CHILDREN IN THE FAST
fancy is of equal importance with its biweekly employment in adult life.
Whenever in a young child the slightest evidence of disease makes its appearance, whether in the form of nasal discharge, of constipation, of diarrhoea, or of internal pain, it should be considered as ample warning of loss of balance between nutrition and waste. Food should be at once omitted, the enema administered, and treatment continued until equilibrium is restored. If this method of handling the situation be consistently followed, no need will occur for later alarm lest acute disease symptoms or morbid organic structural defects, such as adenoid growths and enlarged tonsils, develop. Care at this time precludes dependence upon the knife of the surgeon in infancy or in adolescence.
Repeating the caution expressed in the first paragraph of the present chapter, freedom from disease in infancy and development of strong resistive qualities in adult life are dependent upon normal feeding in childhood. No food except as hunger dictates. And, further, the child must be permitted, not only to signify its need, but also, after it is weaned from the milk of the mother, to select within reason the kind of food desired.
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