the proper medium, it induces a similar kind of heaviness to that
arising from opiates and intoxicating liquors; and instead of awakening
refreshed and lively, the child will be heavy and fretful. By the time
that children begin to run about, the increase of their exercise will
require an increase of nourishment: but those who overload them with
food at any time, in hopes of strengthening them, are very much
deceived. No prejudice is equally fatal to such numbers of children.
Whatever unnecessary food a child receives, weakens instead of
strengthening it: for when the stomach is overfilled, its power of
digestion is impaired, and food undigested is so far from yielding
nourishment, that it only serves to debilitate the whole system, and to
occasion a variety of diseases. Amongst these are obstructions,
distention of the body, rickets, scrophula, slow fevers, consumptions,
and convulsion fits. Another pernicious custom prevails with regard to
the diet of children, when they begin to take other nourishment besides
their mother's milk, and that is by giving them such as their stomachs
are unable to digest, and indulging them also in a mixture of such
things at their meals as are hurtful to every body, and more especially
to children, considering the feeble and delicate state of their organs.
This injudicious indulgence is sometimes defended on the plea of its
being necessary to accustom them to all kinds of food; but this idea is
highly erroneous. Their stomachs must have time to acquire strength
sufficient to enable them to digest varieties of food; and the filling
them with indigestible things is not the way to give them strength.
Children can only acquire strength gradually with their proper growth,
which will always be impeded if the stomach is disordered. Food for
infants should be very simple, and easy of digestion. When they require
something more solid than spoonmeats alone, they should have bread with
them. Plain puddings, mild vegetables, and wholesome ripe fruits, eaten
with bread, are also good for them. Animal food is better deferred till
their increased capacity for exercise will permit it with greater
safety, and then care must be taken that the exercise be proportioned to
this kind of food. The first use of it should be gradual, not exceeding
two or three times in a week. An exception should be made to these rules
in the instances of scrophulous and rickety children, as much bread is
always hurtful in these c