CHAPTER XV.

THE CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF CHOLERA INFANTUM.

It has been argued, authoritatively, no doubt, that the causes of cholera infantum are, poor milk, bad air arising from old water-soaked cellars, of tenement houses, or when it affects those of all conditions in life, the rich, the poor, the black and the white,—its cause is said to be in some atmospherical phenomena. I think the last mentioned might be reconsidered, since it appears, from noticing the health records, that mortalities from this disease have increased in extremely warm weather only in proportion to the influx of emigrants.

If poor or adulterated milk were the cause, there should be an entire absence of the disease at present, since such stringent efforts are now put forth to punish the wretch who dares adulterate the milk he sells.

Quite enough has been published of late concerning the adulteration of milk by putting in saltpetre, chalk, glucose, anotta, and other ingredients for the purpose of increasing the density, while water is added to increase the quantity. Admitting these shameful facts, have they not been practised long enough for the news to have reached the ears of every housewife in America? Why, I have been hearing those reports at different times for forty years. With these facts, then, so generally known, why do people water the milk they buy, and depend on it for the support and nourishment of infants? There is trouble somewhere. Children have been successfully raised on milk from animals, both in city and country, at all seasons of the year, in hot or cold climates; and many thousands of aged mothers to-day, could doubtless advise young women in the matter of baby raising, did they not settle down in the thought that the young people are getting all such knowledge along with their great facilities for education. Oh, how sadly mistaken have many thousands gone to their long home!

The management of cholera infantum is not to be coveted; the best of all is to know how to prevent it. I sincerely believe that the greater number of cases of cholera are induced by the unnatural custom of preparing a bottle of food, and putting the child in a position to sleep while it sucks from it. Where is the woman or man who can sleep and eat at the same time? The mode of preparing it is generally putting a little milk with a quantity of water, and a little sugar, into a half-pint bottle—if the babe is only a few days old—and this is kept close to its warm body for hours, or what is just as bad, re-warmed every time it is suspected that the baby is hungry.

Pure milk needs no watering; it is simply converted into slops by so doing. It contains naturally sugar, butter, lime, and all that is required for the nourishment of the young.

The saliva of the glands of the mouth and the juices of the stomach are as fully able to dilute and separate the life principles of milk for a babe, as they are to prepare solid food for the maintenance of the adult. We eat a beefsteak in its purity, risking the after effects; were there more ventures in administering pure food to helpless infants, no doubt but there would soon appear a change in the physique of our young men and women.

To insure a healthy meal, an infant should invariably be fed with care before laying it down from the very first day of its attempt to suck from a bottle, for the following reasons:—

As the babe dozes, its breath goes down the tube; the heat and churning motion together separate the butter globules from the fluid so that they cannot get through the holes, unless, as is often the case, the holes are made too large, for some selfish convenience. And by this latter means the danger of strangulation becomes more imminent if the child is left alone. Scores of times have I seen the infant tugging away between naps, for hours, trying to get what it should have finished in less than twenty or thirty minutes, and been sleeping soundly.

Numbers of them cry half the night, or are pacified by having the rubber nipple of a filthy-smelling sucking-bottle continually stuck in the mouth. Thus some babes are literally worn out sucking, trying to get a bare subsistence. Even if an infant nurses from the breast, it is wrong to put off suckling it till the powers are almost overcome by sleep. While we are aware that its breath cannot go into the mamma, the liability to strangulation is none the less apparent.

There can be no more important duties to perform in the capacity of housekeeping than that of caring for the helpless babe. Women doctors, or, more properly speaking, doctresses of medicine, although usually treated with less courtesy by doctors, are, nevertheless, by them considered to be in their proper sphere in the confinement-room and nursery. While I feel under no obligations to them for their charity, I must admit their honesty and truthfulness in the matter; for surely woman cannot fill a single position in the world so freighted with material, out of which the moral and physical condition of humanity can be affected either for good or evil.