46. In the treatment of the sucklings, mother should be treated constitutionally on the basis of miasmatic history of the parents.
47. It is true that many children suffer form irritability of the brain, convulsions, stomach disorders and vomiting about the time of dentition, but I say dentition should not be a diseased state, it should be normal. If they were in health they would cut teeth without suffering. Kent.
48. And for those who fail to become pregnant, the homoeopathic treatment certainly brings great help.
49. It is an old observation that fresh fish oil is the most active oil in treating rickets and allied diseases. If it is refined, it is less active and still less if old and exposed to light and air. Dr. F.K. Bellokossy, M.D.
50. It has been noticed in child guidance clinics that the “broken home” is a frequent cause of juvenile delinquency. D.M. Foubister, B.Sc., M.B.
51. in infancy the amount and nature of the feeds should be ascertained. The technique of feeding must also be considered carefully. If this is overlooked symptoms arising from mismanagement may easily be mistaken for constitutional ones. Dr. D.M. Foubister, M.B.
52. Naturally a desire for ice – cream or sweets is not accepted unless it is very strong in children. Aversion to sweets is a peculiar symptom. Dr. D.M. Foubister, M.B.
53. Sensitivity to noise is so common in young babies that unless the baby “nearly jumps out of its skin” at slight noises it may safely be disregarded as an individual characteristic. Dr. D.M. Foubister, B.Sc., M.B.
54. It is well to keep in mind that very young children understand much more than we are apt to think. A normal child in its second year understands considerable amount of what is said in simple language. Dr. D.M. Foubister, B.Sc., M.B.
55. In assessing our results in asthma it is important to keep in mind that four out of five asthmatic children recover as they grow older without any treatment. Dr. D.M. Foubister, M.B.
56. Nine tenths of the disease to which flesh is heir is due to the abuse of allopathic medicines in infancy and childhood. Dr. Gilman.
DEFENCE OF CHILDREN
It is in the fitness of things that a National Conference in defence of children is being held in Calcutta to discuss the problem of children in all its aspects. The child hitherto has been the exclusive charge of its parents. These or at least the vast majority of them, do not regard their children as problem either. In our country in particular the child is viewed by its parents as part of the being of them both – as natural and as inseparable as any one of the limbs of the body. The conception is at once beautiful and sublime. But its danger is that the child becomes liable to neglect. How real is this danger is evident, to cite the extreme example, from the children found accompanying their beggar parents as the latter go about begging.
What is true of the family is true also of the nation. Like the parent who considers his child as too close to himself to become anything like a problem – to need. in other words, any special care or attention the nation hitherto has thought very little about children. Though described conventionally as young hopefuls or citizens of tomorrow, children, in the main have been thought of, if at all, as the concern of their respective parents. It is a dangerous psychological stupor which the conference owing its emergence to the fore sight, zeal and sympathy of Dr. K.C. Chaudhuri is expected least to shake. The child had a special problem of its own even in the golden age if even there was any.
His problem has increased in number as well as in complexity in the post – war India and have assumed, we fear, unmanageable dimensions. Perhaps ninety – nine babies out of the hundred are born now – a – days with some serious physical handicap inherited form their under – nourished parents. And they come to a hostile world deficient even in such essential gifts of Nature as sunshine, air and water. The over – whelming majority of them do not possibly get adequate breast – feed and when the time comes for them to consume normal human food they find most of the body building items beyond even their dream.
The atmosphere of strife which surrounds them stifle their soul and the physical dirt and the moral filth in the environment cause even at the earliest age irreparable damage to their emotional life. The seed which the school might sow can not naturally thrive well in the uncongenial soil into which it falls. Thus the want and the evil which stifle and poison the young ones in the cradle go on multiplying as the children grow to manhood instead of being successfully combated by the successive generations; of such a gigantic and multi- pronged problem the solution is by no means easy.
No one should expect a miracle from the Calcutta Conference. It is, after all, a conference of well – meaning persons though some of them are experts in the treatment of children diseases – both physical and mental. Such a conference cannot even formulate a programme of child welfare commensurate with the magnitude of the problem. Its role mainly is educative. The utmost it can do is to give a lead to public opinion to make it conscious of the existence of such a thing as the problem of children in India and to stimulate it to demand effective action by the government.
The case has been succinctly and very expressively put by Dr. Chaudhuri. “If the children can be made healthy and efficient, much of the necessity for adult welfare will disappear and a generation will be created with better health and newer outlook of life.” If the conference can make the public realise this, it will have served its purpose well.
Hindusthan Standard.
Calcutta