wise enough to observe these, the adoption of the more primitive style of our first parents will appear less called for.

Fig. 89.

Bad Habits of Children and Youth.

Many of the blood and nervous derangements of adult age are but harvests of seed sown in childhood and youth. To begin with, the dietetic habits of children are entirely wrong. Indulgent mothers are mainly to blame for this. Many mothers imagine that they are greatly strengthening the little bodies of their babies by giving them the juices of animal flesh in the form of soup or broth, before they have teeth to masticate the flesh itself, and as soon as the masticating organs are developed, they are allowed the diet of an adult. Often, too, they are allowed stimulating drinks, such as tea and coffee, and in some cases even wine. Then, what lots of candy the little ones make way with from one Christmas-day to another. Colored candy eating is a habit in which many parents indulge children to an extent calling loudly for the warning of the faithful physician. The innocent darlings are almost ready to bound out of their shoes, when papa or mamma brings home from the confectioner a sweet little package of beautifully striped, red, blue, green, and yellow sugar-plums; of course they are, for they have the most implicit confidence in their dear parents, and know they will not give them any thing which will injure them! But parents may not know that there are fatal poisons concealed in the pretty spiral streaks which ornament the confectionery; papas are so absorbed in business and mammas in fictitious literature, it is a chance if either of them ever find it out. So long as no immediate fatalities occur to the little creatures, it is supposed that such indulgences are harmless. As in excessive meat-eating, and other bad habits, nature does not cry out at once, and as a consequence physical injury therefrom is not dreamed of. But ignorance does not shield the juvenile or adult from the deadly consequences of pernicious habits, which gradually undermine the constitution and induce premature decay.

A brief specification of some of the drugs used for coloring candies, I trust, will suffice to show parents who peruse these pages, that however pretty sugar-sticks and toys are to look at, they are entirely unfit to enter the susceptible little stomachs of children. Reds are often obtained from red lead, vermilion or bisulphuret of mercury, bisulphuret of arsenic, iodide of mercury, and Venetian red. Greens, from false verditer or subsulphate of copper and chalk, emerald green or arsenite of copper, Brunswick green or oxychloride of copper, verdigris or diacetate of copper, mineral green, green verditer or subcarbonate of copper, and mixtures of the chromates of lead and indigo. Yellows, from gamboge, massicot, or protoxide of lead, the three chrome yellows or chromates of lead, yellow orpiment or sulphuret of arsenicum, King's yellow or sulphuret of arsenicum, with lime and sulphur, iodide of lead, sulphuret of antimony or Naples yellow, and yellow ochre. Blues, from indigo, cobalt, Antwerp blue, a preparation of Prussian blue, Prussian blue or ferrocyanide,smalt and blue verditer or sesquicarbonate of copper. mus is also used in coloring blue, which, if unadulterated, is harmless; but it is frequently adulterated with common arsenic and peroxide of mercury. Browns are often obtained from umber and Vandyke brown, while purples are generally made by mixing some of the objectionable minerals used to produce other colors.

Lit

"It may be alleged by some," says Hassell, "that these substances are employed in quantities too inconsiderable to prove injurious; but this is certainly not so, for the quantity used, as is amply indicated in many cases by the eye alone, is very large, and sufficient, as is proved by the numberless recorded and continually occurring instances, to occasion disease and even death. It should be remembered, too, that the preparations of lead, mercury, copper, and arsenic, are what are termed cumulative, that is, they are liable to accumulate in the system, little by little, until at length the full effects of the poisons become manifested." Continues Hassell:-"That deadly poisons should be daily used for the sake of imparting color to articles of such general consumption as sugar confectionery-articles consumed chiefly by children, who, from their delicate organization, are much more susceptible than adults-is both surprising and lamentable. It is surprising on the one hand, that the manufacturers of these articles should be so reckless as to employ them, and, on the other, that the authorities should tolerate their use."

Many confectioners do not sufficiently understand the chemical properties of the colorings they use, to know their poisonous effects. They have learned the trade of candy-making, but have never stopped to inquire into the nature of the articles used for ornamenting their pretty drops, sticks, and toys. For this reason, if no other, parents should not feed their children with colored candies. Those which are not colored will please the little folks quite as well, if they do not see the others.

Candies flavored with the ordinary essences, such as peppermint, wintergreen, lemon, sassafras, and rose, are also less hurtful than those which are flavored with almond, pineapple, and peach. latter often contain fusel-oil and prussic acid.

The

From the foregoing remarks, the reader will see that cake ornaments, composed as they are, of colored confectionery, are equally objectionable, and should not be eaten by child or adult. If they are necessary as ornaments, no one is obliged to eat them.

I have perhaps said all that is necessary about candy-eating; but the evils of meat-eating and coffee-drinking by children have been but

Fig. 40.

briefly alluded to in this place. These habits are such a prolific cause of sickness among the infantile portion of our community, I would urgently direct the attention of mothers to what I have to say on this subject in the chapter on the Prevention of Disease, where 1 speak of dietetics for young and old.

At school children acquire many injurious habits, one of which is illustrated in Fig. 40. The effect of this posture is to cramp the lungs, thereby preventing the usual quantity of electrifying air from coming in contact with and arterializing the venous blood. It also curves the spine, the great nervous trunk, and in a measure interrupts the harmonious distribution of the nervo-electric fluid. Hence, both blood and nervous derangements are induced thereby. Parents and teachers are not particular enough in observing and criticising the posture of the schoolboy. Many a case of spinal disease and pulmonary consumption had

BAD POSITION IN SITTING.

its origin on the bench of the school-room. Seats should always be provided with suitable backs for the support of the spine, and children should be required to maintain a correct posture.

A great error is generally committed by parents in sending their children to school at an age so tender that the development of the mental faculties seriously interferes with the vigorous formation of their physical parts. A child of three or four years of age, seated on a bench in school, is no more in his place than a twelve years' old boy would be on the judge's bench in a court of chancery. What does he care about letters or syllables? What he learns is not the result of a gratification of a thirst for knowledge, but of a severe and health-destroying discipline, which effects a forced growth of the mind at the expense of the body. The vital nervo-electric forces, withheld from the generous development of the chest, the vital organs, and the muscles, are consumed in nourishing and enlarging the brain. In art, mankind exhibit common sense. The master builder, who is about to decorate his grounds with a superb edifice, first lays a strong and perhaps inelegant foundation, upon which to raise the monument of his superior skill in architecture. So the parent, who wishes his child to occupy a commanding and useful position in society, when he shall have arrived at the stature of manhood, should take pains to secure for him a physical foundation which can firmly sustain the mental superstructure. To this end children should be kept out of school, and allowed to dig play-houses in the sand, play horse with strings, jump ropes, and roll hoops, until their little limbs become hard and chests broad, and, too, until they evince some desire for study. If this desire is manifested before the age of five or six, it should not be encouraged. The first six, and even ten, years of boyhood are none too long to prepare the physical trunk for the nourishment of mental growth. We once had in the United States Senate a man who was taught his alphabet by his wife after marriage. We have had, at least, two Presidents of the United States who hardly saw the inside of a school-room before they became old enough to work and pay for their own education. Nor are these isolated instances of final rapid mental progress of early neg lected minds, after the bodies which nourished them had gained both strength and maturity. History is embellished with them. The great Patrick Henry was, mentally, a dull boy, and hated books, but when the flowers of his mental garden, enriched by the nutriment

of a strong and matured physical organization, did bloom, the whole country was intoxicated by their fragrance, inspiring the American patriots with an enthusiasm which naught but success could satiate. In the face of such facts, let not parents make intellectual prodigies and physical wrecks of their children. If they have the germ of greatness in them, there is no danger but it will become developed by the time society, the state, and the nation have need of them.

Going "barefoot," a very common practice among the children of the indigent in cities, and those of all classes in the country, is a common cause of blood diseases. In large towns the streets and gutters are the receptacles of filth of every description, a partial specification of which would embrace the diseased expectorations of men and animals, dead carcasses of flies, cockroaches, rats, and mice, killed by poison, poisonous chemicals and acids swept from drug stores and medical laboratories, filthy rags which have been used in dressing foul ulcers, mucus from syphilitic sores, etc., the bare touch of which is polluting. But when, as is almost daily the case, the barefooted urchin "stubs his toes against a projecting stone, rupturing the skin, and then brings his bleeding feet in contact with this heterogeneous compound of mineral, vegetable, and animal poisons, the blood is sure to receive an impure inoculation which, unless eradicated by vegetable medication, clings to the individual through life, rendering him ever a susceptible subject for epidemics, colds, and chronic diseases. In villages, although less exposed to corrupt animal inoculations, barefooted children are liable to have the purity of their blood contaminated by contact with poisonous plants, which abound in country places. And merely a thoughtless gallop through stubble fields, where wheat or oats have been harvested, may impart to the blood of the barefooted child a humor which is sooner or later to cause his death. Because serious effects do not manifest themselves immediately, many parents flatter themselves that the practice is not attended with bad results. But blood impurities are generally insidious, and produce disease when it is least expected.

The following remarkable case of poisoning, by a bone, will serve to illustrate the danger of going barefoot. I will quote from a lady who wrote me upon the subject of her ill health. This is her narrative: "Up to my ninth year I was in perfect health, with the free use of every sense and faculty. At that time I stepped on a bone