than the liability to decay, the supply is ever in excess of the waste, the gain is ever in advance of the loss, so that a gradual accumulation of bulk is sustained, with a progressive development. As the body reaches maturity, the formative power gradually diminishes, until these processes of waste and supply, disintegration and, renovation are equally balanced; and, in proportion as it approaches old age, does the loss exceed the gain, the decay over-master the renewal, until death overtakes life, and thus is closed the circuit of our material being.

The blood, then, being the source from which every part of the body derives its nourishment, and the blood itself being formed from the food, too much importance cannot be attached to the proper selection and judicious administration of the food of the young. The food of the infant, indeed, is so important that nature retains this in her own hands. Very clearly given also is the information as to when the fluid should give place to solid food, by the appearance of the organs of mastication; and very significant is the fact of their appearing singly or in pairs, and at intervals, so that the transition from the fluid to the solid shall, in conformity with all her changes, be gradual-lingering long on the debateable point where the food is neither actual fluid nor solid, yet partaking of the characteristics of both.

When regular diet has been adopted, it cannot be too regular; but it must be carefully and systematically varied. This is most important; for, when the child had but its one article of natureprovided food, it had that which in itself contained material for the supplying of all its wants-material for the maintenance and increase of every bone, muscle, and nerve, of every cell of every organ in the body. But there is no other all-sustaining, all-sufficing article of diet, and therefore is judicious variety necessary-not to be produced at the same meal, to excite the appetite by sight or smell, or to gratify the palate after the appetite has been satisNo. 30.-VOL. V.

fied, but at intervals of days or even weeks, or at the slightest indication of dislike or indifference to that which is in use, that the digestive organs may be sustained in their natural tone, and the varied wants of the growing frame duly supplied.

The food of young children should be simple and unexciting, because their nervous and circulatory systems are readily irritated; but it should be nourishing and abundant. During the period of growth the demand for nourishment is very great, both from the supply required for the additions to the growing frame, and from the great physical activity for which all healthy children show so strong an inclination. It is not true, as is often asserted, that most children are overfed. Children can scarcely be restricted in food without loss, provided it is judiciously chosen and their exercise is sufficient; and it is to errors in these two respects that those evils are usually due which are wrongly ascribed to over-feeding. Many children suffer from being brought up under the mistaken idea that an invalid diet, so to speak, is the most desirable one for them; and, at the very time when they are in most need of abundant and nourishing food, it is doled out to them in limited quantity, and still much more often in deficient quality. I have met with many families where the children were only allowed to have meat two or three times a week, and lived principally upon bread, rice, sago, puddings, and similar food-the fact being overlooked that such articles contain, in a large bulk, but a small proportion of those compounds. which go to the repairing and adding to of the most important tissues of the body. Such food is of course valuable when taken in combination with the more nourishing kinds, because it supplies that bulk or quantity which is essential to healthy digestion; but an exclusive diet of it, though it may be very suitable to the Brahmins of an Indian climate, is wholly inadequate to supply the needs of the active, growing frames of English children. Its results I have ever found to be the same. If the MM

children are able to resist the attacks of disease, they grow up to be small, puny, feeble men and women.

There is another form in which children are very often insufficiently fednamely, when they are allowed to eat at any time, and of almost any food which inclination or fancy may direct. Their appetite for proper and natural food is thus perverted, and their stomachs are loaded with what, so far from being useful, is positively destructive. would be well if parents would recollect, that it is not what is eaten merely, but what is digested and assimilated, that supports life and growth, and that a child may very easily be starved, without ever feeling hungry.

It

That insufficient food is the cause of many of the evils existing among those who can get no better, is a well-known fact. Cases are continually brought under our notice, of sufferings induced, not by actual starvation, but by daily insufficiency; and we must not forget that these evils may be and are equally induced, whether the insufficiency lies in the quantity or the quality, and whether it arises from the impossibility of obtaining more and better, or from the mistaken belief that that which is already provided is enough.

Especially never stint a child in its morning meal, because the appetite at this time is a more truthful expression of the requirements of the body than at any other, and also because the food then presented is usually of a less stimulating and of a plainer kind than at any other period of the day. Bread and milk is an excellent general breakfast. There is only one better; and that is the porridge and milk of the children of all classes in Scotland. Some children awaken very early; and in these cases a plain biscuit or piece of bread will in no way interfere with the appetite for the regular meal, but rather preserve it. Midday is the time for the nursery dinner; which should consist of two dishes, one of meat, with vegetables, and one of farinaceous or fruit pudding, of which there is a great variety. Water is, of course, the only drink at the

nursery dinner. No beer or wine should be given, except by medical advice. Tea should be an hour or two before going to bed, and should be a repetition of breakfast in its simplest form; for the digestive organs have been busy all day, and sleep, sound dreamless sleep, is necessary for the recruitment of the little weary frame. Since day-dawn, hands and feet, legs and arms, body and brain, have been busy, and have all some little addition to make to their stature and their strength; and this cannot be done if the process of digestion has still to be carried on.

It is, doubtless, desirable that perfect propriety and decorum should be preserved at the nursery table; but this may be done, and still the laughter be louder than the clatter of spoon on plate; for be it remembered, that good digestion is promoted by contentment and happiness at the time of eating.

Air and food-these are agents essential to life, essential to existence; but there are others which are essential to health-such as clothing, bathing, and exercise.

The proper treatment and protection of the skin are only now being clearly understood, because the actual structure and functions of the skin itself are of recent discovery. And nothing is more surely established than the fact, that the frequent use of water is essential to its healthy condition.

In

Bathing must be viewed as an agent of health in two aspects-first, as a cleanser of the skin; secondly, as an agent of considerable tonic power. the first aspect, it addresses the skin as the organ of transpiration only; in the second, as the organ of common sensation, possessed of great nervous sensibility and influence. In the first, it addresses the skin, with the view of removing from its surface all impediments to functional ability and arousing it to greater activity. In the second, it acts directly, through the skin, upon the entire nervous and circulatory systems, either as a stimulus when depressed, or as a sedative when under undue excitement.

But many parents are deterred from the use of this valuable aid to health, by the fear that the child will catch cold, or that he is not strong enough for bathing. As well talk of a hungry child not being strong enough for food! True it is, that a child who has not from infancy been accustomed to the use of cold water will naturally at first show a strong repugnance to it; and the bath, in such cases, must be approached with the utmost caution, and only arrived at by slow degrees.

But with how little discretion, or forethought, or comprehension of the nature and value of the process upon which one is engaged, is this often performed! While some delicate children are plunged into cold water, and thereby literally "frightened into fits," others are merely dabbed over with water up to fever-heat. All extremes should be avoided. The power of liking the bath is too valuable to be trifled with; and, independently of the certain failure in its object and purpose, either extreme of temperature may lose it. The hot water may give a distaste, the cold water a fear, a repugnance, that may last for life. Let the temperature of the water at first be that which will be most agreeable to the child, and afterwards gradually and slowly reduced until it is taken fresh from the pump; and then not in large quantity. The mere bulk and amount of the water will sometimes scare and frighten a delicate or timid child. It is of so much importance that the child should take pleasure in the bath, should enjoy the bath, that no trouble should be considered too great to insure it. And let there be no pouring of the water suddenly over head and face, and no tricks, and no surprises, and no deceits-nothing that might startle, or scare, or give dislike; but gentle persuasion and truthful example, and every word and gesture and act that will inspire confidence and trust.

The basin with tepid water (and let the nurse be reminded that what will be tepid to the touch of her hand will be hot to the delicate and sensitive skin of

a young child) will gradually give place to the cold bath of larger dimensions. The best method of effecting this gradual change is, first, to put a given quantity of cold water into the bath, and then to ascertain how much hot water is required to raise the temperature to the point desired—this last to be diminished in quantity as the temperature of the bath is to be lowered. Let the child sit or stand in the bath; lave the water a few times in slight handfuls very gently over the head and face, and in the same manner over the whole body. Later, when confidence has been obtained and actual enjoyment secured, there may be a complete immersion; and, when the child is old enough by voluntary movement to aid in the process, a few splashes, a dip, a plunge, and then out, to be rapidly rubbed dry-rubbed, not scrubbed-with the softest towel applied with the lightest touch. If the object be, as is admitted, to dry the skin, this will be most effectively. done by a light touch and frequent change of surface, and an open and softspun towel, rather than a rough or hard one. Great discomfort and irritation are often caused by neglect of this precaution. No floss-silk is so soft, no gossamer-web is so delicate, as the skin of a young child.

This is the morning bath, taken on the instant of quitting bed. It will soon be a safe and pleasurable tonic to the skin, as evidenced by the ruddy hue and pleasurable glow, marking the reflux of the blood, which had recoiled at the sudden change of temperature.

In viewing the bath in its first aspect, as a cleanser of the skin, we must remember that the entire surface of the body is continually pouring forth streams of fluid exudations, separated from the blood by the glandular roots of the perspiratory and oil tubes with which the skin is closely studded. These exudations are of two kinds, saline and oily; the latter being for the purpose of softening the skin, and keeping it elastic and pliable, while the former consists chiefly of watery particles with a small proportion of other matters, which,

being noxious to the health of the body, are thus excreted from it. Now it is essential to the perfect health of child or adult, that these excretions should be removed from the skin. Otherwise, their accumulation there will block up the mouths of the ducts, 'to the enfeeblement of the secreting glands, and the impairment of the healthy condition of the blood itself. Simple water has the power of dissolving the saline matter exuded, but not the oily matter. For this latter purpose soap is advantageously employed, because the alkalies, which form important ingredients in its manufacture, have the property of dissolving oily matters. The temperature of the water also greatly affects its cleansing power; for, cold water being of a temperature much lower than that of the surface of the body, its contact with it causes the skin and subjacent tissues to shrink-by which the pores are closed, and the lines and declivities, in which lie the greater part of its exudations, are contracted. A higher temperature has a contrary effect. The skin expands under its influence, allowing the deepest cutaneous deposits to be reached and removed.

For this reason the evening tepid bath should never be omitted in the nursery. By it all accumulations upon the skin will be thoroughly removed, and perfect freedom allowed for the performance of its functions, always more active during sleep; and the morning bath may be considered almost solely for its value as a tonic, both as regards temperature and duration. In this aspect, the properties of the bath are in an inverse ratio to its cleansing properties. Here the point desired is the sudden contraction and shrinking of the skin and subjacent parts, by which the blood. circulating in them is driven inwards upon the internal organs. For this is but the rompre pour mieux sauter, the recoil for an energetic return. The tissues through which the blood has been driven are greatly stimulated by this sudden afflux; the action of the circulatory and respiratory organs becomes more vigorous; back rushes the

blood, faster, farther, and more forcibly than before. Thus the concussion and reacting effort are not confined to that part of the nervous and circulatory systems which forms the sensory layer of the skin, and the fibrous bed upon which it is extended, but are shared directly by the entire body.

But bathing is not the only agent affecting growth and development which addresses itself to the skin. The nature and condition of the garments by which it is covered exercise a material influence upon its health and functional ability; and, though it must be admitted that there are still many features in the clothing of children which require alteration, yet great has been the advancement of late years in this important respect-more, perhaps, than in any other affecting the physical condition of childhood. Whereas the child was formerly swathed like a mummy in many yards and many folds of linen, pressing upon chest and abdomen, hindering the growth of every muscle and bone, and checking the action of every internal organ, it is now clothed in a manner conducive to comfort and health. Indeed, when we see the antiquated swathings, and reflect on their inevitable operation upon a creature so delicately fashioned, and in a state of such rapid growth and transition as a young child, our wonder is, not that it grew up to have the use of its limbs, to have muscles that could contract, and bones that could support them, but that it could grow at all; and nothing can more strongly impress us with the sense of the tenacity of life, and the power of growth of the body towards its ultimate and destined form and use, than the fact that these abuses were ever successfully resisted. Our wonder is excited when we witness the soft and tender shoots of an accidentally buried plant forcing their way through the hard-trodden soil, upheaving and displacing turf and stone until they reach the light and the air; yet is the resistance it had to encounter slight in comparison to that which awaited children of fifty years ago.

Yet, although swathing is given up, young children have often their numerous and nameless coverings fastened too tight across the chest, and often with shoulder-straps too short; which is but another form of swathing with all its certain evils. Without great care and constant watching to adjust the size and shape of these garments to the constantly changing proportions of the parts they have to cover, much injury may be done. To use a nursery phrase pregnant of evil, the child "will grow out of them;" which means that the clothes become too small for the child, and therefore that there is a constant and abiding pressure and constraint a pressure and constraint intensified by every day's neglect upon that portion of the little frame most liable to injury from such abuse, and which it is the most desirable to keep free from all such constraint.

I am

most earnest in desiring to draw attention to this circumstance, because to it I believe I can trace many of the otherwise unaccountable malformations, and departures, more or less marked, from a fair and normal development of the upper region of the trunk, which come daily under my observation, both in juvenescence and in adult life.

For the due performance of its functions, the heat of the body must be maintained at a given temperature; and this temperature the body can itself maintain amid all the changes of climate and season to which it may be exposed. But, when we consider the character of the skin, and the extent of surface which it presents to the surrounding atmosphere, it is at once evident that this heat is liable to be diminished or lowered by exposure to an atmosphere of a temperature lower than its own. The preservation of this desired degree of heat must therefore be greatly dependent, first, on the condition of the atmosphere itself, and, secondly, on the character of the coverings of the skin as good or bad conductors of heat.

The body then generates sufficient heat for its own wants, and the object of clothing is to prevent this heat from

being abstracted from it by a cold atmosphere, or to screen it from an atmosphere, or object, of a temperature higher than that required for its comfort and well-being. It must therefore be always remembered that clothes are in themselves neither hot or cold. Their title to such epithets is due to their character as good or bad conductors of heat (that is, as they have a tendency or otherwise to conduct from the body the heat generated by it), and good or bad radiators (that is, as they have a tendency or otherwise to retain the heat they receive). Upon the character of clothing in these two respects depends its power of maintaining between the surrounding atmosphere and the skin a stratum of air already heated to a temperature approximating to that of the body. And, as each successive garment interposes another layer of heated air between the body and the surrounding atmosphere, the heat-preserving power of clothing depends upon the number of garments as well as upon the character of the material. A third point affecting this heat-preserving power of clothing is the thickness of the textures of which it is composed, because each of the meshes or interstices formed by the threads contains a separate collection of air, and the thicker the texture the greater of course will be the quantity of air thus retained, and in this manner is formed as it were an additional inner covering of air, already the recipient of heat from the body.

But, although the interior of the body, in all climates and at all seasons, with scarcely perceptible variation during health, preserves its standard and uniform temperature, its surface is liable to considerable variation, because to it is transmitted all superabundant heat generated in the body by certain states of action or being, such as exercise. For the rapid performance of this operation, moisture is exuded through the skin over the surface of the body-all moisture being a ready conductor of heat; but, as all nature's laws are perfect, and as it is desired that both the heat, and the moisture, its conductor,