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Diarrhoea. Simple Diarrhoea is rarely severe, and passes away with the removal of the cause. It is usually the result of digestive disturbances (wrong feeding or the swallowing of a foreign body), and a day on orange juice, with the use of the enema, will soon put matters right. Correct dieting will prevent further occurrences of the trouble.

Infective Diarrhoea (also Colitis). This is usually known as summer Diarrhoea, and is the most common form seen in children. It presents two types. In the first the onset is gradual, and looseness of the bowels is the first symptom. There may be five to ten movements a day. Thin and frequently green, they soon contain mucus. More or less fever is present. The case may run a mild course, or become progressively worse and turn into inflammatory Diarrhoea (entero-colitis).

In the second type the onset is sudden and is marked by vomiting, fever, and numerous loose green movements. At first the movements may be large and watery and contain blood, but later they become green or brown and contain mucus. Vomiting is sometimes persistent. The number of movements is not always a guide to the seriousness of the condition, for some of the worst cases have a high temperature and but few movements. The cause in all cases is wrong feeding, especially the giving of large quantities of protein food in hot weather (meat, fish, etc.).

Treatment. The treatment for this more serious type of Diarrhoea is to keep the child in bed, cleanse the bowels night and morning with the warm-water enema, and give nothing but water and orange juice for a few days (no milk or anything else).

As soon as the severity of the condition has been checked, and no more diarrhoea is present, the all-fruit diet may be adopted, and after a few days on this, the child can pass on to the regular diet for children given in the Appendix.

If the condition is very serious, and the parent feels alarmed and does not feel capable of carrying out the treatment himself, a Naturopath should be called in, but in all cases, no matter how serious they may seem, the above simple home treatment will be found to be quite effective if applied properly.

Dysentery. In young children dysentery is a severe form of inflammatory diarrhoea, in which the disease is located chiefly in the

large bowel. It is most common in hot climates in late summer and is characterised by frequent, small, painful movements, consisting wholly or in part of mucus and blood. Straining and pain are present after the movements, a symptom known as tenesmus.

The cause is wrong feeding of children, especially the giving of excessive quantities of meat and similar protein foods in climates and under conditions where the said food is very liable to putrefy quickly within the intestines.

Treatment. The treatment is the same as for infective diarrhoea, although the child may have to kept on orange juice, and subsequently on the all-fruit diet, longer than for the less serious complaint. (Fresh fruits and salads must form the major portion of the child's future dietary ; flesh foods should be avoided in future as far as possible.)

Vomiting. Vomiting is not a disease, but a symptom of numerous diseases of childhood. It may result from acute indigestion, chronic indigestion, temporary overloading of the stomach, nervous diseases, and reflex irritation. It also occurs in the first stages of scarlet fever and other acute fevers.

Treatment. The treatment for vomiting must of course depend upon the actual cause of the trouble in each individual case. If the parent cannot discover this, the child should be kept in bed, given nothing but hot water to drink (no food), and the warm-water enema used to cleanse the bowels. If this does not put matters right, then the services of a Naturopath should be secured.

Worms. See Sub-section (7), Parasitic Diseases of Childhood.

Bronchitis. Next to indigestion and diarrhoea, "cold on the chest" is the commonest acute disease of childhood. It may be mild, with little or no fever ; in severe forms the temperature may rise to 102 degrees Fahr. The cough may be loose, with free secretion of mucus, or it may be short, dry, and teasing in character. It may become so paroxysmal as to suggest whooping-cough. The usual duration is between one and two weeks. Its cause, as usual, is wrong feeding of children, especially the giving of excessive quantities of starchy foods in the daily dietary in the shape of refined cereals, white bread, boiled and mashed potatoes, puddings, pies, cakes, etc., to say nothing of sugary foods in the shape of white sugar, jams, sweets, etc.

The impurities which arise in the system as a result of the daily excessive ingestion of foods of this nature invariably collect in the mucous membrane of the upper part of the body (especially in the bronchial tubes, throat, nose and ear passages), giving rise to. bronchitis, catarrh, colds, enlarged tonsils, adenoids, etc.

Treatment. The treatment for bronchitis is to keep the child on orange juice and water only for three days or so, that is until the more serious symptoms have disappeared; then the all-fruit diet should be adopted for a further few days. When the child is fully convalescent, the dietary for children given in the Appendix should be adopted and adhered to rigorously from then on. Starchy and sugary foods must be carefully restricted in future, and the sweet habit broken.

The warm-water enema should be used nightly during the first few days of the treatment, and if the cough is troublesome cold packs (as described in the Appendix) should be applied to the chest two or three times during the day, and one at night. Hot Epsom-salts baths are useful for children of more advanced age when convalescing from bronchitis, and the regular daily performances of breathing exercises should be encouraged. (A set of such exercises will be found in the Appendix.)

The Common Cold. The symptoms which characterise the "common " cold are so universally known that their description here is hardly necessary. The sneezing, the. running from nose and eyes, the heightened temperature denoting fever, are within the experience of everyone. Why? Because the cold is Nature's simplest form of " healing crisis it is the form Nature uses most for the work of eliminating rubbish (systemic refuse due to wrong feeding) from the human system.

All that has been said about the eating of excessive quantities of starchy and sugary food in the case of bronchitis applies with equal force to the common cold, both in children and adults. And if parents wish to see their children rid of colds, it is the child's dietary which must be attended to.

Treatment. Proper dieting, and proper dieting alone, can prevent the appearance of colds in the child. When a cold is already present, the child should be put on orange juice for a day, then on to the all-fruit diet for a further day or two. If this is done, and the enema used on one or two nights to cleanse the bowels (and a hot Epsom-salts bath given), the cold will soon be got rid of. It then remains for the parents to place the child on a sensible dietary for colds to become a rarer and ever rarer occurrence in that particular child's life.

A point worth remembering with regard to both bronchitis and colds is, that over-clothing is a most definite factor in the production of these complaints in children, in conjunction with over-feeding. To clothe a child in a large number of garments is bad for that child's health, as by this the skin is not allowed to function properly and natural elimination is prevented, thus making it more than ever likely that colds, bronchitis, etc., will appear. The wearing of woollen under-garments is especially bad for young children. They should wear, not wool next the skin, but a porous cotton or linen material such as " Aertex."

To adopt one of the usual suppressive measures for treating a cold, such as aspirin, ammoniated tincture of quinine, etc., is only paving the way for future trouble of a more serious nature.

Croup (Membranous). Membranous croup is an inflammation of the larynx marked by the formation of a false membrane. As the larynx is in the narrowest part of the throat, the disease is very dangerous because it obstructs the breathing. In most of the cases the cause is diphtheritic in origin. The progress is slow as compared with false croup, but is relentless and continuous. The voice is hoarse, and at length is completely lost. Without proper treatment the disease is one of the most fatal in childhood, the child dying eventually from strangulation.

Treatment. The medical treatment for membranous croup consists of anti-toxin treatment and intubation, often with the most disastrous results. The only sound logical treatment is that as given for Diphtheria in the treatment for childhood fevers farther on in the present section.

Croup (Spasmodic or False). False croup is rare before the sixth month and after the fifth year of childhood, but it may occur at any time. The symptoms to the inexperienced are alarming. The child may have been perfectly well, or there may have been slight hoarseness or cold in the head. He suddenly wakes in the night with a loud, metallic cough. Breathing is difficult, the child often struggles for breath, being terrified at its own condition.

The voice is hoarse but not lost. There is little or no fever. After a few hours the attack subsides, and on the following morning the child seems well. The next night a milder attack occurs, and still another on the third night. In some cases the cough persists all day and ultimately turns into bronchitis. The cause, although heredity is sometimes claimed as a cause, is indigestion, brought on by wrong feeding.

Treatment. Proper feeding and the avoidance of indigestion and constipation would make this childhood complaint impossible of occurrence. Where present, treatment should consist in keeping the child on orange juice and water for a day or two, then via the all-fruit diet on to the regular child's menus given in the Appendix. The enema should be used nightly for a few days. A cold pack applied to the throat at night will be very efficacious. (See Appendix for details as to how the pack should be made and applied.)

Enlarged Tonsils and Adenoids. Enlarged tonsils and adenoids are perhaps the two commonest troubles of children to-day. Their surgical removal, although such an apparently simple and sound measure, is responsible for more ill-health in after-life than the world could ever imagine. The tonsils are lymphatic glands situated at the entrance to the throat, and their function is to cleanse the head and upper part of the body of toxic matter and systemic impurities.

Given the way the average child is brought up and fed, what wonder then that these lymphatic glands should become enlarged�swollen with toxic matter and unable to function properly at a very early age in the child-life? Enlarged tonsils are a sure sign that the child in question is suffering from a toxic condition of the system due to wrong feeding and unhygienic living ; and adenoids are due to a similar cause. To remove them surgically from the system is, then, hardly the right way of getting rid of the cause of the trouble, is it? It is getting rid of the effect, and not of the cause at all!

Further, it is allowing the said cause or causes to operate with even greater force than ever within the organism, because the infant system will be working at a permanently impaired level of efficiency, once these bulwarks of defence in the upper part of the body�the tonsils�have been removed (under the specious and vain medical pretext that they are " useless " organs in the human anatomy, and that the child is far better off without these "centres of possible future infection ".

When the medical profession does not understand the use of any particular organ or part of the human anatomy, it immediately says it is useless � meaning by this that it does not know its use, therefore Nature does not either. (Which, to say the least, is rather presumptuous!)

Accordingly, if such organs can be removed from the system without unduly affecting its working, the public are at once led to believe that they will be infinitely better off without the said organs than with them. Not only led to believe, but bullied and forced to believe. Hence the present-day orgy of operations for the removal of tonsils, adenoids, appendices, etc.; which, from the surgeon\'s point of view�both financially and technically�is a very good thing indeed, but from the health point of view of the patient is a very bad thing.

The trouble is that many parents, being led to believe that their children will be far better off without their tonsils or appendices than with them, really do think they see a change for the better in the child\'s health after they have allowed the operation to take place. But this improvement, if improvement there be, is only temporary and transient. It is purchased solely at the expense of the future well-being of the child.

One cannot function fully on an organism deprived of one of its parts, as any motorist will know with reference to his engine�and more especially will this be so if the bad habits which were at the bottom of the trouble in the first place are allowed to continue unchecked, as they invariably are.

The symptoms usually connected with enlarged and septic tonsils and adenoids are a tendency to be always catching colds, under development, sometimes both physically and mentally�and a habit of breathing through the mouth rather than through the nose. The doctor says that if the offending tonsils and adenoids are removed, all these various disabilities will automatically clear up. This sometimes does happen; the child appears to be far better in health in every way after the operation.

But this appearance of improved health is only temporary and specious. Really, the organism suffers far more than is gained. The surgical removal of tonsils and adenoids paves the way for all the more serious diseases of childhood, from middle-ear disease and mastoiditis to asthma and meningitis.*

Treatment. For parents to allow their children to have tonsils and adenoids removed by surgical operation is not only wrong, but next night a milder attack occurs, and still another on the third night.

In some cases the cough persists all day and ultimately turns into bronchitis. For the further elaboration of this point, see remarks re enlarged tonsils and adenoids in Section 8, Diseases of the Ears, Nose, Mouth and Throat.

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