Rebecca Lee Crumpler

“ May we not be too willing to agree in charging our Heavenly Father with poisoning the air, so that it destroys infants by the tens of thousands in less than a quarter of a century?
Let the interested humanitarian visit those families where necessity demands the absence of the parent a part or all of each day, to seek a daily subsistence, leaving the youngest to the care of the eldest, winter or summer, before deciding whether it is a want of stamina, the depressions of the atmosphere, or indirect starvation which causes so great infantile mortality at certain seasons of the year. ”

“ Surely if women ask no questions of the doctors, no answers can be given. It does seem too bad to punish the child for the faults of the parent. Eggs, like fish, may act like sure poison to the milk of a nursing woman. The continued dry belly-ache or wind colic so much fretted over by old ladies in the past, was but a sequence of the custom of feeding lying-in women on wine custards. During the time of those baby afflictions it seldom entered the mind of either nurse or doctor what caused the almost universal three months’ “belly-ache” of infants. ”

“ A cheerful home with a small tract of land in the country, with wholesome food and water, is worth more to preserve health and life, than a house in a crowded city with luxuries and twenty rooms to let. That bad air is not the sole cause of infantile cholera, I will mention an incident in proof. While travelling through some of the thinly-settled districts of the British Provinces during the prevalence of cholera in the autumn of 1865, I noticed that most of the children suffering from the disease were those of parents whose circumstances would not warrant the comforts of life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some parents would stand in amaze if their sons or daughters were discovered perusing some work upon the anatomy and the preservation of the human teeth in youth; while the same parents would boast of the almost frenzied determination of their children to read every available love-novel; that, too, while the new teeth are daily pushing against decaying ones. The study of the science of Dentistry is wise and commendable to all. ”

“ But, as a fact, many old women sit around on such occasions who have almost as little knowledge what and how to do, as the babe whose expected advent has called them together. Therefore we cannot too strongly protest against the practice of many physicians,—that of leaving a woman in the hands of an inexperienced person as soon as the navel cord is severed. For it is not at all reasonable to conclude, that because a woman is the mother of many children, she is an expert in the matter of washing and dressing the new-born, or of relieving the various ailments incident upon child-bearing. ”

“ Would it not be well for mothers to make a little sacrifice for the sake of equipping the mind, that they may be able to dispense the required rudiments of moral and intellectual education at home, till a child is at least seven years old? ”

“ It is more frequently overfeeding and prolonged excitement that causes children to fret so when travelling, than a want of their accustomed food. A little finely-pounded, newly-corned, beef, and the compound Graham cracker, is a convenient lunch to take on a journey, especially in hot weather. This may be considered coarse fare for a babe two or three months old; but properly given, could it be so injurious as keeping them trotting, feeding on sweetened milk and water, alternating with cookies or candies? which, as many can testify, is practised daily on some of our routes of travel. ”

“ Do not try to be blind when you are not. Can you not cut short the certain destruction that awaits your sons and daughters, through the influence of impressions gained by the constant perusal of fictitious, and, in many cases, corrupt library books? Will it not pay to prohibit those under age, or at least under fourteen, from reading even Sunday-School story-papers? We are aware many of them are given for the moral to be derived, but not more than one boy or girl in a hundred ever cares a fig for the moral. ”

“ Pure blood is the basis for pure milk, therefore nutritive articles of diet are of more permanent use.
It is well to bear in mind that a scarcity of milk during the month should never be taken as an excuse for refusing to nurse the child; for if it can get but a spoonful a day, it greatly encourages the chance for increasing it. The mother’s milk is the fountain of life to the babe, and therefore seldom dries up unless there be some unnatural obstruction. It has been said by many close observers, that when the milk goes away without some perceptible cause, the child is not to live. ”

“ GENERAL TREATMENT OF INFANTS. Children are given to parents only for a lifetime; it may be long, or it may be very short; but to array them in fine linens, with bare neck and arms, as has been and is now to a great extent the custom in many refined communities, for public exhibition, is, it seems to me, a questionable act of parental affection. Yet many do so, and boast, when otherwise advised, of their ability to toughen. Mother, your child may be only one of a hundred to survive such experiments ”

“ A child may drool or throw up its food at any time, yet be quite healthy. If a babe is sucking, and the mother indulges in a mixed or meat and vegetable diet too early, the first passages after it is taken sick will show signs of heat, fermentation and inflammation; they will either be of a deep yellow, or more or less green, and slimy. In such instances it is always advisable to take the infant from the breast for a while and feed it on arrow-root boiled in water, till the acidity is corrected; then in milk, no sugar being added, alternating with gum-arabic water. ”

“ The laboring men of my race, generally speaking, take much better care of the horses intrusted to their care than they do of their own health. Were men just as particular about what they themselves eat and drink, and how they dress and sleep, the deaths of young men of thirty and forty years would not be so common. Those who are not careful of their health die early in this climate, and their offspring die earlier.
It is not the blood we wish to keep hot, as some desire to do; this induces disease and premature decay. ”

“ The main thing to do to relieve the force of whooping-cough is to keep the chest and air-tubes warm, and, most of the time, moist. If there is danger of congestion, a warm poultice of flaxseed meal spread over the chest and throat, and keeping clear of dust, smoke, or smells of any kind, will aid much. By all means the nose should be kept running, which may be done by sweating the forehead and nose. Bronchitis or wheezing, like whooping-cough, is a disease that affects the air-tubes in a greater or less degree, the inflammation sometimes becoming very distressing. ”

“ If tea or coffee is found to lessen the flow of milk, it may be inferred that if continued, all of the fluids of the body will materially change.
A strict adherence to the aforesaid rules would, in a great measure, be the means of preventing cholera of infants at the breast, particularly in our crowded cities. By all means should child-bearing women eat more freely of Indian or bran bread. Brown bread can be made fresh every day where meals have to be prepared. Bread, cakes, or pastries that are puffed with soda, or whitened, or colored with any chemical substance, is not good for the health. ”

“ The most doubtful cases are those that have a dry cough, eat a great deal, yet are never content, bloat at certain times, and grow more stupid; the body becoming a mere skeleton, and with difficulty kept warm. The new being is dependent upon the state of the parent’s blood from the moment of conception till weaned from the breast. If the food upon which a child is fed is the cause of the trouble, it should be changed as soon as possible. ”

“ Philanthropy cannot dwell in the heart of an eye servant, it must be inborn and unbiased in applications relative to human happiness. Too often, it happens that mothers give up all hope just at the weakest period in a child’s life, willing, on the slightest pretext, to abandon the offspring of their body. ”

“ Sucking a sugar teat or meat rind, like gum-chewing, tends to undermine the natural vigor of the mind, by a waste of the fluids that are intended to prepare the food for making pure blood.
A child can just as kindly be fed, changed, and laid quietly to rest; it does not need patting or rocking.
Baby raising is made irksome by adults themselves. The feeding and putting to sleep should be superintended by some competent person, as by intrusting it to children, or even young girls, the feeding may be imperfect. Many children scream with fright at the noise created to get them to sleep. ”

“ Parents should hold on to their children, and children should stand by their parents until the last strand of the silken cord is broken. It is natural to the childhood days to sport and play. All cannot bear the early and long-continued expectations through adverse circumstances and frequent unpleasantness of a finale. The vexations of youth from these causes, often serve, no doubt, to embitter the mind against further progress. We need in every community educated men, it is true, but the foundation dependence is in healthy, moral men and women. ”

“ Some women are over anxious for a family, and by their nervous whims make themselves and those around them unhappy. But it is to be deplored that there is a much larger class of young women whose minds are dark on the subject of preservation of health, and who soon forget, if they ever thought of the liabilities of a married life. On taking cold or feeling languid or nauseated a physician must at once be sent for. ”

“ I always wet the feather, to lay the down. The tickling excites a coughing or gagging, which dislodges the phlegm, so that it can be hooked out with the finger. There are reasons for suspecting that many new-born infants have strangled to death from this cause. I do not mean to cast any reflections when I say that a physician is not likely to be informed of the fact, until it is too late to remove the difficulty. And as the wheezing may assume the same sound as that of catarrh, cold in the air-tubes, bronchitis or croup, the real cause may be lost sight of. ”

“ It is a great mistake to conclude that infants will have cholera if weaned early, or if they are to be artificially nursed. The fear comes from persons having been so educated within the last half century.
All kinds of preparations are advertised and eagerly sought for baby diet; as if the internal organs of babes were entirely different from what they were before, and must needs be supplied with something more supernatural than those of the adult. The symptoms of cholera are by no means uniform. ”

“ The first milk from the breast is the only medicine needed; when other mixtures are poured into the child’s stomach, as teas sweetened with sugar, honey, molasses, either of which is laxative, the danger is greatly augmented, especially if given before the bowels have moved at all. The custom of old-fashioned people, as they style themselves, of giving new-born babes castor-oil and molasses, or soot tea (for that irrepressible belly-ache) , and urine and molasses, to clean them out, is, though with reluctance, fast dying out. ”

“ The principle of life is always associated with organic bodies, examples of which are animals and plants. Quite a number of inorganic substances go to make up the human body,—to wit: Water, air, lime, magnesia, iron, potassium, sulphur, sodium, phosphorous, and many more. ”

“ As many babes have open eyes as soon born, it is best to dip a small piece of the soft linen or cotton in the grease, and wipe the inner edges of the lids first of all, as the drying on of the chalky substance or other matter with which the child’s face may have had contact, while coming into the world, may, as I have before said, be the first cause of sore or inflamed eyes. Then proceed with the small piece of flannel, well saturated with oil, to clean the face, ears, nose,—avoiding the eyes,—neck, chest, under the arms and between the fingers. ”