Too
low a diet would stint the growth of such a child, and induce a state
of body deficient in vigour, and unfit for maintaining full health:
scrofula and other diseases would be induced. At the same time let the
mother guard against pampering, for this would lead to evils no less
formidable, though of a different character. And as long as the general
health of this child is unimpaired, the body and mind active, and no
evidence present to mark excess of nutriment, this diet may be
continued. But if languor at any time ensue, fever become manifested,
the skin hotter than natural, the tongue white and furred, and the
bowels irregular, then, though these symptoms should bebonly in slight
degree, and unattended with any specific derangement amounting to what
is considered disease, not only should the parent lower the diet, and
for a time withdraw the animal part, but the medical adviser should be
consulted, that measures may be taken to correct the state of repletion
which has been suffered to arise. For some time after its removal, care
should also be taken to keep the diet under that, which occasioned the
constitutional disturbance.
But if the child be of a delicate and weakly constitution (and this is
unfortunately the more common case), it will not bear so generous a
diet as the foregoing.
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