to health and happiness, and applied to the purpose in
question, will be mentioned in the chapter on Food and Drink.

CHAPTER VI.

ON BATHING.

Danger of savage practices. Rousseau. Cold water at birth. First washing
of the child. Rules. Temperature. Bathing vessels. Unreasonable fears.
Whims. Views of Dr. Dewees. Hardening. Rules for the cold bath. Securing
a glow. Coming out of the bath. Local baths. Shower bath. Vapor bath.
Sponging. Neglect of bathing. The Romans. Treatment of children compared
with that of domestic animals.

Some of the hardy nations of antiquity, as well as a few savage tribes
of modern times, have been accustomed to plunge their new-born infants
into cold water. This is done for the two-fold purpose of washing and
hardening them.

To all who reason but for a moment on this subject, the danger of such a
practice must be obvious. So sudden a change from a temperature of
nearly 100 of Fahrenheit to one quite low, perhaps scarcely 40, must
and does have a powerful effect on the nervous system even of an adult;
but how much more on that of a tender infant? We may form some idea of
this, by the suddenness and violence of its cries, by the sudden
contractions and relaxations of its limbs and body, and by its
palpitating heart and difficult breathing.

Every one's experience may also remind him, that what produces at best a
momentary pain to himself, cannot otherwise than be painful to the
infant. In making a comparison between adults and infants, however, in
this respect, we should remember that the lungs of the infant do not get
into full and vigorous action until some time after birth; and that, on
this account, the hold they have on life is so feeble, that any powerful
shock, and especially that given by the cold bath, is ten times more
dangerous to them than to adults, or even to infants themselves, after a
few months have elapsed.

It is surprising to me that so sensible a writer as Rousseau generally
is on education, should have encouraged this dangerous practice; and
still more so that many fathers even now, blinded by theory, should
persist in it, notwithstanding the pleadings of the mother or the nurse,
and the plainest dictates of common sense and common prudence.[Footnote:
Nothing is intended to be said here, which shall encourage unthinking
nurses or mothers in setting themselves against measures which have been
prescribed by higher authority,--I mean the physician. There are