A treatise on the stomach and its trials / by J.C. Eno.

  • Eno, J. C.
Date:
[1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the stomach and its trials / by J.C. Eno. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    53/82 (page 51)
    upon as rich food. The oil, taken regularly, has saved the life of many a delicate child; but don’t force it upon children; get them to like it. If you wish to save a weakly child, you must get it to take cod-liver oil. Where the symptoms point to consumption, an oleaginous food is impera¬ tive, and cod-liver oil is the most easily assimilated, and is the kind of fatty food that passes most quickly into the pulmonary circulation. We almost owe an apology to the reader for the repetition on this point, but the subject is of such vast importance, and is so much overlooked, that we must be excused for harping upon it. What we wish to impress upon the reader is this, cod-liver oil ought to be regularly taken before any symptoms of tubercular deposit manifest themselves. When emacia¬ tion is observed, or a loss of strength, or any symptom of debility, then is the time for destroying the lurking monster, and preventing it gaining any ascendancy. Milk is the most perfect food we have, and with most persons easily assimilated, and we would strongly urge its extensive use.* If this treatment were followed up, and children brought up to practise through life the rules we have given, we cannot but repeat our state¬ ment, that consumption, scrofula, and many other diseases, would soon cease to cast their blighting influence over this world of ours; and it is with the object of getting more attention directed to the importance of early training in this respect, that we give this chapter on Infancy; for it is in infancy that such diseases have their starting point, and are transmitted from generation to generation. The secret of it all is, that consumption is of such slow growth, that its origin and progress are unobserved by the majority of mankind. To use an old saw, 1 It is the drop of water that wears away the stone.’ Men understand and attend if they see the block chipped away by the chisel of the mason, hut no heed is given to the dropping water. INFANCY. ‘ Home is our realm ; our throne, a mother’s knee; Oar crown, her smiles bent o’er us lovingly.’ When ushered into life, man enters on an independent existence in a far more helpless state than other animals, many of them being able to walk and look for their food immediately on entering the world, while a child would die if left to itself. On first entering on the stage of life, a child requires to be carefully preserved from all shocks, and gradually accustomed to the stimulus of the external agents by which it is surrounded. Its food should be simple and nourishing. In the early weeks of the infant’s life, it should, as soon as taken from its bed in the morning, be washed in warm water from 96° to 98°, and be put into a •* Where milk or cod-liver oil is rejected, ‘ Price’s Pure Glycerine’ is a good substitute, either for children or adults.