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Show Mother's Duty to Protect Child from All Preventable Diseases Prepared by Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor , 1 I There are about 10,000,000 children In this country under five years of age, according to the United States census of 1910. This means that the principal business of many millions of grown people Is the providing of the necessities neces-sities of life for this army of children, all of whom are absolutely dependent upon their elders for the materials of growth, for shelter, warmth, and whatever what-ever else they need. To feed, to clothe, to warm, to house, protect and care for this multitude of the "citizens of tomorrow" is a gigantic task, and the devotion and self-sacrifice it implies can never be stated nor measured. It is, however, a service which brings its own reward, and especially when children proceed from a healthy babyhood Into a happy childhood, and on through youth into a normal maturity. matur-ity. The leading medical writers are Insisting In-sisting that many of the illnesses, weaknesses, and deficiencies which impose so heavy a burden upon the human race have their root in troubles trou-bles of this early period of life, in the lack of persistent and painstaking attention at-tention to the signs of disorders when they appear, to lack of proper food for the development of strong bodies, or to the attacks of "preventable disease, leading to various deformities, weaknesses, weak-nesses, defects or chronic illnesses in older persons. It is of the greatest importance to the rearing of a race of healthy and happy men and women that parents shall come to realize that It is upon the foundations which are laid in the early weeks, months, and years of childhood that the superstructure of solid adult health rests. Parents must, therefore, strive not only to provide children with the plain necessities for comfortable- living, but also to surround them with constant Intelligent care and oversight, a task which parents oftentimes find much harder. "If we had only known what to do," is the despairing cry of saddened mothers the world over. One of the hopeful signs of this present time is the growing recognition of the fact that child-care Is a subject worthy of the highest and most persistent study. Another Is the constant multiplication of the sources of information which are available to parents, In books and magazines, by public lectures, and by nurses and doctors. One of the most pernicious of the older ideas regarding sickness was the fatalistic assumption that certain diseases dis-eases must be had by every one, and therefore children might as well have them early and be done with it. This idea has led many mothers deliberately deliberate-ly to expose their young children to such diseases as chickenpox, measles, whooping cough and the like, and has had many deplorable results, not the least of which is the Indefinite spread and prolongation of the common contagious con-tagious diseases. There are few communities, com-munities, if any, in which one or another an-other of these diseases Is not constantly constant-ly appearing, and probably none where they have disappeared entirely. It must be remembered that serious and prolonged illness is always a detriment detri-ment to children. Growth is the great business -of childhood, and a normal healthy growth should proceed in orderly or-derly fashion, day by day, without cessation. But if a child must give a few days or a few weeks now and then to an illness, in the course of which he suffers from fever, pain, or a debilitating de-bilitating cough, or an irritation of the skin, or a sore and swollen throat, or an aching ear, it may be, normal development will be interfered with for the time being. Even if the child's life is saved as it too often is not the net results of such conditions, Including often complications of differing degrees of severity, cannot, by any stretch of the imagiaation, he considered beneficial bene-ficial to him. When to all this Is added add-ed the work and worry of the mother, her sleepless nights and anxious days and, to put it on the lowest plane, the cost of doctors and possibly nurses and medicines, the sum total of the cost of the common diseases of childhood child-hood Is past calculation. The wise mother, abreast of the current of modern scientific thought, strives to keep her children well. She does not permit them to suffer from o single hour of illness that it is possl ble for them to avoid. In this effort she does not allow them to play with children who are coughing and sneezing; sneez-ing; she does not allow them to go to the houses of sick children, nor to attend at-tend public gatherings of any sort Give Baby a Drink of Cool Water Several Sev-eral Times a Day in Summer. when the more dangerous contagious con-tagious diseases are about. On the other hand, she remembers that she has a duty to all other children of the neighborhood, and if her own child is ailing she isolates him until the nature of his illness is determined, and strives by every means in her power to minimize mini-mize the danger for other children. When more mothers thus make themselves them-selves morally responsible for the lives and health of all the children we shall have the beginning of the end of the spread of the contagious diseases. A periodic examination of all children chil-dren by physicians would do much to prevent the development of many weaknesses and defects, or to secure their early and more hopeful treatment. treat-ment. This is pTactically secured for babies in the infant welfare stations now in operation in many cities of this country. It is secured to a limited extent in the medical examination of school children, also, but too little attention at-tention is commonly paid to the children chil-dren of the pre-school age who are no longer babies and yet are hardly more able to do without care than babies. It is to these children of the "neglected "neglect-ed age" that mothers are now turning their attention and Interest particularly. particu-larly. A Baby Week campaign will have many good results, but none more Important Im-portant than bringing to light many children who need care of some special spe-cial sort, and showing mothers how better to meet this demand upon their resources of knowledge and wisdom. |