ith a small
allowance only of meat on alternate days. The constant endeavour of the
parent now should be, to seek to increase the digestive power and
bodily vigour of her child by frequent exercise in the open air, and by
attention to those general points of management detailed in the after-
part of this chapter. This accomplished, a greater proportion of animal
food may be given, and, in fact, will become necessary for the growth
of the system, while at the same time there will be a corresponding
power for its assimilation and digestion.

A great error in the dietetic management of such children is but too
frequently committed by parents. They suppose that because their child
is weakly and delicate, that the more animal food it takes the more it
will be strengthened, and they therefore give animal food too early,
and in too great quantity. It only adds to its debility. The system, as
a consequence, becomes excited, nutrition is impeded, and disease
produced, ultimately manifesting itself in scrofula, disease in the
abdomen, head, or chest. The first seeds of consumption are but too
frequently originated in this way. A child so indulged will eat
heartily enough, but he remains thin notwithstanding. After a time he
will have frequent fever, will appear heated and flushed towards
evening, when he will drink greedily, and more than is usual in
children of the same age; there will be deranged condition of the
bowels, and headach,--the child will soon become peevish, irritable, and
impatient; it will entirely lose the good humour so natural to
childhood, and that there is something wrong will be evident enough,
the parent, however, little suspecting the real cause and occasion of
all the evil. In such a child, too, it will be found that the ordinary
diseases of infancy, scarlet fever, measles, small pox, etc., will be
attended with an unusual degree of constitutional disturbance; that it
will not bear such active treatment as other children, or so quickly
rally from the illness.

"Strength is to be obtained not from the kind of food which contains
most nourishment in itself, but from that which is best adapted to the
condition of the digestive organs at the time when it is taken."

SUGAR.--This is a necessary condiment for the food of children, and it
is nutritious, and does not injure the teeth, as is generally imagined.
"During the sugar season," observes Dr. Dunglison, "the negroes of
the West India islands drink cop