The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

August, 1927 The Health Bulletin 15
tween one o'clock and three o'clock,
especially toward the latter part of
August, the baby should have a light
cover to protect from the chill present
at that time of year. If the whole
family diet is largely restricted to
fresh vegetables and fruit and to
fresh milk and cold water for drinks,
and if as much time is spent as possible
outdoors, there will be less irritation
and fretfulness and reaction
against the baby. A great many
people know these things and may
consider the repetition of such talk
in these columns a waste of time and
money. On the other hand, there
are many thousands of people in the
State who very seldom, if ever, stop
to think about such questions; and it
is for these people and for the benefit
of their babies that we keep reiterating
such things.
THE INFANT'S SECOND SUMMER
As the hot weather approaches,
hundreds of mothers are dreading
their infant's "second summer." It
is unreasonable to assume that Providence
has decreed that the second
summer of a baby's life should be its
most strenuous period. Therefore,
seme cause other than Divine decree
should be sought. The real cause is
easily found.
During the first summer the baby
k
is either breast-fed or is fed boiled
milk with scrupulous care from boiled
bottles and nipples. In the second
summer the baby is allowed strained
cereals, mashed and strained vegetables,
meat broth, eggs, crisp bacon,
etc. With the advent of the more
liberal diet there is a tendency to
feel that the baby has passed beyond
the period of infant care, and a letup
in the minutiae of infant feeding
technic develops. The mother is in
a hurry; the milk is not boiled; the
cereal is not cooked quite long
enough; the vegetables are not
mashed; the baby is permitted to
come to the table and the father
feels that no harm would result from
sucking a chicken bone, and maybe
the next day a ham bone; and so it
goes. The deadly ice cream cone is
encouraged in many circles, and the
infant's total daily supply of sweets
is notably increased.
In a recent study of six hundred
and twenty-eight normal white infants
under two years of age from
the Baltimore Welfare Clinic, Wilkins
has collected statistics tipon the incidence
of summer dysentery and diarrhea.
Of the children, who were
observed from June to November,
1925, more than half had no gastrointestinal
disturbances whatever.
Twenty-seven per cent, had diarrhea,
and 7.6 per cent, or more had dysentery.
One-fourth of the infants were
exclusively breast-fed. Of these, only
10 per cent, had diarrhea, and none
had dysentery.
Fifty-four per cent, of the infants
developed gastro-intestinal disease in
some form during the second summer,
and only 34 per cent, in the first
summer. Dysentery appeared to be
one of the most common infectious
diseases of the non-breast fed.
Wilkins investigated the method of
protection of infants against dysentery
by oral administration of vaccines,
for which results have elsewhere
been claimed. The vaccinated
infants developed dysentery as readily
as the unvaccinated ; and so the attempt
to vaccinate in this way was
entirely unsuccessful. However, agglutinins
were demonstrated in the
blood of rabbits which had been fed
large doses of killed Flexner dysentery
bacilli, which shows that organisms
administered orally can affect
the serum defense reactions.
By these statistics of children
among the poorer classes then, the
old wives' fear of the second summer
appears to be justified. Many more
children suffered from gastro-intestinal
conditions in the second summer
than in the first. The picture of the