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should be kept perfectly quiet, at least half an hour, after each meal.
This is certainly necessary with feeble children, but I question its
necessity in the case of those who are strong and robust. I would not
recommend, however, nor even tolerate, for one moment, the absurd
practice of _jolting_, so common with a few ignorant nurses and,
mothers, as if they could jolt down the food in the stomach with just as
much safety as they can shake down the contents of a farmer's bag of
produce. Such mothers as these should go and reside among the native
tribes of Indians in Guiana, in South America, where they make it a
point not only to stuff their children's stomachs as long as they will
hold, but actually to shake it down.

Little less absurd than jolting is the custom of tossing a child high,
in quick succession, which is practised not only after meals, but at
other times. But on this point, I have treated elsewhere.

Some give the sucking bottle to children as a plaything. This is just
about as wise a practice as that of giving them books as playthings.
Both are done, usually, to save the time and trouble of those whose
office it is to devote their time to the very purpose of managing and
educating their offspring. The evil, however, of suffering the child to
have the bottle when it pleases is, that he will thus be tasting food so
often as to interfere with and disturb the process of digestion, to his
great and lasting injury. For in this way, a part of the food will pass
from the stomach into the bowels unchanged, or at least but imperfectly
digested, where it is liable to become sour, and cause disease. It is
not to be doubted that many diarrhoeas, as well as, other bowel
affections, are produced in this way. Children that are always eating
are seldom healthy; and we may hence see the reason.

In speaking of the importance of keeping the bottle, from which a child
takes his food, perfectly clean and sweet, I ought to have extended the
injunction much farther. There is a degree of slovenliness sometimes
observable in those who manage children, both when they are sick and
when they are in health, which even common sense cannot and ought not to
tolerate. Every vessel which is used in preparing or administering
anything for children, ought, after we have used it, to be immediately
and effectually cleansed. How shocking is it to see dirty vessels
standing in the nursery from hour to hour, becoming sour or impure! How