Part 12 (1/2)

_Fruits._ Among fruits there are excellent foods for children. They too, like milk and eggs, if freshly gathered, retain a _living_ quality which aids a.s.similation.

As this condition, however, is not easily attainable in cities, it is necessary to consider also the diet of fruits which are not perfectly fresh and which, therefore, should be prepared and cooked in various ways. All fruits are not to be advised for children; the chief properties to be considered are the degree of _ripeness_, the _tenderness_ and _sweetness_ of the pulp, and its _acidity_. Peaches, apricots, grapes, currants, oranges, and mandarins, in their natural state, can be given to little children with great advantage. Other fruits, such as pears, apples, plums, should be cooked or prepared in syrup.

Figs, pineapples, dates, melons, cherries, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, and chestnuts, are excluded for various reasons from the diet of early childhood.

The preparation of fruit must consist in removing from it all indigestible parts, such as the peel, and also such parts as the child inadvertently may absorb to his detriment, as, for example, the seed.

Children of four or five should be taught early how carefully the seeds must be thrown away and how the fruits are peeled. Afterwards, the child so educated may be promoted to the honour of receiving a fine fruit intact, and he will know how to eat it properly.

The culinary preparation of fruits consists essentially in two processes: cooking, and seasoning with sugar.

Besides simple cooking, fruits may be prepared as marmalades and jellies, which are excellent but are naturally within the reach of the wealthier cla.s.ses only. While jellies and marmalades may be allowed, candied fruits,--on the other hand,--_marrons glaces_, and the like, are absolutely excluded from the child's diet.

_Seasonings._ An important phase of the hygiene of child diet concerns seasonings--with a view to their rigorous limitation. As I have already indicated, sugar and some fat substances along with kitchen salt (sodium chloride) should const.i.tute the princ.i.p.al part of the seasonings.

To these may be added _organic acids_ (acetic acid, citric acid) that is, vinegar and lemon juice; this latter can be advantageously used on fish, on croquettes, on spinach, etc.

Other condiments suitable to little children are some aromatic vegetables like garlic and rue which disinfect the intestines and the lungs, and also have a direct anthelminthic action.

Spices, on the other hand, such as pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, and especially mustard, are to be absolutely abolished.

_Drinks._ The growing organism of the child is very rich in water, and, hence, needs a constant supply of moisture. Among the beverages, the best, and indeed the only one, to be unreservedly advised is pure fresh spring water. To rich children might be allowed the so-called table waters which are slightly alkaline, such as those of San Gemini, Acqua Claudia, etc., mixed with syrups, as, for example, syrup of black cherry.

It is now a matter of general knowledge that all fermented beverages, and those exciting to the nervous system, are injurious to children; hence, all alcoholic and caffeic beverages are absolutely eliminated from child diet. Not only liquors, but wine and beer, ought to be unknown to the child's taste, and coffee and tea should be inaccessible to childhood.

The deleterious action of alcohol on the child organism needs no ill.u.s.tration, but in a matter of such vital importance insistent repet.i.tion is never superfluous. Alcohol is a poison especially fatal to organisms in the process of formation. Not only does it arrest their total development (whence infantilism, idiocy), but also predisposes the child to nervous maladies (epilepsy, meningitis), and to maladies of the digestive organs, and metabolism (cirrhosis of the liver, dyspepsia, anaemia).

If the ”Children's Houses” were to succeed in enlightening the people on such truths, they would be accomplis.h.i.+ng a very lofty hygienic work for the new generations.

Instead of coffee, children may be given roasted and boiled barley, malt, and especially chocolate which is an excellent child food, particularly when mixed with milk.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE MEALS

Another chapter of child diet concerns the distribution of the meals.

Here, one principle must dominate, and must be diffused, among mothers, namely, that the children shall be kept to rigorous meal hours in order that they may enjoy good health and have excellent digestion. It is true that there prevails among the people (and it is one of the forms of maternal ignorance most fatal to children) the prejudice that children in order to grow well must be eating almost continuously, without regularity, nibbling almost habitually a crust of bread. On the contrary, the child, in view of the special delicacy of his digestive system, has more need of regular meals than the adult has. It seems to me that the ”Children's Houses” with very prolonged programmes are, for this reason, suitable places for child culture, as they can direct the child's diet. _Outside of their regular meal hours, children should not eat._

In a ”Children's House” with a long programme there ought to be two meals, a hearty one about noon, and a light one about four in the afternoon.

At the hearty meal, there should be soup, a meat dish, and bread, and, in the case of rich children, also fruits or custard, and b.u.t.ter on the bread.

At the four o'clock meal there should be prepared a light lunch, which from a simple piece of bread can range to b.u.t.tered bread, and to bread accompanied by a fruit marmalade, chocolate, honey, custard, etc. Crisp crackers, biscuits, and cooked fruits, etc., might also be usefully employed. Very suitably the lunch might consist of bread soaked in milk or an egg _a la coque_ with bread sticks, or else of a simple cup of milk in which is dissolved a spoonful of Mellin's Food. I recommend Mellin's Food very highly, not only in infancy, but also much later on account of its properties of digestibility and nutrition, and on account of its flavour, which is so pleasing to children.

Mellin's Food is a powder prepared from barley and wheat, and containing in a concentrated and pure state the nutritive substances proper to those cereals; the powder is slowly dissolved in hot water in the bottom of the same cup which is to be used for drinking the mixture, and very fresh milk is then poured on top.

The child would take the other two meals in his own home, that is, the morning breakfast and the supper, which latter must be _very light_ for children so that shortly after they may be ready to go to bed. On these meals it would be well to give advice to mothers, urging them to help complete the hygienic work of the ”Children's Houses,” to the profit of their children.

The morning breakfast for the rich might be milk and chocolate, or milk and extract of malt, with crackers, or, better, with toasted bread spread with b.u.t.ter or honey; for the poor, a cup of fresh milk, with bread.