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26
The Feeding of Infants.
It is hardly sufficiently realised that the artificial feeding of infants
has only been extensively practised within quite recent times and that
the feeding bottle was introduced within the memory of the present
generation. Whether we shall ever return to the habits of the prefeeding
bottle days or not it is difficult to say. If we do not it will not
be for want of serious warnings of the risks run by the bottle-fed baby,
namely—a liability to all kinds of digestive disturbances resulting in
impaired digestion for life ; a liability to rickets with deformities lasting
for life ; a greatly increased liability to die during the first year of life
from diarrhoea ; a lack of vital resistance causing the baby to succumb
more easily to the various diseases which it might contract; interference
with the proper development of both the temporary and permanent
teeth with effects lasting for life ; liability to scurvy ; and liability to
contract tuberculosis by the ingestion of tuberculous milk.
Deformities amongst Children.
Rickets, so common among poor and underfed children, but very
frequent too among the well-to-do classes, produces an immense
number of disfiguring changes in the whole body skeleton. Amongst
the evil consequences are bow legs, narrow chest, knock knees and
distortion of the pelvis, which is a very serious matter in the case of a
woman in after life. The head becomes square, the face small and
ill-developed, and the jaws are liable to become prominent and beaklike.
Very often the growth of the child is stunted, while the teeth
may be badly shaped and weak in structure. All this is a matter of
diet and air. Rickets makes its appearance when the child does not
get sufficient stimulating sunlight and is given foods deficient in fat and
lime salts. The use of starchy foods instead of pure milk at too early
an age is also a potent cause of the disease.
But a great deal more than the avoidance of rickets depends on the
feeding and general care of young children. Almost every disturbance
of nutrition in the child detracts from its physical appearance in later
life. The chronic weak digestion, so common in our Borough, may be
easily read in the sallow faces and pinched features of the sufferers,
and their lack of capacity for undertaking the duties of life. The
effects of diseases on the system are also serious in after life. Rheumatic
fever for instance is frequently followed by a weak heart for the
rest of the child's life. The consequences of measles may be enlarged
tonsils and neck glands, adenoids, ear diseases, and general prolonged