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

    The supply for the whole day's feedings may be prepared in the morning all at one time and kept on ice until used. The mixtures of milk and water should be thoroughly shaken before a portion is taken out to be heated for a feeding.

 

    A constitutional disease of infancy, characterized by impaired nutrition and changes in the bones, the symptoms being a defused soreness of the body, slight fever, and profuse sweating about the head and neck, and changes in the osseous [bony] system, consisting in thickening of the epiphyseal [ep-e-fiz-e-al] cartilages and periosteum, and a softening of the bones . . . deformities are produced. . . . Dentition and closure of the fontanels fail to take place. Nervous symptoms are often present, as feverishness, laryngismus stridulus, and convulsions. Liver and spleen are usually enlarged. The etiology [causation] is obscure--it has been ascribed to deficiency in the earthly salts, to defect in the osteoblasts [bone germs], and to micro-organismal [germ] infection.

    The cause, as in all other so-called diseases, is "obscure" to scientific. Hence, when everything fails to cure children, the profession falls back on boot-grease, fish oil, or the old stand-by prescription, cod-liver oil--a thoroughly disgusting remedy.

    I have given the cause of the constitutional derangement, dating it back to licentious and sensual indulgence of the previous generation, and, after birth, to our stupid customary care of children; to which I now add the medical delusion of feeding to overcome underweight.

    Tuberculosis is spawned in the same "constitutional" derangement, and the scientific treatment builds and perpetuates the already established enervation, Toxemia, and intestinal putrescence; or the "constitutional disease" is "characterized by that impaired nutrition," the same as all deficiency diseases. These diseases, so-called, present the same symptoms of nervousness, temperature, sweat, etc. The temperature of all these derangements is built in the same way; too much food in the intestines keeps up the heat; and those doctors are the stokers who insist on eating to keep up the weight.

    Rickets should be classed with anemia and all so-called diseases showing perverted nutrition. A normal child is able to get its cell-salts and socalled vitamines out of the ordinary foods of childhood. Animal life is capable of combining elements into whatever is necessary to build a normal body. I believe that this statement is, or should be, an obvious, foregone conclusion. Assuming this to be true, all that any child needs in the line of care to develop normally is to have a reasonable, rational amount of food and a reasonable, rational amount of daylight--not necessarily the direct rays of the sun. If sun rays were necessary, all children born in countries where they are subjected to six months of darkness should develop the so-called rickets.

    The profession appears to be weakening on its heretofore specific treatment for rickets--namely, cod-liver oil. It is now adding sunlight, lamplight, and vitamine to its previous specific, cod-liver oil. The vitamine delusion has been the headliner for a number of years. It followed close on the heels of the calory insanity. The vitamine insanity will have its day and join the calory delusion in the bone-yard of oblivion. Curing without removing cause is the profession's long suit; to beg the question is its joker.

    What is the real cause of non-development in children--be it non-development of bone or any other tissue of the body? A lack of power to assimilate the mineral elements of food taken into the system. The common example of this deficiency disease is anemia--not the anemia caused by hemorrhage from trauma (wound), nor necessarily the anemia caused by ulceration or submucous fibroid tumors, et alli, but a gradual decline of the manufacture of red blood-corpuscles from imperfect nutrition and failure to assimilate iron. (Feeding iron is not what is needed--power to assimilate is the need.) This is brought about from physical and mental impairment: an unhappy state of body and mind; lack of care; lack of cleanliness; sleeping in beds that need the sunlight as much or more than the child, and that need soap and water as much; lack of clean food fed out of clean vessels; and a lack of cheerful environments. All these lacks impalr nutrition.

    The chief cause of all deficiency diseases is overeating (eating beyond the digestive power) and failing to eat a properly balanced ration. Raw and cooked fresh fruit and vegetables should make up the principal bulk of the food eaten. During childhood, milk and bread round out all food needs. In deficiency diseases there is always overfeeding of starch (bread, cooked breakfast foods), and milk. An excess of starch and milk leads to constipation; then indigestion follows, with its acid fermentation and bowels distended from gas. The gas pressure interferes with heart action and the circulation of the blood, and the whole mechanism of nutrition is disturbed. Infection from intestinal putrescence (decomposition of milk) sets up glandular involvement. Milk, meat, and eggs must be carefully watched; for the animal protein is the source of putrescent poisoning.

    Rickets is not different from any other derangement in children. Children should have a reasonably good birth by mother and father who have reasonable health, and, if they are not overfed, nor too frequently fed of the foods that are supplied to all animal life, they will thrive. But the basic cause of all the derangements of early childhood is overfeeding. Nature hangs out a sign that he who runs may read--namely: If there is too much milk used, it will show in the stools, starting as small white flakes; and, as the overfeeding continues, the stools eventually will show almost curded milk. Sometimes it is hard to tell it from curded milk.

    Just what so-called disease will develop depends upon the child and its environment. Not all will develop the same symptom-complexes. Many of the children will die from bowel derangements. Many of them will die from the type of disease that is registered in the nomenclature as infectious and contagious diseases--the eruptive diseases. Deaths from the foregoing derangements are always aided and abetted by a treatment that is sometimes misnamed scientific. Doctors with the chronic doctoring habit aid these diseases in their development by beginning, at the first indication of indigestion, the changing of food, when it is not a change of food the child needs, but a decided cutting-down in the amounts of intake, even to the point of a few days' fast, so that the evil influence of an oversupply of food can be overcome; and then a return to the food that has been given, but n a very much reduced quantity.

    
PARASITIC DISEASES

    There are many kinds of parasitic derangements of children. When we are enlightened enough to separate children and animals--dogs and cats--and keep them from intimate association with each other, the human animal will be better off. This statement will not be very kindly received by dog and cat fanciers, and I suppose it is wasting my voice to dictate it. Most doctors and laymen have not the slightest conception of how many children are laid low by their intimate mingling with animals. Not being wise to this truth, not much thought is given to the subject. I once insulted a very loving father by telling him that his little four-year-old child had developed its liver and intestinal disease from playing with the family dog. The dog was very fond of the child, and vice versa. If the dog was not licking the child, the child was kissing the dog. The child died of hydatid cyst, which means Tenia echinococcas--dog tapeworm. The parasitic infection was developed from the child's association with the dog. It is a very fearful disease when once established, and it is doubtful if any case ever gets well. Just how many people are deranged, more or less, by their association with dogs and cats it is very difficult to say. The ova of parasitic diseases are taken in with food and association with animals.

    When digestion is normal--when the digestive secretions are one hundred per cent normal--parasites have no show in the human body.

    There is this to be said about disease: It comes from ignorance and filth. The human animal bathes little enough, and dogs and cats not at all. If it is impossible for the human animal to keep from developing disease because he is not clean enough, what are the possibilities among the lower animals? It is true that animals have evolved a toleration for certain parasites, both internally and externally, but when dogs die they die from parasitic derangements.

    Children kept in clean houses and fed plain, wholesome food, free from fear of all kinds, free from inoculations of vaccine and serums, and free from association with lower animals, should be ideally well. Children who are properly taken care of at birth will develop sufficient resistance to withstand a reasonable amount of association with animals; but children who are abused in their homes by neglect of bathing, and imprudent and improper eating, are made susceptible to periodic infection from animals. Children who are brought up in that manner are susceptible to so-called contagious diseases. An absolutely normal child will not take any contagious disease.

    What I have said above is rank heresy to the ordinary individual; but I manage to be on that side of the argument nearly all the time and all my life; so a little more or a little less will not kindle the flame of the pyre very much higher.

    
WORMS

    When a child is troubled with worms, it is indicative of a weakened state of the digestive secretions. No child will be troubled with parasites unless its digestion has been badly impaired by being fed in an unreasonable and irrational manner. Wormy children are those that have been pampered and spoiled--coaxed to eat when they have no desire, and allowed to eat foods that derange their stomachs and bowels, such as bread and milk in the same meal, breakfast foods with sugar and milk, and eating cake, etc., between meals--in a word, irrational care along all lines.

    The best treatment for children troubled with worms is to put them to bed, keep them quiet, and give them lemon juice and water every three hours for three days. Start the treatment with an enema to clear out the bowels. Begin the fourth day by feeding lightly of foods recommended for their age in this book.

    
SNIFFLES--COLDS--CORYZA

    Cold in a baby is not different from a cold in grown people. All colds rest upon a basis of Toxemia plus indigestion. The child becomes enervated in various ways. It is not necessary for me to enumerate these, because those who do not know them may read "Toxemia Explained" and the chapter on "Enervation in Children," and there learn what it is that enervates children. There is considerable in that line preceding this subject in this book. Anything that uses up nerve-energy enervates, and the child becomes toxemic because the elimination of toxin is impeded. Then, if there is overfeeding--which the stools will always indicate, because there will be undigested food passing --we have the cause of "colds."

    What is the "cure"? Clear out the bowels by use of enemas. Fast the child for one or two days--do not be afraid of starving it to death; allow it to go without food long enough to get rid of the undigested infecting material in the bowels. Then begin feeding, not more than one-half the amount that the child has been taking, and gradually increase to its toleration. How will the mother know when she has reached food toleration in the child? The child will act well and be happy, and the stools will not show curds, which are always an indication of undigested food passing from the bowels. If mothers would be careful to pay strict attention to this evidence of indigestion, and try to understand that it means overfeeding--not unsuitable food or that the milk disagrees--and correct it at once by reducing the intake, there would be very little sickness in children. It would bankrupt the manufacturers of baby food and depopulate heaven of babies; but we shall manage to get on somehow.

    
SORE THROAT

    Sore throat is quite common in children. When the tonsils are involved, it is called tonsilitis; when the larynx is involved, the child's cough will be croupy--this is named catarrhal croup; and when the pharynx is involved, it is named pharyngitis. But what is in a name"? These different names are given to catarrhal sore throat, depending on the part of the throat involved in the inflammation.

    The cause is gastric (stomach) indigestion, brought on from overeating, or improper eating; or the eating may not be excessive or particularly unsuitable, but the child may be enervated from excessive play, excitement, or anxiety in school work. It is common in children of low resistance--delicate children, children of neurotic parents--to have frequent sick spells. They will be sick at the stomach, or constipated, have a sore throat, or be croupy. Frequently these nervous children are put to bed apparently as well as usual, but often awaken during the night coughing, croupy, or vomiting, and by morning develop quite a sore throat or acute gastritis, vomiting frequently throughout the day, with more or less fever, pungent breath, and thirst, which later, if satisfied with water, increases the vomiting.

    Too great a variety of food is bad for neurotic children. Fresh bread or cooked breakfast foods are bad forms of starch to feed them; for their tendency is to eat too fast--they rush such food into their stomachs without sufficient insalivation. This induces fermentation, bringing about a continuous acid state of the stomach. If jam, jelly, syrup, or honey is eaten with the fresh bread, or if sugar and cream are used on the breakfast mushes, the sweets intensify the fermentation--acidity of the stomach--building catarrh of the stomach, chronic catarrh of the throat, enlargement of the tonsils, nasal catarrh, adenoids, etc. These children have the so-called catching-cold habit, which in actuality means that they have frequent crises of Toxemia. Such children are always more or less enervated and toxemic, resulting in crises such as are explained above with the various names--distinctions without fundamental differences.

    Sugar and too much butter, and the foods made by combining sugar, cream, or butter and flour together, are stomach-disturbers. Candy, chocolate, and sweets cause neurotic children lots of trouble.

    Children who are allowed to eat between meals, except an apple or a like quantity of some other fresh fruit when they get home from school in the afternoon, will certainly come to grief sooner or later. Eating between meals is a pernicious habit, and those who do so are children whose resistance is so broken, who are so enervated and toxemic, that they become easy--ready--victims of every so-called epidemic influence, which should be defined as: Any marked fall or rise in the temperature of the weather, or continued wet, dry, cold, or hot weather. Any of these changes adds, so to speak, the last straw--the last modicum--of enervating influence (to an already enervated and toxemic body) necessary to create a crisis of Toxemia. Just what character the crisis will assume, or what organ or organs will be involved, will depend upon what part of the child's organism is the most vulnerable. After feast-days or holidays, most children have been overindulged, and their stomachs rebel at the abuse given them. Possibly the throat is the most sensitive portion of the mucous membrane; it may be that the cecum and colon have been rendered vulnerable because of constipation; or other parts of the mucous membrane may be the most sensitive. The crises--the so-called diseases--will take place at whatever point (organ or tissue) has the least resistance.

    This is the reason why so large a number of children in a populous center, and their so-called disease, are so similar that it has given rise to the superstition named epidemics of colds, "flu," angina (sore-throat type), eruptive fevers, etc., etc. This is why the medical mind works overtime in perfecting its superstitions, such as contagion, germ influence, quarantine, vaccination, immunization, and, neither last nor least, fear, which when once started, adds the most potential influence for breaking down the community's last remaining resistance.

    So solid is the superstition built about epidemics, contagion, and vaccination that it presents a veritable Gibraltar against the walls of which rationalism makes little progress.

    No one is susceptible to the physical changes of environment, however extreme they are, to the extent of going down with the first contingent who fall before a so-called epidemic influence, unless he is enervated and toxemic. This is true of children also. Sharp physical changes enervate these already enervated beyond their resistance. A monotonous state of heat, cold, wet, or dry further enervates the enervated and forces them into a crisis of Toxemia. Parents who would have their children escape the so-called epidemics should build their children's resistance when they are well by giving them proper care before they get sick.

    If this is neglected, and the children get sick with sore throat or any other so-called disease, stop all food and wash out the bowels with warm-water enemas, night and morning. Give the child all the water desired, if there is no nausea or vomiting. Keep something warm to the feet. If there is any discomfort in the bowels, keep on a hot pack. Do not disturb the stomach and bowels by giving laxatives. Why give drugs? Why not get away from the superstition of curing disease? All that people need when they are sick is to stay in bed, keep warm, and let food religiously alone until the tongue is clean and the patient is absolutely comfortable. Break the fast by giving orange juice and water, equal parts, morning, noon, and night for the first day. If all goes well, the second day give an orange in the morning, vegetable soup at noon, and a little toasted bread and butter, eaten dry and followed with a cup of hot water and two teaspoonfuls of cream, for the evening meal. If all is going well, regulation meals may be given the next day, holding the child back so that it will not overeat.

    
TONSILITIS

    Tonsilar surgery is one of the little fads indulged in by the profession. In lieu of knowledge of how properly to advise parents to feed their children so as to avoid building the so-called disease tonsilitis--or teach them how to care for the children so that these little enlargements will be absorbed when once established, the profession removes these enlargements, leaving behind the cause, to work out dire consequences in the future in various forms of pathologies.

    Cause.--Children of the scrofulous or tubercular diathesis--in other words, those with an inherited tendency to take on inflammation of the lymphatic glands and tuberculosis--are more subject to sore throat, tonsilitis, croup, or catarrh of the air-passages than other children.

    These children, from wrong feeding, develop a sensitiveness to protein--protein sensitization. They have frequent gastric (stomach) crises. A little overindulgence on sweets, butter, sugar and cream, rich foods, ice-cream, and cake, with the usual starch and milk, will develop such symptoms as colds, catarrh, cough, vomiting, bad breath, fever, slight or severe tonsilitis, diarrhea, or constipation. These crises pass off in a few days; but the throat continues red, the cough comes and goes, nervousness and restlessness in sleep are common, and the breath is bad most of the time. These symptoms may be very light and infrequent in some children, while others will be very sick--develop gastric crises (bilious spells?)--three or four times a year. From the lightest to the most severe, there is tonsilar involvement. When not acute, it is subacute. The enlargement of the glands comes and goes. Sometimes the glands fill the throat, and in a week or two or three, under proper care, they are almost normal. Following a severe crisis, the inflammation runs so high, and gastro-intestinal putrescence is so intense, that the mucous membrane of the tonsils ulcerates. For the enlarged tonsils the surgeon says most emphatically: "The rotten tonsils must come out, or they will cause rheumatism or heart disease, or kill by infecting the whole system." The innocent man does not know that those two tonsilar guardsmen have "fought, bled, and died," defending the system from septic gas absorption continuously eructating from a "rotten" stomach. At this state of catarrhal evolution the pulmonary (lung) lymphatic glands are also busy taking up and detoxifying the infectious gases being thrown out through the lungs, and, unless successful, they too will rot. Then nomenclature declares that pulmonary tuberculosis has developed.

    Tonsils are guardsmen. The larger they are, the more work they have done in absorbing and detoxifying the infection being evolved from rotten food in the stomach and bowels.

    From the above it should be obvious that tonsilitis, and the diseases of the air-passages, are not primary diseases. These derangements are effects. The cause is overeating and vicious eating, resulting in converting the intestinal canal into a seething gehenna, in which decomposition dieth not and fever (infection) is not quenched.

    To cut out the tonsils in no way acts on cause. The operation has no virtue, except that the fee for operating feeds the self-deluded profession, and fools the people into believing that they are doing something for their children.

    The operation leaves parents as stupidly ignorant as before, and the children susceptible to the development of eruptive fevers, which are indigenous to this chronic gastro-intestinal status. This stomach derangement will never be normal until parents learn the correct care of their children.

    From the army of maltreated children are recruited victims for the army of the Great White Plague (pulmonary tuberculosis) every year. When catarrhal evolution does not end in this way, gouty subjects evolve rheumatism, as well as heart and bone derangements; yes, also rickets.

    Treatment.--First of all be it known by those interested: Never feed starch and protein in the same meal. The old familiar phrase that has been used time out of mind by the profession, "diseases peculiar to children," will be a thing of the past when mothers learn that said diseases are due almost absolutely and entirely to this error in diet. Of course, prominent physicians--those supposed to be authorities--will declare that this idea of not combining starch and protein is "piffle"; but, inasmuch as it is quite generally acknowledged that the cause of disease is not known, it ill becomes those who do not know the cause to dispute anything that may be advanced concerning the cause.

    A child that is having gastric crises--acute gastritis, or inflammation of the stomach--every two or three months, and from this cause feeding up a little tonsilitis, pharyngitis or laryngitis, must be fed very little for a week or two to overcome the gastric symptoms.

    A child that is suffering from gastritis and tonsilitis should be put to bed, and be given no food until the symptoms have subsided. If anything is given at all, it should be only a little fifty-fifty, orange juice and water until decidedly better, then give, for breakfast, orange; for lunch, as much fifty-fifty, milk and water, as desired; in the evening, the same. The second day, orange juice for breakfast; puree of some vegetable, and a glass of fifty-fifty, milk and water, at noon; in the evening, milk straight. The third day, toast eaten properly, followed with fruit for breakfast; cooked vegetables and milk at noon; milk and fruit for the evening meal. If all is going well, the child can be put on the full diet according to instructions for its proper age.

    During the stomach crisis the bowels should be moved by enemas until cleared out of any accumulation, after which no enemas should be used unless the bowels refuse to move for two days; then it will be necessary to use the enema again. Avoid, if possible, the enema habit.

    In severe cases, with a temperature running to 103 degrees F. or more, hot applications to the abdomen, heat to the feet, and thorough bowel-cleansing, with positively no food until normal. Then feed as instructed above.

    
EARACHE

    Earache may be due to a reflex irritation from teething, or to catarrh of the stomach extending to the throat, nose, and ears. Most earaches in children are brought on from catarrh. Many children have enlarged tonsils from chronic tonsilitis brought on from catarrh of the stomach. The throat inflammation extends through the Eustachian tube to the ear, and not infrequently an abscess will form at the ear end of the tube. Real diagnosticians with their X-ray discover blocks to all sinuses; and, of course, there is no way to get rid of blocks except to go beyond the block and open up the sinus and scrape it. This scientific maneuver reminds one of the philosophical darky who sits in the limb of a tree, in order that he may saw it off close to the trunk. Logically, there was nothing else to do. Don't guffaw at the darky, you wise ones! His logic is strictly in line with scientific surgery.

    Where an abscess forms at the distal (ear) end of the Eustachian tube, it is exceedingly painful and requires puncturing to allow the pus to escape. Is that all that should be done? No; get rid of the cause--catarrh of the stomach. As soon as the pain develops, hot fomentations to the ear usually bring about a certain amount of relief, and often relieve entirely. If no food is given, the inflammation subsides in a day or two.

    Where the earache is of a nervous character, due to teething, a little hot oil in the ear, and the ear closed up with cotton, will usually give the desired relief. Such children should be treated for the constitutional cause of catarrh which they always have.

    
CROUP

CATARRHAL--SIMPLE AND SEPTIC OR DIPHTHERITIC

    Catarrhal Croup is very simple, but very formidable at times, when septic. The simple is quite enough to scare the family and friends, and give the appearance that the child will surely choke to death. But if placed in a hot bath--having the water as hot as it is safe for immersing the baby--and kept there long enough, relief from the difficult breathing will be secured. It will be well to start the bath at about 90 degrees Fahrenheit; then add hot water, and increase the temperature to 101 or 102 degrees, if it appears to be necessary. While getting the bath ready, hot applications should be placed on the throat, and heat to the feet. When the child is relieved, continue the hot applications to the throat and feet. It may be necessary to empty the stomach, using a stomach-tube and warm water.

    Give the child no food for twenty-four to forty-eight hours, or until fully relieved--until there is no more croupy sound to the cough. The rule is that catarrhal croup passes away in two or three days. Many children will be quite croupy for one night, and apparently perfectly well afterwards. The cause of catarrhal croup is pronounced indigestion from an excess of starch or carbohydrate foods mixed with milk--breaking the rule I have recently given parents never to combine starch and protein in the same meal.

    Septic or Diphtheritic Croup is a disease of a very different nature. It means catarrhal croup intensified by a putrescent state of the intestinal canal. It is the so-called contagious croup. Comparatively few who are exposed develop it. The true cause is that the child has been developing gastro-intestinal indigestion for some time, until the organism is suffering generally from putrescent intestinal infection. This type of croup does not always start with such pronounced or formidable symptoms as ordinary catarrhal croup. The child will have a slight fever and putrescent breath, and a slight croupy cough. Indeed, such children will often show a croupy cough for two or three days and nights before dangerous symptoms show up. On examination, the stethoscope will show a bronchial involvement. When this is true, the writer has never known a case to recover.

    All that can be done is to palliate with quite hot applications to the throat, hot baths, perfect quiet--positively no food. The bowels should be washed out thoroughly with an enema. It is said, by those who believe in the antitoxin, that the injections of this so-called cure will save such cases; but the writer's experience has been different; and, inasmuch as he never has seen a case recover, he still is waiting for such a cure to take place.

    
ERUPTIVE DISEASES

EXANTHEMATOUS OR ERUPTIVE FEVERS
Measles, Scarlatina, Diphtheria, varicella (Chicken-pox), Variola (Smallpox), Typhoid Fever.

    What I have to say concerning eruptive diseases will be more heretical, if possible, than my teachings concerning other so-called diseases. Physicians, and most lay people, will not agree with me that there are no contagious and infections, in the sense usually understood--namely, that normal people can catch disease by coming in contact with sick people; that, for example, if a normal, unvaccinated child comes in contact with one sick of smallpox or diphtheria, it will "catch" the disease. This belief rests upon the theory that came in with Jenner, and was clarified by Pasteur's discovery of the cause of fermentation.

    The germ theory cleared away the mystery of divine retribution--mysterious influences, witchcraft, and the thousand-and-one imaginings of ignorance and superstition, much of which still exists, and is found in high and low places; yes, it can be found conglomerated with some of the highest gray-matter development of our day--today. The belief is contagion, in the same sense that smallpox is contagious, is a modified form of the witchcraft of one hundred years ago. Typhoid Mary is a modern witch. She is made to suffer because of medical belief in an evil influence. Everyone once believed in witches; it was a disease of the mind. Such a belief is a libel on law and order. Yes, sir, such beliefs belong to sensualism and medical commercialism. The profession commercializes on the ignorance and sensuality of the people. It is a fatalistic belief, absurdly out of keeping with law and order. If health, happiness and long life are no'' the rewards for a well ordered life, then turn Beelzebub loose, and on with the dance of perdition.

    Drunkenness starts with the first indigestion in a child's life. From this first drunk, many children are scarcely over one debauch before they are plunged into another. These drunks vary in intenseness from a so-called cold, or indigestion, and different forms of simple catarrhal fevers, to varying forms of the eruptive fevers, the intensity of which is aggravated by the amount of intestinal putrescence. Every so-called disease is a form of elimination. Eruption means elimination of auto-infection.

    The several forms of these intestinal crises, or drunks, follow holidays or feast-days. The lightest drunks are named colds, "flu," tonsilitis; the heaviest, diphtheria. In those who eliminate through the skin (the eruptive fevers), the lightest form is called measles; the heavier, scarlet fever; the heaviest, black smallpox. When physical environments, local or general, are depressing - enervating to animal life--holiday and feast-day debaucheries are often followed by so-called epidemics of malignant types, with heavy mortality. When great psychological depression follows a world-crisis, such as succeeded the World War, an ordinary epidemic of colds becomes an extraordinary epidemic of "flu," from which the chronic food-drunkards, with enervated hearts from Toxemia, alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea, died when medicated. Adding drug stimulation to a body already loaded down by an excess of stimulation gave the coup to thousands of "flu" victims.

    Speculating on germs as a cause of humanity's acute and chronic food inebriety, and the varying types of drunks above referred to, is an illustration of how medical gray matter can be built out of ignoring common, every-day experience and pedestalizing a remodeled superstition.

    All so-called diseases--pathologies--have been subjected to intensive study for the purpose of discovering their cause, which was assumed at the beginning of the study to be a germ. Failure is almost inevitable when a discovery is undertaken with a mind prejudiced by preconceptions. The mind's eye is made amblyopic by preconceived opinions. It cannot see the mountains of causes on every hand, because its vision is centered and pre-occupied in looking for one object to the exclusion of everything else. This is the only explanation why a profession with the resources of the "regular" profession is unable successfully to apply its knowledge at the bed-side. It cannot compete with the motley crowds of cults which are in league with the powers that be. Instead of overcoming them with superior skill, it must use force to hold back an opposition the virtue of which consists, wittingly or not, in combining its forces with nature's curative powers. Drugs, serums, officious nursing, and feeding have queered and will continue to queer the profession's most sanguine expectations, founded on its most scientific therapeutic data.

    Typhoid Fever (more a disease of adult life) is evolved by feeding and medicating acute indigestion and the treatment should be the same as for any of the foregoing so-called infectious fevers.

    How to Assist Nature in Throwing Off Disease. --Disease is a crisis of Toxemia; it is an effort to eliminate retained toxin that has failed to pass out because the body has been enervated from various influences. When a crisis is on--when a so-called disease is in activity the symptoms complained of are nature in the throes of cleaning house. If the patient should be allowed to rest without food, except water to satisfy thirst, given daily enemas of warm water to aid nature in washing out the bowels until the offending decomposition is removed, and also given a ravage daily if the tongue is coated, such aid, if not allowed to degenerate into an overworked routine, is helpful. To wash a child's stomach, however, is not always possible without creating too much excitement. When it does, it is a doctor's prerogative to conserve energy, and not waste it by officiousness. Pain, restlessness, and high fever can be relieved by warm or hot baths. The usual pain and discomfort of a beginning crisis can be overcome in a few days by the use of the above suggestions, after which perfect quiet, a daily bath, and warmth to the feet are all the nursing or doctoring necessary. Positively no food of any kind should be given until elimination is completed, which will be known by a clean, moist tongue, a cool skin, and a normal pulse in fact, until the patient looks well and feels well. Then feeding may start with fruit juice the first day; the second day, buttermilk for the noon meal, and fruit juice morning and night; the third day, fruit for breakfast, a lamb chop, egg, or cooked vegetables with a vegetable salad at noon, and buttermilk for evening.

    We overlook vital causes, looking for germs. We may study eruptive disease to the crack of doom, but the cause cannot be found in the disease. We are told in medical literature in textbooks--that eruptive fevers have periods of incubation--the periods of disease between the implanting of the contagion and the development of the symptoms. In the case of measles, this period is placed at two weeks, in scarlet fever, from a few hours to a week.

    Suppose you study the differential diagnosis, all the symptomatologies of all the symptom-complexes of all the so-called eruptive fevers, and you do not know how to treat them when you learn to diagnose them, are you any better off than when you began to study? No, you are not. It is better to know what to do, and what not to do for those who are sick of any so-called disease than to know how to treat names.

    A child takes sick; it coughs and sneezes; its eyes water; red blotches start on the face, then appear on the body. What are you going to do about it? Give cough medicine, use borax water in the eyes, and spray the nose? No, do not do such silly things! These symptoms mean that nature is throwing out toxin. Assist her, as directed above. Have you the foolish notion that there are many distinct diseases, and that there must be distinct and specific treatments?

    Disease means a toxic state, brought on from retention of the waste-products of metabolism (broken-down tissue). It is well not to confuse Toxemia with the auto-infection from gastrointestinal putrescence. As a matter of fact, few people are infected from constipation per se. The infection that is synchronous with constipation is caused by excessive eating of animal foods, including milk. When the intake of animal food exceeds digestive power, decomposition takes place; following which, putrescent poisoning, in the form of eruptive fevers, appears. Combining starch with animal foods is at the bottom of all fatal maladies; in fact, the builder of infectious diseases.

    At times these so-called diseases are so light that the eruption escapes notice and is only discovered by chance. For example, the glands under the jaw or side of the neck become enlarged from a past masked or slight infectious fever; or albumin will appear in the urine, indicating a slight foregoing infectious fever. When such symptoms appear, the child should be sent to bed, with heat to the feet, and feeding suspended for a few days; then he should be fed lightly until the symptoms are overcome. This care neglected may result in suppurating glands and chronic infection of the glandular system, ending years (more or less) afterward in pulmonary tuberculosis or kidney disease. The ear trouble may end in chronic otorrhea; and the albumin in the urine may end in chronic kidney disease.

    The use of names to distinguish so-called diseases (symptom complexes), is to keep from confusing readers. As a matter of fact all so-called diseases are fundamentally a unit study Toxemia Explained.

    Toxemia makes it possible for a food debauch to end in eruptive fevers, and infectious complications that accompany or follow.

    A hundred per cent nerve-efficiency keeps toxin in the blood down to the normal amount. This means that the body is immune to putrescent infections. When a food debauch, or an accidental ptomaine poisoning, takes place, the poison may be thrown off quickly, and the victim returned to health in a few days; but if eating is resumed before the poison is thrown off, death may be the penalty. When enervation is great and Toxemia profound, a crisis may be induced by intestinal putrescence. Under such circumstances, the system is taxed to the limit in its effort to eliminate the accumulated poison--the skin, kidneys, intestines, and lungs are taxed to the limit. All the work of the body is suspended, and all reserve power is centered on elimination. There is no digestion. To feed is equivalent to throwing a monkey-wrench into the machinery. To know how to do nothing scientifically is the most profound wisdom. What can drugs do? Shock the nervous system. The shock may throw the balance of power on the side of death. When putrescent infection runs riot, presenting malignancy, it is because resistance is low, enervation pronounced, and the blood greatly toxemic.

    Unity of Disease.--All so-called diseases are one. You think infectious diseases must be treated differently from common fevers? This belief in the individuality of disease has been a stumbling-block to medical progress, and will continue to be until the unity of all disease is recognized.

    Enervation, checking elimination from the blood, causes Toxemia. When the toxin accumulation rises above toleration, a crisis is established. These crises are the simple so-called diseases. When crises are complicated by infection from putrescence in the bowels, we have so-called infectious diseases.

    Without gastro-intestinal putrescence in a toxemic subject, there can be no eruptive fevers. Keep the body free from infection autodeveloped, and all disease will be sidestepped.

    Every child is prepared by fond, overindulgent parents for all the sickness it will have in its childhood. Health is the heritage vouchsafed by the gods for every child. If the child does not have health, stupidity reigns in the household.

    Parents enervate themselves before marriage in their effort to "keep up with Lizzy"--keep pace with modern life and their children are born with low resistance. As nutrition is the most important function of child-life, the child born with lowered resistance has not the digestive power of more fortunate children. Many modern mothers cannot nurse their babies. This necessitates artificial feeding, which is simple enough to understand, but does require some knowledge and careful technique. Carelessness in care of bottles, in the quantity and quality of milk, and, too often, in general cleanliness of the body and its environments ends in sickness. Unfortunately, there is a popular belief that baby-feeding means excessive feeding, and that only fat babies are healthy babies. Everything else being equal, the fat baby is the one that gets sick, and the one that develops intestinal protein putrescence, manifesting in diphtheria or one of the eruptive types of fever. One of the greatest mistakes in child-feeding is that of feeding milk and starch in the same meal.

    Elimination of putrescence by way of the skin is peculiar to overfeeding in child-life. However, we do see eruptive fevers in grown-up people. Surface elimination is a comparative measure. Mortality in eruptive fevers would be much greater if the lungs should be selected as the point of exit of intestinal infection, instead of the surface of the body. In every epidemic, those cases that develop lung complications are always seriously sick. When they do not die, disagreeable sequels may develop, such as a cough, bronchitis, bronchial asthma, nephritis, sinusitis (inflammation of a sinus), inflammation of the lymphatic glands of the neck, ear, and back of the ear--commonly called "lump"; swelling under the jaw or ear, or on the side of the neck; or grandular enlargement--mastoiditis (inflammation of the mastoid cells)--is not uncommon. For the treatment of these diseases, operations are too often performed. Parents who are as phobic as the medical profession concerning the need of feeding the sick must go the limit. If they persist in feeding when sinuses and glands are infected, pus will form, and an opening must be made for drainage. If food is withheld, infections will resolve and health return without pus forming; but I do not advise food-drunkards to wait until the eleventh hour to cut out feeding. I have seen resolution take place in antrum infection after the X- ray showed pus--that is, after a half-dozen to a dozen doctors had so interpreted the X-ray shadow.

    
MUMPS

    Mumps is an inflammation and enlargement of the parotid glands, situated below the ears and behind the angles of the jaw. Great swelling produces a stiffness and soreness, and sometimes severe pain. If the mother wishes the child to recover quickly, she should put it to bed, and fast it until the swelling has disappeared. Then feed according to the instructions for children of its age in another part of this book.

    If food is given at all during the sickness, it should be confined to a little fruit or fifty-fifty. A fast is best. If orange juice creates pain, as acids usually do in such cases, a fast is best until the inflammatory state is passed, which will be evidenced by the disappearance of the swelling, soreness and pain.

    
PNEUMONIA--BRONCHITIS

    Children with "'colds,'' if fed and otherwise maltreated, will often develop pneumonia or bronchitis. What is pneumonia? It is a catarrhal state of the lungs brought on from putrescence in the intestines. What, in fact, is the symptom-complex named pneumonia? According to scientific medicine, "pneumonia is an acute disease most often due to a specific micro-organism, the pneumococcus. Besides this particular microbe, the streptococcus and the staphylococcus pyogenes may be the cause." This means that pneumonia is often caused by pneumococci, or it may be caused by the above-named bacilli coming from typhoid fever, or some other derangement that causes ulceration. The general understanding, however, is that simple pneumonia is caused by the germ pneumococcus. The whole germ theory can be dismissed with the one word "piffle."

    Years of observation and "watchful waiting" have convinced me that in pneumonia the lungs are requisitioned as the organs to do vicarious eliminating for the regular eliminating organs, which have been put out of commission. (See "Toxemia Explained.") A child develops Toxemia in the regular way. To this state, infection from the stomach and bowels is added--indigestion has continued until the protein of the milk has taken on a state of decomposition. Then, in children predisposed to lung troubles, there will be developed pneumonia or a bronchitis. There is very little difference between pneumonia and bronchitis. The air-cells are involved in pneumonia, and the bronchial tubes in bronchitis. Both come from the same cause and should be treated the same way.

    What is the treatment? Stop food, wash out the bowels, and keep the child away from food until the intestines are cleaned out, the temperature normal, and the breath free of odor. If there is severe cough and much filling-up or stuffing-up of the lungs, and oppression in breathing, give hot tub bath to full relief as often as necessary; rub hot oil on the chest and cover with a layer of cotton. This is about the only local application necessary. The main cure (if we desire to use that term) is to keep the feet warm and bowels cleared out, withhold food until the cause gastro- intestinal fermentation and decomposition--has been entirely overcome. Then feed very lightly of the accustomed food, after giving diluted orange juice for two or three days.

    
INFANTILE PARALYSIS

    Infantile paralysis is technically called Acute Infectious Poliomyelitis, from polio (gray matter) and myelitis (inflammation of the spinal cord). Children subject to this disease are born of neurotic (nervous) parents. No 100-per cent child will develop it. It is declared to be contagious, but, as in the case of many other contagious diseases, the time will come when the profession will change its opinion, as it did on yellow fever. Twenty-five to thirty years ago quarantine for yellow fever was enforced by the shotgun. Today the best physicians do not believe in the contagiousness or infectiousness of yellow fever. There is only one way now to contract yellow fever, and that is by having it hypodermized into the individual by a mosquito. In the medical world there will have to be made a tremendous change concerning belief in contagion and infection in the next ten years. I nearly said the next twenty-five years; but things medical are moving, and old ideas concerning germs, infection, contagion, etc., are slowly but surely passing into oblivion.

    In infantile paralysis there is no immunization except health; but neurotic families, as well as all other families, should feel the great importance of giving their children the best possible advantage by way of dietetic and hygienic education. Within another ten years the demand throughout the world will be so great for education on diet and hygiene that these subjects will have to be taught in the schools, instead of, as now, teaching bacteriology and immunization by way of vaccination, serums, tests, etc., and removing the throat sentries--the tonsils; all of which practice breaks down natural defenses.

    In fact, there is but one immunization, and that is health. This being true, it will not take many years for intelligent people to repudiate socalled immunization, and demand education in the line of child-training. The standard will be health, not weight, measurements, or vaccines.

    Prevention by way of building health for the disease known as infantile paralysis is the only immunity. Prevention of the disease is the only cure, for when a child develops infantile paralysis it is too late to reach it with vaccines, drugs, diet, or anything that might be supposed to be beneficial to a sick child. Often parents do not know when a child is sick with this disease until it is paralyzed. Many doctors are called into such cases, and find the paralysis already developed. The premonitory symptoms--or, rather, the early symptoms--are liable to pass unnoticed. A state of malaise, a slight fever, perhaps a fretfulness--just the impression that the child is not feeling well--will often be the warning for laymen; and perhaps these symptoms may not be sufficiently pronounced even to make any kind of a diagnosis possible. When a child's limbs are paralyzed, that means that the deadly work of the disease has been accomplished. There is no treatment that will benefit the child, except the kind of treatment that it should have had during its lifetime--namely, a correct dietary and hygiene.

    The foregoing may be very discouraging to mothers, keep them apprehensive, and perhaps lead them to feel that every time the child is complaining it may develop infantile paralysis, especially if the disease is being advertised all over the country, as it has been during the past year. If every disease would treat the human family as infantile paralysis treats it, the people would be forced to "lock the door before the horse is stolen," or give children decent care and attention before they come down with sickness. The average carelessness in regard to the health of children is criminal. Parents have been educated to believe that all they need to do is to have their children vaccinated and immunized in various ways, and have the tonsils and adenoids removed, etc.; but, as hinted above, the time will come when the people will demand of their doctors to be taught how to feed children. The doctors who are making fun of Tilden and his proscription of bread and milk will not be able to teach parents how properly to care for their children, and such families will pass into the hands of physicians who will.

    For the benefit of my readers, I will say that about all the treatment which is given to cases of infantile paralysis is superfluous and of no worth to the child, and the patients are extremely lucky if they are not damaged by much of the treatment.

    There are very few parents who will be willing to fold their arms and do nothing for a paralyzed child. I would not advise them to do nothing, but I would advise them to learn how to feed and care for their children so as to build up as much resistance as possible in such cases. But most of the treatment that parents demand is in the line of attempting to restore strength and vigor to the paralyzed limb. To all such people I will say: Every dollar you spend in trying to restore a paralyzed limb is thrown away. Instead of paying out a great deal of money for years on these paralyzed cases, that amount of money should be put on interest, so, that, if a time comes when the child must be thrown on its own resources, it will have a little income. I have known families who kept themselves poor going from doctor to doctor, regular and irregular, often getting encouragement by being made to believe that a certain line of treatment would or might result in a cure, and if not, then a great betterment. But disappointments follow disappointments; for there is absolutely no hope of restoring a dead nerve.

    When the contractual stage arrives, which it does in all cases, the patients may require a little mechanical help. Orthopedic surgeons can often prevent pronounced deformities, or give a little relief in cases where the deformities have already developed; but this is not a curative treatment in any sense of the word. It is purely mechanical, and given for the purpose of keeping the body from being painfully distorted. Sometimes the paralysis will affect only the foot, or possibly from the knee down or from the elbow down. When the contractural stage sets in, the foot will be drawn out of shape and drawn to such an awkward position that it interferes with the child's locomotion. Under such circumstances, the tendons which are drawing so intensely require a little surgery to help straighten them, and have an apparatus--splint or support--fitted on to keep the foot as straight as possible.

    Parents who read this way well say: "Of what use is this article? You don't give any encouragement. You write in a pessimistic way. You do not believe in prevention or cure." I have written the above concerning prevention but the majority of people do not care to go through a prevention that means self-denial for themselves and their children--a correct body-building by living a correct life.

    Children who belong to neurotic parents should be taught to sleep after the noon meal. They should be in bed early and get up late. When they show nervousness by inability to keep quiet, or show nervousness from their shouting, hysterical actions, and being overexcited in play, they should be sent to bed and rested for two or three days.

    The school requirements of today tend to develop nervousness and build the neurotic temperament. Children are urged and pushed and crammed, and as a consequence they are worn out. Children belonging to the neurotic temperament should be watched. When the teacher finds children getting too nervous to do good work in school, or when they are showing the strain of school work, she should have a perfect right to notify the parents that such children should be kept at home and in bed for two or three days.

    All children should be taught the correct food combinations. Those who want to know the best way to feed children should read this book carefully, our "Cook Book," "Toxemia Explained" and learn how to live for health.

    As a last suggestion, when there is an epidemic reported in different parts of the country, parents with children who cannot be said to be 80 to 90 per cent well should keep them at home from school and make them spend at least half of every day in bed; and the other half should not be spent on the streets, at picture shows, or in exciting entertainments. Children will become excited in play; but after they have had a reasonable amount of childish pleasure it should be broken up. Do not wait until the child is worn out to take it away from play or school.

    Children of neurotic parents should not be allowed to take any extra work when going to school. If they keep up with the school work, they are doing all they should.

    See that these children are not eating anything and everything between meals--not even the school lunch; and, until the schools quit issuing starch and milk to children, see that your children do not eat anywhere except at home. Someone will ask if I do not believe in milk. I do, but not with bread. Fruit and bread in the morning, or milk and fruit; bread and a combination salad at noon; and all the milk they want in the evening, with cooked or raw. vegetables. This is a good general plan for feeding children. They get all the variety of food they need, and, if fed in that way, those with a white line around the nose and mouth will lose it. This line indicates irritation of the stomach, improper eating, improper food combinations, and eating between meals. It indicates gastric catarrh. Children with this sign should stay in bed until well.

    No doubt there are people who believe that there is a certain percentage of cases of infantile paralysis that are cured. I am with this disease as I am with bronchial diphtheria: I have never seen a case of bronchial diphtheria get well, and I never expect to. I expect cases of catarrhal croup to get well, even when they appear worse--make a greater symptom show than diphtheritic croup. When anyone shows me a case of infantile paralysis that has recovered, I am going to show them a case that was mistaken for infantile paralysis. When we have functional paralysis, all should get well. Infantile paralysis is organic destruction, and is positively incurable.

    
ENURESIS NOCTURNAL
BED-WETTING IS A LIGHT FORM OF NEUROSIS IN CHILDREN

    Neurosis, the foundation of neurotic diseases--convulsions, paralysis, incorrigibility, delinquencies, and the petty nervous diseases that will be referred to--is an inborn potential requiring only slight encouragement from wrong habits of eating and mismanagement to be thrown on the cinema of life. For example, the hoarding attributes of the so-called successful business man are often thrown on the screen of his children's lives as kleptomania, forgery, and check-raising. The children of staid, exemplary pillars of the church are often nymphomaniacs and libertines--potentials passed on from lust and lasciviousness.

    Infantile paralysis comes to children begotten of venereally enervated parents. Something cannot come from nothing. There is no accident or chance to account for the neuroticisms of children. Let us hope that some day the cause of neurosis in children will be removed by prospective parents taking a rest cure before marriage--not only resting, but learning how to live to restore and build virility.

    The long step now being taken toward the nude, leaving little to the imagination, will be followed in the next generation by a preponderance of neurotic disease in children. Then will come a sterile generation, which will be supplanted by the children of people who have been lying fallow and have been statically restored. Impotency and the nervous derangements peculiar to sex-neurosis must follow the present pandemic of erotomania. The present overt mania may not be worse than the past covert mania--indeed, it may be educational. The evils of the latter had no cause except as a deluded professor declared that they came from a universal syphilitic taint. This teaching afforded an apology for unpleasant responsibilities; but the children following the overt mania of today can point to their parents and say: "You cursed me before birth."

    Neurotic or nervous children are inclined to the bed-wetting habit when enervated, toxemic and suffering from digestive derangements. The exciting cause is any enervating influence: overeating; eating stimulating food; drinking coffee or tea; excessive drinking of milk or water; too much salt, sugar, or sweets of all kinds; the excessive use of butter, gravies, meat, eggs, cake, and pastries; the pernicious habit of frequent eating to overcome so-called underweight.

    Fear is one of the greatest nerve depressants to which children are subject. Parents often rule by fear instead of by love and reason. Scolding, picking, fault-finding, and punishing by parents often ruin children's health. A chronic shrew can keep a home atmosphere so miasmatic that health for all who live in it takes wings and flies away. Children are scarcely over one sickness until they are in another; and, if they are troubled with sensitive neurotic bladders, bed-wetting will be of nightly occurrence. If the neurosis is of the stomach, gastric attacks will be frequent. Then, if treated and nursed badly, an eruptive fever may develop. If the throat is the neurotic center, feeding, medicating, and foolish nursing may end in diphtheria.

    Neurotic children suffer much from their school life. Their fear of not pleasing the teacher is a constant drain on their nerve-energy. Imperfect lessons are often enough to cause indigestion. Failure at school and criticism at home are enough to cause indigestion and fever. Fear of bed-wetting, the displeasure of parents, and the punishment often given them are enervating and become a cause that continues the habit.

    Treatment.--The first thing to do is to get rid of fear by assuring the child that bed-wetting is a nervous disease, over which it has no control except as it cultivates a willingness to learn how to live to get well. Parents must prove to children their sympathy and friendship, instead of being displeased and finding fault with them for a weakness which they cannot help. They should condole, and assure them that they will help them in every way they can to overcome their embarrassing weakness. They must explain to the little folks that this weakness is made worse by playing too hard and too long; that they must be moderate, and avoid becoming excited, shouting, and angry in play; that, until they can have a dry bed, they must go to bed early, and be willing to give up all their habits that help to build bladder weakness--such as candy-eating, gum-chewing, ice-cream, cake, fountain-drinking, all eating between meals, and all rich foods, until in full health; and that then they must live in a manner that will make them stay well. The right kind of parents will practice a reasonable amount of abstemiousness. Children learn from example more than from precept; and it is the sensuality practiced by parents before and after children are conceived that sets children's nerves on edge.

    Children are easier to control in eating than grown people, when the evil of wrong eating is explained to them. If possible to begin treatment by giving a week or two of rest in bed, the rest should be taken. The first few days no food should be given. A good plan is to stop food until a night is passed without bed-wetting. This has a fine psychological influence on the child--it gives encouragement that a cure will be made. Then give fruit for breakfast--orange, apple, or other fresh fruit in like proportions. At noon, a combination salad (lettuce, two parts; tomato and celery, of each one part). At night, a baked apple or a dish of prunes--no dressing.

    Second week: One slice of whole-wheat bread (dried out in the oven), with unsalted butter. The toast must be eaten dry, and mastication must be thorough. Then follow with fruit. At noon, a vegetable salad, and a teacupful of vegetable soup (see "Cook Book"). In the evening a slice of toasted whole-wheat bread followed with baked apple. Continue this light eating until the habit is fully controlled; then give fruit for breakfast--any fresh fruit--and follow with a glass or two of whole milk, sipping slowly. For dinner at noon, any coarse bread toasted, with unsalted butter. The bread should be eaten first, thoroughly masticating every bite; then follow with salad and baked apple for dessert. For supper, toasted bread, followed with vegetable soup. If noon time is limited, reverse, giving dinner at night and supper at noon.

    If all is going well at the end of a month, select meals from the "Cook Book."

    
CHOREA--ST. VITUS DANCE

    A nervous twitching of the muscles of the arms, sometimes of the legs and sometimes of both, including a jerking of the head. Before the disease has developed into its severe form there is a period of warning, running over from six months to a year. The parents will notice that the child is very nervous, restless, and hard to keep still. The child is quite excitable. Many times it will be very irritable, and easily thrown into tears by a slight reprimand. There may be such symptoms as frequent urination. A quite young child may wet the bed frequently at night.

    When chorea proper starts, the child loses control over its hands--will drop dishes, playthings, or books. At first the parents may think it is carelessness, and scold the child or mildly punish it for being so careless. But the symptoms become worse. A physician is consulted; and then the parents learn for the first time that the cause of the child's nervousness is functional paralysis.

    In severe cases the child cannot stand and cannot walk without someone being near to take hold of its hand or arm. Indeed, two people may be required in attempting to help the child to walk. When children get in this state, they have no inclination to walk.

    Only children of neurotic temperament develop chorea. When such children are allowed to eat at any time, have no regular time for feeding, and are permitted to eat any and all kinds of foods, taking milk and bread, or mixing protein and starch, eating rich cooking--custards, pies, cakes, cookies, etc.--they bring on such a state of deranged digestion that they develop such diseases. Fear of parents and teachers aggravates the disease. Fear and improper feeding enervate, and are the principal causes.

    Many children will cultivate the drinking habit--drinking frequently between meals. Every drink taken between meals, or while digestion is on, checks digestion, will bring on acute indigestion, and hasten the development of such diseases as chorea, petit mat, and epilepsy.

    Treatment.--Such children, when they have developed a state of chorea, should be put to bed, and kept there until all shaking and twitching of the muscles have entirely disappeared. Eating must be very light. A glass of milk in the morning; orange juice and water, or a little fresh fruit, at noon; and in the evening a pear and a few grapes, with milk. The child will improve very much faster if it can be persuaded to go without food for a week, and then given the food as suggested above. As the muscle-twitching disappears, the feeding may be increased.

    Such a patient should have a daily warm sponge-bath, followed with gentle rubbing. It should have abdominal massage daily, and the massaging should be more over the stomach, just beneath the ribs and breast-bone. The entire abdomen needs rubbing, but the region of the stomach needs more attention than the rest.

    If the bowels are constipated, a small enema of warm water may be used to secure a movement about every other day.

    The child should be kept as quiet as possible. Playmates should be excluded from the bedroom entirely. There must not be any excitement whatsoever. The parents should be gentle and firm, and avoid exciting the child by scolding. This is not the time for punishing a child for peevishness. Many of these children are quite impatient and irritable and want to dominate everybody. This must be overlooked, and at the same time parents must be firm, not allowing such children to be out of bed nor to have company. Picture-books for entertaining can be allowed, or such reading as the child may desire. Where children are kept very quiet and continuously in bed, with a very light diet, the disease will be controlled in a very reasonable time from two to four weeks.

    
PRICKLY HEAT

    Prickly heat, or miliaria, is an inflammatory skin derangement affecting the sweat-glands.

    Symptoms.--Prickling, stinging, and itching of the skin. Hot weather has but little to do with it. Neglect of the care of the skin allows the pores to close, and when the weather becomes warm there is usually more thirst than in cool weather. Drinking raises the blood-pressure, favoring perspiration; and when perspiration cannot pass through the pores of the surface, it produces irritation through a filling-up of the sweat-glands, causing pressure on nerve filaments. This brings on a stinging, prickling, and itching. Those who have deranged digestion--those troubled with gastro-intestinal catarrh--create an acute irritation of the stomach from ice-cream, excessive fruit-eating, etc. This irritation is reflected to the surface of the body, and produces abnormal contraction of the sweat-glands.

    I have noticed in these cases that there is always a good deal of nervousness, the function of the skin is interfered with, and anything that creates an extra amount of heat at the surface will cause itching, prickling, and burning. The patient feels very uncomfortable.

    Prickly heat in children indicates that the child is overfed; and the same is true of grown people. We never have any skin derangements whatever unless there is chronic gastro-intestinal catarrh. Long-continued heat, as in summer time, further enervates the enervated, weakening the power of digestion, and turning loose morbid functional derangements in keeping with predispositions. Add to this imprudent eating an excessive amount of fruit, ice-cream, or iced drinks, or an excessive amount of food of any kind, and in the nervous, neurotic, or gouty subjects various kinds of skin irritations will result. If the irritations are of the mucous membrane, intestinal derangements appear. I look upon prickly heat as a decidedly nervous derangement.

    Treatment.--A fast of one, two, or three days, with daily bathing in water as hot as can be borne, will bring relief sooner than any other treatment. Bathing the surface with lotions, ointments, or the usual palliative surface treatment is neither logical nor sensible. The pores should be kept open, instead of being filled up with salves or forced to contract by so-called soothing lotions. The bath opens the pores, and the fast relieves the irritations of the stomach and bowels. It does not require a very great deal of time to bring full relief. If palliation is all that is desired, this treatment can end as all palliative treatment ends, and with the priests of healing flattering themselves that they have performed a cure. But this so-called disease points to a constitutional derangement that should be looked after; for it may manifest itself in various ways when the weather becomes cool. Bronchial irritation or pneumonia may be the price paid for neglect of correction of the constitutional derangement.

    The reader must not forget that enervation, checked elimination, with retention of toxins in the blood, is the basic cause of all the ills that man is heir to; hence it is necessary, when eating is begun after relief is secured, to feed very lightly and very plain food.

    The child can have a glass of milk for breakfast, and a salad at noon. If he is too young to masticate the salad well, it should be run through the vegetable mill. A teacup of the ground salad will make the noon meal, and prunes or baked apples, with cream dressing, the evening meal. As the child improves, he can be given toasted bread, with a little unsalted butter, for breakfast, followed with a half-dozen prunes, dressed with a little cream. If not satisfied, follow with a cup of hot water, a little cream, and a lump of sugar. At noon, have a slice of whole-wheat bread, toasted, the same as for breakfast, followed with ground salad. In the evening, prunes or baked apples, or any fresh fruit, followed with milk. After this, feed according to the instructions found elsewhere.

    
CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS OR SPOTTED FEVER

    Cerebro-spinal meningitis is not a very common disease. In years gone by (fifty or sixty), when man's eating was far more irrational and environments more crude than they are today, we had visitations of this dread disease. It is an inflammation of the membranes of the brain and spinal cord. Where the inflammation is confined to the membranes of the brain it is called meningitis, and where it is confined to the membranes of the spinal cord it is called spinal meningitis. When both are involved, the two names are linked together and it is called cerebro-spinal meningitis. It is not a disease for families to undertake to treat without the advice of physicians.

    There is not very much that can be done except giving hot baths every three hours until the temperature is reduced below 101 degrees F. Then the baths may be given morning and night until the temperature is normal.

    Children suffering from this disease have no hunger, and should not be fed. The bowels should be cleaned out with enemas. Equalize the circulation by keeping the feet warm and the head cool. A very great deal could be said about this disease, but it is superfluous and unnecessary in a book of this kind. Public health laws require a death certificate, even if medical treatment is not as successful as no treatment at all. It takes understanding to do nothing well.

    
PETIT MAL A LIGHT FORM OF EPILEPSY

    Petit Mal is a slight epilepsy, characterized by momentary loss of consciousness. Sometimes the child will be standing on its feet, and drop heavily to the floor as if sitting down. The jolt is so severe that it will cry. The loss of consciousness is just of long enough duration to cause the child to lose control of its muscles. As soon as the wave has passed, the child will sit down suddenly. It may look up and stare. It may be looking at a picture-book with other children, and have a startled look that lasts momentarily. It means a loss of consciousness. The child may ask for a drink, and, as it takes the cup into its hand, if a spasm develops, the cup may drop out of its hand. These seizures may come frequently--two or three to a dozen times a day, often as high as twenty. It has been my experience that they have a tendency to grow worse, unless controlled. By "growing worse" I mean that the unconsciousness lasts longer. There will be a twitching of the muscles, showing that the disease is about to change from the Petit Mal type to Grand Mal, or real convulsions, or the convulsive type.

    Cause.--The cause of all cases that have ever come under my observation is indigestion; and this is brought on from imprudence in feeding the child. Some children are very nervous, play too hard, use up their nerve-energy, and become enervated. This prevents perfect digestion. Then, if fed wrongfully, irritation of the stomach and bowels will be set up, causing reflex irritation of the brain, or cerebro-spinal centers.

    Treatment.--Keep the child in bed for a month or longer, if necessary. Fast as long as possible, and then feed very lightly. No starch or meat is to be given. Use fruit, vegetables, and milk. Have milk in the morning, following a little fruit, such as prunes, apple-sauce, baked apple, or any of the fresh, raw fruits. At noon, have a glass of milk. In the evening feed a cup of vegetable soup, made according to the "Cook Book."

    The child should be bathed with tepid water once a day, and this is to be followed with dry towel-rubbing.

    The bowels should be looked after. If necessary, a small enema should be given each night and morning until the bowels are cleared out. Then, until the child is very much better, and able to be up and eat more, use the enema every other night.

    When the convulsions cease, feed according to the instructions in keeping with the child's age.

    
SEBORRHEA--A SCALP DISEASE OF BABIES--DANDRUFF

    A brownish-gray scale that develops on the heads of babies whose mothers are afraid they will hurt them by a too vigorous use of the washcloth. The disease is due to lack of cleanliness. If baby's head is kept clean from birth, the skin secretions will not dry and form into an unsightly scale on the head.

    Treatment.--When the dry scale has formed white Vaseline be used, after the scalp has been thoroughly washed, using any mild soap and soft water. For every use, from birth to deaths I know of no better soap than Ivory. Most toilet soaps are irritating and have little to recommend them except smell; and there are odors that make children irritable. Irritation or overstimulation of the olfactory (smell) nerves produces enervation--the first step on the way to developing illhealth.

    Keep baby clean and free from all odors, agreeable and disagreeable. Perfume often covers an odor of warning, and too often camouflages the "great unwashed."

    Keep the baby clean inside and out by watching the bowel movements. When curds appear in the bowel movement, reduce the amount of milk until digestion is perfect. A disagreeable odor from the bowel movements means too much food; cut it down. Keep baby free from signs of overfeeding, and then you can say to calamity-mongers and peddlers of cod-liver oil: "My baby will not develop any disease no, not rickets."

    Rickets come from feeding beyond the digestive power, and curds in the stools, bad odors, and scales on the scalp are warnings.

    
ECZEMA

    Eczema comes under the head of neurosis. It is a neurotic so-called disease. In other words, children develop this peculiar form of skin derangement when they are enervated, toxemic, and infected from decomposition of food in the bowels. A child might develop petit mal, chorea, or some other so-called nervous disease, if the reflex irritation had not been sent to the surface of the body. When laymen get enough information so that they can think in the language of the unity of diseases, they will not be scanning almanacs and billboards, and going to all kinds of specialists, to find a cure or buy an operation for all so-called special or specific diseases.

    Symptoms.--At the start there is a little redness and roughness of a small spot on the skin. This gradually spreads larger. Where the constitutional derangement continues to increase in severity, other spots appear. These spots spread, and become somewhat thickened. By that I mean that the roughness is elevated above the surface of the skin. In pronounced types, the surface of the eczematous spots is moist; then it is called weeping eczema. This means that there is a little more irritation that nature is throwing out, or that she is eliminating toxin more rapidly than in what is known as the dry variety of eczema.

    Treatment.--Conventional, orthodox treatment is with lotions and salves. Where salves of various description are used--salves that are prescribed for curing the disease--some will create more irritation than others. Not any are curative--with no apologies to the profession or to Cuticura. Where they produce quite a little irritation, the disease is spread more rapidly than it otherwise would be. But curing eczema in this way is very much on the order of rubbing salve on the end of a dog's tail for a sore ear. Local treatment is absurd, unless palliation is the sole ambition.

    The child's diet must be corrected. Stop forever feeding starch and protein in the same meal. Where bathing is neglected, it should be properly attended. Bathing in eczema is not considered good from standpoint of scientific prescribing. A warm tub-bath three times a week should be given, using a very mild soap. Then follow with a thorough rinsing in warm water. This is to be followed with dry towel-rubbing. Where there are no eczematous spots, the rubbing should be brisk. The days that the child is not to have the tub-bath it should be given a warm sponge-bath, allowing it to stand in warm water and sponging it off quickly; then follow with dry towel-rubbing. After the bath and drying with a soft towel, use a little olive oil or Vaseline; then dust with talcum.

    If the child's tongue is coated, its breath bad, its stomach distended with gas, and it grinds its teeth at night, or is restless and continually kicking the covers off, it should be put to bed for a week or two. A fast of two or three days' duration should be given. If that is impossible, give a glass of milk and water--half warm milk and half hot water. Have the child sip it slowly. A glassful should be given three times a day. After the third day begin the fourth by giving a little fruit in the morning. At noon, feed a slice of whole-wheat bread, stale or dried out or toasted. The bread is to be eaten with a very little butter. This is to be eaten dry. The child gets nothing else until it has finished eating the bread. Then follow the bread with a pear, or a few grapes, or orange juice half water. In the evening, give a dish of prunes and a glass of whole milk. This amount of feeding should not be increased until the eczema has disappeared. Just what kind of gastro-intestinal derangement has been set up to cause the eczema cannot be anticipated, and neither can the intensity of the constitutional derangement be taken into consideration in preparing an article like this. To get good results, the fast should be for three days or longer, if the breath is bad and there should be nausea. A fast often causes sick stomach in those who are very toxemic. A hot, wet pack over the stomach gives relief.

    If, however, the tongue remains coated, the child at the end of the third day's fast has a bad breath, and nature has started up a decided elimination, it would be wise not to feed for three days more. Give nature an opportunity to eliminate the toxins in the system. Nature can be depended upon to do this, unless there is foolish fear on the part of the parents lest the child will starve to death. There is no danger of its starving so long as nature is cleaning house, evidenced by bad odor from the breath and body.

    The bowels should be moved by an enema every night for three consecutive nights. After that, the bowels should be left alone, except for giving a small enema--a half-pint, or not to exceed a pint, of warm water every other day.

    
HIVES

    Hives is caused by irritation of the stomach brought on from eating too frequently and eating an excess of starch in connection with milk. Only those with catarrh of the stomach are troubled with hives; then fish, fruit, honey, or other foods may precipitate an attack. A fast of one or two days is usually quite enough to correct the hives; but it will return if the child's subsequent feeding is imprudent. Where the hives is severe, the child should be put to bed and fasted twenty-four or forty-eight hours and then given fifty-fifty in the morning, ground-up vegetable salad at noon, and a dish of prunes and fifty-fifty in the evening. When the hives has passed away, feed according to instructions for children of its age.

    
HERNIA

    Hernia in children is not difficult of management. If a well-fiitting truss is adjusted and looked after carefully to keep it in place, the tendency in all cases is to recover. Where the hernia is not very large, the tendency is for it to get well without a truss. Children troubled in this way should be fed very carefully--certainly they should not be overfed; and where there is distention of the bowels from gas, overfeeding must be avoided. Certainly milk and bread should never be given in the same meal, because, when starch and protein are eaten together, there is always a tendency to develop gas in the bowels, and gas distention produces so much intra-abdominal pressure that the hernia is forced out and kept in this state. As soon as the gas pressure has been overcome by limiting the eating to digestive needs, the hernial protrusion will return through the opening, and give nature an opportunity to close the so-called rupture. As a matter of fact, a hernia is not a rupture--it is a forced enlargement of a natural opening. It should be understood that there is no rupture it is only a forced separation of the muscular tissue that guards the hernial ring. Rubbing or kneading gently the muscles over the location of the hernia strengthens them, and there is a tendency to overcome the laxity or weakness of the guarding muscles.

    
DISEASES OF THE GENITAL ORGANS
CIRCUMCISION

    Circumcision is an operation that is seldom, if ever, necessary in very young children. Sometimes a tight prepuce has been neglected for five to ten years, and, as cleanliness is impossible, irritation causes so much itching and rubbing of the parts that the tissues become thickened, indurated and elongated. Irritation and inflammation end in ulceration, which infects the blood. This, joining Toxemia, causes general ill-health. Such cases require the removal of the extra growth--the tissues become so thick and hardened that it is necessary to remove that portion that is decidedly elongated and indurated. I have seen cases that required as much as two or more inches removed. A few cases have come under my observation in men from thirty to forty years of age. In all such cases there has been a blighting of the development of the entire reproductive system, including the co-ordinate brain-centers. There would be more forceful men and women in the world if proper care were given their genital organs in infancy and childhood.

    Parental ignorance and stupidity concerning proper care of the reproductive organs of children have caused blighting or dwarfing of the entire reproductive system; which means sending a child through life held down in development, physically and mentally. Ambition requires super-sexuality. If such endowment is not safeguarded by wisdom, it may be dissipated.

    There is a large class of children neglected in the line of cleanliness. Neglect of teaching children the art of keeping clean--that it is as important to keep the genitalia clean and free from odor as it is to keep the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth clean--leads to disease and crime.

    The origin of venereal diseases, as of all other so-called diseases, is in filth.

    Allowing the genitals of children to accumulate the natural secretions leads to the fermentation of these secretions. This change causes irritation, and in time inflammation. The irritation causes rubbing, pinching, and scratching. Herein lies the beginning of secret vices of children, which lead on to libertinism in the male and nymphomania in women. Judge Lindsey has called down upon his head the imprecations of the just in publishing to the world his remedy for the wiles of the sex-neuroto-maniacs. His books should be read by all who are not afraid of truth.

    All this social perversion starts from a lack of cleanliness of the sex-organs in babies. We results of this neglect end in self-pollution, sex-mania, promiscuity, and finally in a sexo-mental impotency that even a Solomon's harem would give no appeal.

    When babies are cared for as they should be, there is no need of such operations. Where the foreskin is exceedingly close, and cannot be drawn back over the glans, a small dilating or prepuce forceps may be used. Introduce the forceps gently far enough back under the prepuce to get to the glans. Enough pressure should be put on the forceps to make the dilation thorough, if possible, at the first stretching. Then push the foreskin back, wash with hot water, dry, and use Vaseline. The parts should be bathed in hot soap-water morning and evening, and after manipulating the foreskin a little--gently pushing back once or twice.

    This procedure need not be dignified by the name of operation; for it amounts to nothing except dilating and retracting the foreskin in all those that are too small to be drawn back over the glans without force at the time when the child is having its first bath.

    The procedure need not be undertaken if the child is unusually weak from a tedious, hard birth. Postponing for a week will be all right under the circumstances. Neglect in this matter will cause children to rub themselves. On examination it may be found that there is a slight adhesion of a portion of the prepuce, so that the foreskin cannot be completely pushed back over the glans. It may require a little force to push or peel such adhesions back, but it must be done.

    I have found a slight adhesion to exist, in boys from six to twelve years of age, at the corona or ridge of the glans, overlooked by examiners. It causes itching, and it lays the foundation for early self-abuse. Family physicians cannot be too careful in this regard. Children should be taught as early as possible that they are not to handle this part of the body any more than they would put their fingers into the ears, nose, or eyes. A little care in this by mothers, when children are young, will forestall the vicious manipulations in childhood that lead to self-abuse. Training children in this regard is often neglected until they are old enough to be self-conscious. This education should not be neglected until vicious habits are formed. Too many parents neglect their duty until unaccountable symptoms or discomfort draw their attention to possible secret habits. Then they shift their responsibility to the doctor.

    Cleanliness and care of the genitalia should receive very much the same attention as the nose, eyes, teeth, and ears. If children are taught the importance of entire cleanliness of the body, it will end one of the active causes for onanism in children. Parents should not allow false modesty to grow up between them and their children.

    I am frequently asked by mothers to give them the name of the best books on sex-life. Care, such as suggested above, has been neglected until all the teachings that a mother can give from one of these books would be on the order of locking the barn after the horse is gone. Cleanliness of body and mind should begin at the breast, or with the grandparents. Boys and girls will never learn to be cleanly, and take the proper care of their genital organs, if the teaching is left until puberty.

    The art of keeping clean is a transmissible tendency, and parents should cultivate it. Near-clean is about as close to the art of living clean as most people can boast--even those who enjoy the luxury of bath-tubs.

    The use of bath-tubs has become quite general, but few people have learned to think in the language of cleanliness. Until we learn to think in the language of health, or any division of knowledge, we are novices. No knowledge is our knowledge until we have lived it long enough to affect our personality.

    Knowledge of cleanliness must not end with keeping the surface of the body clean. It must be so clean that so-called skin diseases will not develop.

    The washing of the surface of the body must extend to all openings to the surface. The mouth, the teeth when they erupt, the nose as far as possible, the eyes and the eyelashes, and the margins of the lid must be kept scrupulously clean. If the eyes are kept clean--not pretty nearly clean--there will be no excuse for carrying out the medical superstition of medicating the eyes of every new-born infant with argyrol, to prevent the possibility of ophthalmia neonatorum--gonorrhea! inflammation of the eyes developing; a sort of left-handed compliment that all mothers have venereal disease. Gonorrhea is a disease of filth, and will end when the human family learns the art of keeping clean (not near-clean).

    Few, if any, mothers know how thoroughly to wash a child. When they learn how, there will be fewer blind, deaf and catarrhal. Skin diseases will disappear if personal liberty ceases to be abrogated by manufacturers of vaccine and serum through their henchmen, the vaccinators, and such diseases as infantile paralysis, meningitis, epilepsy, and rheumatism will be heard of no more.

    Cleanliness must be internal as well as external. Correct eating and thinking habits are as necessary as soap and water.

    
VULVITIS AND VAGINITIS

    Vulvitis is inflammation of the external organs of generation in girls.

    Symptoms.--Itching and rubbing of the genitals attract the mother's attention, if she has not noticed redness and sensitiveness when bathing the child. The inflammation may be very slight, and may possibly be overlooked, starting, as it does, in the folds of the tissues. This is especially true of fat children. The inflammation may be severe enough to involve all the external vulva.

    Treatment.--Cleansing the parts three or four times a day with quite warm water. The first washing of a morning should be thorough, with a mild soap and careful rinsing, so that there will not be any irritation from the effect of the soap left on. After thorough washing, a very small amount of vaseline or a bland face-cream may be gently rubbed on; then dust the parts with talcum powder. If the irritated parts are not involving too much tissue, one more dressing of the same character in the evening may be sufficient; but in severe vulvitis the washing should be every three hours, following with a gentle drying and dusting with powder. The first washing for the morning may be as recommended, bathing with a little soap and water. Where it is necessary to bathe the parts every three hours, it may be that the inflammation will be so severe that it would not be prudent to use soap in the water for more than one bathing a day. The rest of the baths should be simply of warm water. Use cotton to apply the water, or very soft gauze. Rough handling should be avoided.

    Vaginitis.--This is inflammation of the vagina in infants and children. It may be an extension of the vulvitis, especially in children large enough to injure themselves with rubbing and scratching.

    It is possible that pinworms may be a cause, coming from the rectum. A child that is troubled with pinworms, if the derangement is not overcome, may have the vagina infested with these little worms, causing vaginitis or symptoms of the same.

    Symptoms.--The symptoms of vaginitis are redness and irritation, causing the child to be irritable and endeavoring to get relief by rubbing or scratching. The mother, on examination, will find a white discharge oozing from the vagina. This means a little ulceration. A yellow or milky discharge must have a certain amount of pus to give it color. This, of course, means that the inflammation has extended to a slight ulcerative stage. The mucous membrane is denuded, and ulceration is starting up.

    Treatment.--The child may be treated the same as for vulvitis, with the addition of using a douche once or twice a day. Put quite warm water into a fountain syringe, and use the smallest rectal tube to introduce into the vagina, thoroughly cleansing the tube before using. The water need not be medicated--cleanliness is the only thing necessary. The douching must be thorough, and used until the child is well. Feeding under these circumstances should be light. The child should not be allowed to eat heavily--in fact, should be confined to milk three times a day, and a little orange juice. The milk can be taken three times a day at regular meal times, and an ounce of orange juice and an ounce of water after each feeding of milk.

    When children are nervous and irritable, they should be kept in bed until normal. This rule should apply at all times when children are irritable or peevish and hard to please. When they have a white line around their mouths, or at the sides of the nose, keep food away from them until they are feeling fine, as indicated by playfulness.

    
VACCINATION

    It is now the endeavor of scientific medicine to educate people into believing that, if they are inoculated with all kinds of prevention, and often enough, disease will be made impossible for them. Doctoring of all kinds, from the wonder-workers to the most utterly utter modern medical scientist, correctly interpreted means, or is equivalent to: Ignore health laws; remain ignorant of them; ruthlessly break them; and, when suffering because of such stupidity or incorrigibility, send for the tom-tom artist, or be immured or cured by one of the inoculations or serumizations.

    My stand against vaccination and serumization for the prevention and cure of disease is based on the conviction that the treatment is in oposition to law, common-sense, and reason. The laws of nature or God, if you please--have been broken before disease manifests. Disease is a crisis, which means an effort on the part of the body to eliminate pent-up toxins. It is a systematic house-cleaning, and would not be necessary if irrational living had not brought on enervation, checking elimination and causing Toxemia. I must declare that there is no logic--absolutely no common-sense--in breaking every law of nature, as conventional civilization does, and, when retribution comes, endeavor to sidestep the consequences by getting under the cover of cure or prevention, which in no wise corrects outlawry or its penalty.

    Thinking people can know, if they want to, that disease is not what medical science teaches--namely, symptom-complexes caused by extraneous influences--and that it may not be prevented or cured by vaccines or serums. Disease, so-called, is nature's way of curing. A cold is elimination of toxin. To stop the symptoms means to stop elimination, which means forcing the organism to retain the toxins and gradually grow a larger toleration, until life is overwhelmed by a so- called acute disease or a chronic organic disease, which may end in the destruction of some important organ, or life itself.

    Disease is auto-house-cleaning, and all the treatment necessary is rest of body and mind. So-called treatment or curative measures are positively obstructive.

    Isn't it a fact that immunity to disease is natural? Man breaks down his immunity by building Toxemia and a cesspool under his diaphragm. The only reason why people are ever sick is because their resistance is broken down. I say broken-down resistance advisedly; for if people who are subject to so-called epidemics are educated into proper living--proper care of their bodies--and they then live accordingly, they rise above the socalled disease-producing influence.

    Instead of attempting to immunize against disease by the injection into the body of a poison--a poison made from the filth of animal disease--would it not be better to immunize by establishing proper living habits to build up a natural resistance to disease? A healthy body will not develop any disease--no, not smallpox.

    Medical superstition and commercialism in combination render mind oblivious to truth and impotent to reason logically; else, how is it possible to believe that infecting the blood with septic vaccine or serum, which is poison, renders immunity to a disease from which the culture medium is taken? For example, a calf is inoculated with pus from a smallpox pustule. When septic inflammation has gone through the inflammatory stage to ulceration and suppuration, this pus is used to vaccinate human beings, in the superstitious belief that the disease created (vaccinea) immunizes against smallpox. The only reason why the vaccine disease does not kill is because the poisoning is of the skin. If the operation should carry the poison beneath the skin--hypodermatize--general septic poisoning would be induced, and the patient would die from septicemia (putrescent infection)--the same infection that takes place in wounds that are badly drained, or in child-bed fever where natural drainage is obstructed and intra-uterine douches are neglected.

    Septic poisoning is the same, be the infection from vaccine, serum, a badly drained traumatism (wound), or suppuration located anywhere in the body. There are but two sources of infection; namely, Toxemia from retained waste-products of metabolism (tissue-change), and putrescent infection. The latter runs a rapidly fatal course in pronouncedly toxemic subjects.

    If children were fed right, there would be no excuse for so-called vaccine prevention, which per se is an infection; for it is made from putrescence--products of disease. The human mind appears to have an aptness of penchant for reveling in filth. "As a dog returneth to his vomit," so the human family is led by its own ignorance, or the superstition of its medical advisers, to return to the body's dejecta for cures or prevention, in spite of the fact that purlfication is preached by all nature.

    What are vaccines made from? The waste--the excrete--eliminated by the throes we call disease. This debris is taken to laboratories, and by scientific conjuration it is made pure--so pure that it is thrown into the blood of children with the idea that they will be better able to resist disease than if their blood is allowed to remain pure or up to the standard established by nature. Can common-sense reasoning make anything out of such a procedure but madness--science frenzy?

    
CONVULSIONS

    This, in truth, is a gruesome, discouraging physical derangement, which, if not overcome, in time weakens the mind.

    The rule is that children recover from acute intestinal attacks, and to all appearances are as well as ever the next day after a severe convulsion. This is true in those cases caused by indigestion. It is not uncommon for convulsions to develop in neurotic children every time they have acute indigestion.

    There are different kinds of spasms, depending upon the various causes. All convulsions are symptoms. In other words, they are symptomatic--caused by various derangements of the system.

    The nervous system of children is very susceptible to irritations. A severe indigestion, causing pain in the stomach and bowels, is liable to throw a young child or baby into convulsions. A catarrhal condition of the throat, extending to the ears and to the mastoid cells, will cause convulsions in the majority of children. Meningitis (inflammation of the membranes of the brain) is often ushered in with convulsions.

    A severe injury will often create a convulsion. Fear, or sudden fright, will throw a child into convulsions. If the mother who is overworked and has become very tired should nurse her child before she has rested, her milk is liable to produce convulsions in the baby. Fright on the part of the mother, if it does not dry up the milk, and if the child nurses, is liable to throw the child into convulsions. It is very dangerous for a mother to nurse a child immediately after pronounced anger, or after she has been subjected to sex-excitement. Pronounced jealousy on the part of the mother will so change the milk of her breasts as to throw the child into convulsions. Mothers subjected to the excitement of picnics on hot days, or who are spending a day in an outing in very hot weather, may change their milk to such an extent that the child will be thrown into convulsions.

    Many of these cases may end in vomiting and purging in those children where convulsions do not develop. The so-called cholera infantum in babies is oftener than otherwise caused by the mother's milk being deranged in the various ways hinted at above. Hence cholera infantum frequently starts in an infant with convulsions, and with vomiting and purging following.

    Mothers who go into labor with the stomach and bowels full of food, will have a very great deal of discomfort, and most of them will have instrumental labor. If nothing else is ruptured, the neck of the womb usually is. This then becomes a point of septic inflammation and ulceration. Systemic infection follows, which puts the mother's milk in a septic state unfit for the child. After the child has been nursed for a few days, it is made sick, and possibly will develop convulsions. If this is understood, the child will be taken from the breast and given artificial feeding. It matters not how old the child is--if it is two or three days, or two or three weeks old--it must be kept without food until the convulsions have entirely disappeared for at least twenty-four hours. Then it may be given the amount of modified milk that will be within its digestive possibilities.

    Mothers who feel kindly toward their unfortunate offspring may be prepared to put the child back on the breast, if given the proper uterine treatment. If the ulceration and septic absorption can be overcome in a reasonable time by proper local treatment, in the course of two weeks the child may be put back on the breast. In the meantime the breasts should be emptied daily with a breast-pump. This manipulation should be very carefully carried out, so that the breasts will not be bruised. If the breasts are kept clear of milk for two weeks, and the mother is fed properly, and her mind is poised as it should be, she may try nursing the child again. But watch! If her blood has not been cleared of the toxic absorption, the milk may disagree. Then artificial feeding should be given again, and continued for a week; the same treatment being repeated for the mother.

    Many times I have been successful in bringing the mother back to the normal, so that she can have the pleasure of being a real mother to her baby.

    There are many causes for spasms or convulsions, but the common cause is gastro-intestinal indigestion. The indigestion may have a physical or mental base. Almost invariably a child has been indulged in taking unfit food mixtures or in overeating. As soon as the bowels and stomach are cleared out, the cause is removed; and, unless the child is overfed immediately or very soon after, it may never have another convulsion.

    Symptoms.--The child may appear unhappy and indisposed, and look sick for a day or two. The face may be flushed and white around the mouth Perhaps it appears sick at the stomach. It may gag and make an effort at vomiting. The temperature may run very high. Some children are threatened with convulsions for several hours before a real spasm takes place; others may be taken suddenly. The child will scream, put the arms around the mother, and act frightened. After which it may quiet down for a minute; then have the same symptoms repeated. Many times, however, the child will have pain in the bowels, which are usually bloated with gas, and may be sick at the stomach, or even vomit. In the effort at vomiting too much blood is sent to the brain, and the convulsion ensues at once.

    Few people need a description of this fearful disease, but for those who know nothing about it I will say that the child appears excited or frightened, and begins to jerk the arms and hands in rapid succession. The jerking is usually confined to one hand and one arm on one side of the body, the head jerking and twisting to the opposite side. The face is drawn and distorted; the eyes roll or stare; the pupils are dilated; and in a few seconds there will be a struggle for breath. The symptoms often give the impression that the child will choke; but the breath is shut off from the spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the throat and lungs. As the convulsions continue, the child's face becomes purple--bluish to black; the tissues about the face are puffed and engorged; and in a longer or shorter time the intervals between the jerkings increase in length, until relaxation begins. Then breathing or inhalation takes place, with a distressing rattling in the throat, which scares the mother, as she thinks the child is choking to death. It is not due to anything in the throat, except the mucus that has accumulated during the convulsion. The choking is really caused from the spasmodic closure of the air- passage. The jerking subsides, and relaxation comes slowly. Sometimes the tongue is bitten, causing the mucus to be bloody.

    After relaxation starts, it is not very long before the child becomes quiet and falls into a heavy sleep that may last for an hour or for several hours. In severe cases, children will go through one of these convulsions, and hardly get relaxed before another convulsion starts, as severe as the previous one. The length of time varies from a minute to two or three minutes. I have seen many infants at the breast develop a short spasm every twenty minutes for twelve to twenty-four hours. Of course, such convulsions are very much lighter than the type described above.

    Treatment.--The treatment for convulsions in children over one year of age, is simple enough. What we know as acute cases--cases that are brought on from indigestion in children that have been allowed to eat too heartily and improperly-- should have the bowels cleared out with enemas. Most of them have vomited sufficiently to remove all the decomposing food in the stomach. Then if they are given a fast of a day or two--long enough to get back to the normal--the eating may begin with very little fruit, cooked non-starchy vegetables or vegetable soup, and salad--orange juice mornings, ground salads noons, soup evenings. They should be kept on this plan of feeding at least two days before milk is given. Then a little milk may be given with the fruit for breakfast, and also with the vegetables and salad at noon, and either sweet milk or buttermilk, with prunes? for the evening meal. After four days, regular eating, without the frills that made them sick.

    At the beginning of the second week, a little whole- wheat bread, eaten dry, may be given, followed with fruit for breakfast, toast followed with vegetables and salad at noon, and fruit with milk i. the evening. This is a balanced ration for children.

    
KISSING THE BABY

    The age of medical filth, dirt, and germ insanity is passing. Occasionally a medical neophyte evolves in his experience to the kissing-bug stage. He attracts the attention of a few who have not kept up with the procession, and thrills them by crying out against the immemorial habit of kissing the baby.

    There are still a lot of heathen mothers and doctors who prefer to put pure pus--vaccine, into a pure baby's blood to planting a kiss of love on their sweet little faces and mouths. It takes, not only ignorance, but a lot of stupidity, to warn mothers about the danger of kissing their babies, and in the same breath extol the saving graces of vaccination--vaccine being the product of a pustular infection scientifically cultivated on the belly of a calf. All kinds of immunization on the order of pure vaccine are recommended as vicarious atonement for the sins of man by the enemies of kissing babies.

    Inasmuch as kissing babies dates back to the origin of affinity--chemical attraction--and since our solar system is held together by the push and pull of love and hate, mothers will coddle, love, and kiss their babies. The cat, dog, cow--in fact, all animals--lick and love their babies. Because of this love of children, the race is perpetuated. The infinite number of human beings who have lived and passed away have been mother-loved. Not until the latter part of the nineteenth century did man denounce kissing.

    Has the pernicious teaching of kiss-nihilism had anything to do with domesticity in the past fifty years? Has there ever been such a state of incorrigibility in youth? Mothers would better kiss their babies into hospitals than withhold the kiss and send them to the gallows or prison. Think it over, you fellows who would stop kissing, shaking hands, etc., or do away with human fellowship by teaching everyone to believe that every other one is a perambulating infection. If science teaches this phobia, science be damned, along with science maniacs!

    The medical profession knows that parents kill their babies kissing them; but the superstition-macerated brain cannot see any harm that can come to babies by vaccinating, serumating, and overfeeding them.

    What is the rational meaning of "kiss their babies into their graves"? It certainly does not mean planting bacteria, later to war on the leucocytes--white blood-corpuscles. One of the exploded theories is that consumption (tuberculosis) is caused by germs. If it were, no one would escape, even without the aid of a kiss.

    The rear ranks of the medical profession still teach that tuberculosis is contagious and infectious, and they still cling to the impossible theory that bovine tuberculosis is transmissible to human beings. As the human herd is still savage in its instincts, it must massacre something, and, in lieu of an excuse to kill human beings, it satisfies its blood-thirst on the farmer's stock.

    The foundation for tuberculosis, cancer, and other so-called chronic diseases is oftener than otherwise laid in babyhood--not from kissing, but from overfeeding, bringing on catarrh of the air passages, stomach, and bowels, marked by frequent crises or symptom-complexes named in a general way "diseases peculiar to children." And when the children are protein-poisoned, their catarrhal crises (disease) take on infection (putrescence), such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, and other putrid diseases. Those who do not die continue building various infections, local and general, many of which kill in early life. Those of strong vitality go down in middle life, and often with kidney, liver, intestinal, brain, and nervous diseases; more from lung diseases or tuberculosis.

    The proper management in babies and older children will make impossible the building of such tragic endings.

    Germ phobics have a lot of time to head off the effect of a kiss-planted germ, if there were any truth in their germ theory. Why, in the name of their gods, don't they immunize when they are so cock-sure that germs implanted in babies end in tuberculosis after maturity? You people who fall for such bunk should demand immunization instead of an outpouring of germophobic hot-air.

    
IS CRYING INJURIOUS?

    This is a question asked by many mothers. Crying is not nearly so injurious as its causes. And what are the causes? Too much attention, too much coddling; educating the child into believing that it can buy anything and everything if it will only cry hard enough. Then, again, crying is brought about by pain or discomfort in the stomach and bowels, due to indigestion. Mothers feed children too much. This brings on indigestion, following which there is always gas distention in the bowels; and when the bowels are distended with gas, hard crying means severe straining on the abdominal walls, and this is liable to produce a hernia at the navel.

    The above hints concerning crying indicate the cure to people of good judgment. But those who bring children into this state are not people of good judgment; hence it is necessary to say that the first cause referred to can be overcome by proper discipline. However, is it possible for a mother who spoils a child to be able to turn around and give it just the opposite treatment? Because that means to stop coddling the child, to stop dancing attendance, to refuse absolutely to give it what it wants until it ceases crying. Many mothers will answer this by saying that it will cry itself to death, or it will bring on hernia, etc. A nurse should be substituted for such a mother as that, until the child is disciplined out of its bad habits.

    Those children who cry because they are uncomfortable can soon be brought to a state of comfort by watching the stools. If there is any evidence at all--and there always will be--of indigestion, feeding must be reduced in quantity at least one-half, and perhaps a fast of one or two days will be best. Then start in and feed one-third the quantity that the child was taking before the fast. One or two days later increase to one-half the amount. From that time on gradually increase to the child's digestive limitations. The stools must always be watched. If there are any flakes or small white curds, the amount of food must be cut down. The very worst feeding habit that people practice with children in this condition is to change food. Because the food is not agreeing, they think there should be a change, and in a few days another change. This sort of floundering works mischief, and too often is the cause of a child's death. Overfeeding is the cause of the indigestion in the child ninety-nine times out of every hundred; so the bugaboo of food not agreeing must explode when people really understand the cause of indigestion. When the food is given within the proper limitations, there will be no more distention of the bowels from gas, and no more constipation. Then, if the child is not coddled, it will spend most of its young life playing with its fingers and toes, and cooing itself to sleep.

    
HOLDING THE BREATH

    Babies occasionally hold their breath until the face is quite discolored or livid, and this is very much inclined to scare the parents. I have never seen a case die from this cause.

    Such children are usually decidedly neurotic, and an effort in coughing or crying may produce congestion of the base of the brain. The more blood that is rushed to the brain, the more spasmodic the crying and coughing become. It is a little on the order of whooping-cough or epilepsy.

    Some children are so very sensitive, and carry so much blood in the brain, that any exertion of the body which forces blood to the brain brings on a reaction of extremely persistent coughing, or extremely and persistent crying.

    If a small towel is wrung out of real cold water and spread over the face when the child begins to hold its breath, it may cause a reaction.

    Children seem to outgrow such a condition in the course of a few months. The rule is that nothing happens to children who hold their breath until livid when they cry.

    
PACIFIERS

    Pacifiers, gas in the bowels, catnip, camomile, soothing syrup, castoria, castor oil, syrup of rhubarb, neutralizing cordial, stupidity, and medical superstitution are a conglomeration extraordinary, common in child-raising.

    Many mothers seem to think that it is necessary to keep something in the child's mouth for it to suck--a sort of a make-belief eating. It is a bad habit. It is no more necessary than it is for a child to be educated into crying for the mother to give it attention every hour of the day. It means a very bad and censurable lack of discipline. If the care of children is started at birth, as this book teaches, there will be no need of pactfiers, rattle-boxes, toys, jumping-jacks, or anything of that kind with which to entertain them. Children started right usually get all the pleasure they want out of playing with their toes, counting their fingers, sticking their fingers into the mouths, eyes, and noses, and pulling their ears. This is nature's way of allowing them to get acquainted with themselves in the kindergarten school of "hard knocks."

    Pacifiers always go with overfeeding. Overfeeding is followed by indigestion, and indigestion is followed by discomfort from distention of the bowels from gas. Gas in the bowels is always accompanied by much crying or fretting. Crying is due to discomfort in the bowels, and part of it is a demand for mothers, nurses, etc., to dance attendance upon the children--in other words, it means spoiled babies.

    Overfeeding causes restlessness. To pacify, more food is given. Then follows a therapeutic conglomeration, partially enumerated above, which often ends in death, or, what is worse, invalidism --physical or mental. If physical, then tuberculosis or possibly cancer; if mental, then insanity or crime.

    Few can get the proper perspective. Average eyes are rammed up against the kaleidoscope of symptomatology, and every view is interpreted as a distinct entity. They cannot follow a pactfier to tuberculosis, cancer, or electrocution.