Health, or, How to Live

AN APPEAL TO MOTHERS

MUCH has been said to mothers on the education of children, and much which ought to be imprinted on the heart, as with the point of a diamond. But there is one part of the lesson, which if noticed at all, has been superficially glanced over, as tangible only in the physician and anatomist: I mean the physical education of children; I mean the mechanism, in all its bearings and uses, and the best helps to keep its ten thousand strings in harmonious tune. HHTL 267.2

The untiring assiduity with which the mother watches over the tender infant, is a strong indication that nature has peculiarly adapted her for an office, which no one can so effectually fill. Yet thousands have withered in the mother’s arms, and generations have gone down to the dust, not by neglect, but through profound ignorance of the simplest, and plainest laws of our nature; simplest, because it does not require the ingenuity to trace nature in her untrammelled windings, as it does to devise the artificial helps, which serve only to retard her healthy progress, and pervert all her rational laws. When the watchful mother sees the high flushed cheek, and feels the accelerated pulse, what does she do? She immediately sets about devising specifics; and when this and that fails, she applies to her physician, without scarcely thinking of inquiring the cause, which requires not half the skill to trace, as to seek out effectual remedies. Disease does not come by miracle. Look at the vegetable kingdom. Does the shooting tree ever wither in its first putting out, without some blighting frost — some scorching fire — some worm at the root — or some knife of the mischievous truant is applied? No; it blooms on, beneath the genial sun, and distilling dews, till matured into the wide-spreading tree, lodging the fowls of the air, giving shade to the way-worn traveler, and braving tempests of years, and sometimes centuries. So in the animal kingdom. The lamb frolics in the meadows; the birds sing and hop among the branches; and do they feel pain? No; unless tamed and domesticated by man, they are free as the air they inhale, and their blood is as pure as the water they love. And should you, mothers, love to see your little ones sporting about you, in the sunshine of health; should you love to see their beaming eyes kissing the first dawning of light, with the happy lark; should you delight to see their expanding minds, drinking copious draughts at the perennial fount of knowledge, with untiring zeal? You may have it so, if you will; only learn that “nature’s wants are few.” And do you ask what they are? They are the pure breezes of heaven; the limpid waters that emanate from ten thousand hills; the nectarine milk from the lowing herds; the blushing orchards, and the whitening harvest of grain, to provide bread “to strengthen man’s heart.” These are the rich bounties of Heaven scattered with a liberal hand, wherever the industry of man has been applied, and they bring no alloy. HHTL 267.3

But does the mother ask, “How am I to secure all these blessings of health to my children, unless I am a physician?” Then be a physician. This is no difficult task. A few simple lessons are to be learned, and the work is done; and these lessons are almost, if not entirely inherent in our natures. HHTL 268.1

When the infant is put into the mother’s hands, what does the Master say? “Take this child and bring it up for me. It is the chief of all my work. I have ‘fenced it about with bones and sinews.’ I have clothed it with flesh. I have placed sentinels at every dangerous post. I have provided food convenient for it, and to you I commit this charge. See that you mar not my handiwork.” HHTL 268.2

Now, what is the mother to do? If she be a judicious one, or one of common observation, she knows that milk is the wholesome nourishment provided for all its wants; she knows that this alone will give proper strength, and facilitate its growth; she knows that the body must be washed in pure water; that it must have quiet sleep, and be kept free from ligatures, so that its breathing may be free, and its growth natural. Now, as I am speaking to the judicious mother let me ask, what more does her infant want in the first months of its existence? Does the regular-moving machinery need any tonics, any decoctions of tea, coffee, or warm toddy, to accelerate its motions? Does the healthy throbbing of its little heart need any urging forward, or its tender brain want steeping in any of these fumes? Let common sense answer. Let the aborigines of any country answer, who have followed nature in all its bearings. Then, as this is all the needed medicine, can you not be the physician?” — Health Journal. HHTL 269.1