Part 1 (2/2)
Who has been left destitute, because we ourselves have forgotten ”to eat our true bread”?
The history of the ”physical redehly instructive
Hygiene has not been confined to the task of anthropological deenerally known, but convinced every one, that the body develops spontaneously; because, in reality, the question of infant welfare was not concerned with the more or less perfect forms of the body The real infantile question which called for the intervention of science was the alare in these days to consider this fact: that, at the period when infantile diseases es, people were not nearly so much concerned with infantile htness of the legs, while the real question--literally a question of life and death--passed unobserved There ues as this: ”I have had great experience in the care of children; I have had nine” ”And how ?” ”Two”
And nevertheless this mother was looked upon as an authority!
Statistics of h that the phenohter of the Innocents” The faraph of Lexis, which is not confined to one country or another, but deals with the general averages of human mortality, reveals the fact that this terrible death-rate is of universal occurrence a all peoples This must be attributed to two different factors One is undoubtedly the characteristic feebleness of infancy; the other the absence of protection for this feebleness, an absence that had beco, nor parental affection; the fault lay hidden in an unknown cause, in a lack of protection against a dire peril of which men were quite unconscious It is now a e that infectious diseases, especially those of intestinal origin, are those most destructive to infant life
Intestinal disorders which ie when the delicate tissues are most sensitive to them, were responsible for nearly the entire death-roll These were aggravated by the errors habitually coe of infants These errors were a lack of cleanliness which would astound us nowadays, and a co infant diet The soiled napkins which rapped round the baby under its swaddling bands would be dried in the sun again and again, and replaced on the infant without being washed No care was taken to wash the mother's breast or the baby's mouth, in spite of fermentation so pronounced as to cause local disorder Suckling of infants was carried out quite irregularly; the cries of the child were the sole guide whereby its feeding tiht or day, were deterestion and the resulting pains, the ravation of its sufferings
Who in those daysin their ar the nipple into the little howlingit? And yet those uish!+
Science laid down simple rules; it enjoined the utmost possible cleanliness, and for people should not have recognized it for themselves: that the sular ested what has been given before; and hence that it should be suckled only at intervals of so e and the modifications of physical function in its developiven crusts of bread to suck, as is often done bythe lower orders, to still its crying, because particles of bread esting
The mothers' anxiety then hat are we to do when the baby cries?
They found to their astonishreat deal less, or indeed not at all; they even saw infants only a week old spending the two hours' intervals between successive meals calave no sign of life, like Nature in her moments of solemn immobility Why indeed should they cry continually? Those cries were the sign of a state of things whichand death
And for these wailing little ones the world did nothing They were strapped up in swaddling clothes, and very often handed over to a young child incapable of responsibility; they had neither a room nor a bed of their own
It was Science which came to the rescue and created nurseries, cradles, rooms for babies, suitable clothes for thereat industries devoted to the hygienic sustenance of infants after weaning, and medical specialists for their ailent, and full of amenity The baby has becoht to live, and thus has caused a sphere to be created for him And in direct proportion to the diffusion of the laws of infantile hygiene, infant mortality has decreased
So then, e say that in like manner the baby should be left at liberty spiritually, because creative Nature can also fashi+on its spirit better than we can, we do not lected and abandoned
Perhaps, looking around us, we shall perceive that though we cannot directly ence, and feeling, there is nevertheless a whole category of duties and solicitudes which we have neglected: and that on these _the life or death_ of the spirit depends
The principle of _liberty_ is not therefore a principle of _abandon us frouide us to the most positive and efficacious ”care of the child”
=The liberty accorded to the child of to-day is purely physical Civil rights of the child in the twentieth century=--Hygiene has brought liberty into the physical life of the infant Suchbands, open-air life, the prolongation of sleep till the infant wakes of its own accord, etc, are the ible proof of this But these are merely means for the attainment of liberty A far more important measure of liberation has been the removal of the perils of disease and death which beset the child at the outset of life's journey Not only did infants survive in very reater numbers as soon as the obstacles of certain fundamental errors were swept away, but it was at once apparent that there was an iiene which helped theht, stature, and beauty, and iiene did not acco thought add one cubit to his stature? Hygiene merely delivered the child frorowth External restraints checked material developiene burst these bonds And every one felt that a liberation had been effected; every one repeated in view of the accomplished fact: children should be free The direct correspondence between ”conditions of physical life fulfilled” and ”liberty acquired” is now universally and intuitively recognized Thus the infant is treated like a young plant Children to-day enjoy the rights which froetables of a well-kept garden Good food, oxygen, suitable temperature, the careful elimination of parasites that produce disease; yes, henceforth we may say that the son of a prince will be tended with as much care as the finest rose-tree of a villa
The old comparison of a child to a flower is the reality to whichaspire; though even this is a privilege reserved for the rave an error The babe is a man That which suffices for a plant cannot be sufficient for him Consider the depth of misery into which a paralyzed etates; as abut his body left
The infant as a _ht to keep in view We must behold him aor he aspires to life
What are the rights of children? Let us consider them for a moment as a social class, as a class of workers, for as a fact they are laboring to producethe fatigues of physical and spiritual growth They continue the work carried on for a few months by their mothers, but their task is a more laborious, complex, and difficult one When they are born they possess nothing but potentialities; they have to do everything in a world which, as even adults admit, is full of difficulties What is done to help these frail pilgriile and helpless than an animal, and in a few years they have to becoanized society, built up by the secular effort of innuenerations At a period in which civilization, that is, the possibility of right living, is based upon rights energetically acquired and consecrated by lahat rights has he who coht? Like the infant Moses lying in the ark of bulrushes on the waters of the Nile he represents the future of the chosen people; but will so by perchance see him?
To chance, to luck, to affection, to all these we entrust the child; and it would seeyptian oppressor, the death of the first-born, is to be unceasingly renewed
Let us see how social justice receives the infant when he enters the world We are living in the twentieth century; in many of the so-called civilized nations orphan asylunized _institutions_ What is an orphan asylum? It is a place of sequestration, a dark and terrible prison, where only too often the prisoner finds death, as in thoseno trace He never sees any who are dear to hioods are confiscated The greatest criminal may retain memories of his mother, knows that he has had a name, and may derive some consolation fro reflections of one who having become blind recalls the beauty of colors and the splendor of the sun; but the foundling is as one born blind Every hts than he; and yet who could be more innocent? Even in the days of the most odious tyranny, the spectacle of oppressed innocence kindled a flame of justice that sooner or later blazed up into revolution The persons imprisoned by tyrants because they had happened to be witnesses of their crieons where darkness and inaudible suffering were henceforth their unhappy portion, at least roused the people to proclaim the principle of equal justice for all But ill lift up his voice for our foundlings?
Society does not perceive that they too are men; they are indeed only the ”flowers” of huood name, what society would not with one accord sacrifice more ”flowers”?
The wet nurse is a social custoo, a girl of the middle-and not even the upper middle-class, as about toterms of the domestic comfort promised her by her future husband: ”I am to have a cook, a housemaid, and a wet nurse” On the other hand, the robust peasant girl who has given birth to a son, looking complacently at her heavy breasts, thinks: ”I shall be able to get a good place as wet nurse” It is only quite recently that hygiene has cried shame upon those mothers whose laziness makes them refuse to suckle their own children; in our times queens and ely as exa her own children prescribed to ical principle: the mother's milk nourishes an infant more perfectly than any other In spite of this clear indication, the duty is far fro universally accepted