bted, that there is a strong prejudice against
warm bathing, in many parts of the country. In endeavoring to trace the
cause, I have usually found that it arose from having seen or heard of
some child who died soon after its application. I have had many a parent
remonstrate with me on the danger of the warm bath; and this, too, in
circumstances when it appeared to me, that the child's existence
depended, under God, on that very measure. Perhaps it is useless in such
cases, however, to reason with parents on the subject. The medical
practitioner must do his duty boldly and fearlessly, and risk the
consequences.

But as I am writing, not for persons under immediate excitement, but for
those that may be reasoned with, it is proper to say, that in medicine,
the warm bath is so often used in extreme cases, and as a last resort,
even when death has already grasped, or is about to fix his grasp on the
sufferer, that it would be very strange if many persons _did not_ die,
just after bathing. But that the bathing itself ever produced this
result, in one case in a thousand, there is not the slightest reason for
believing. [Footnote: Let me not be understood as intimating that, the
general neglect of bathing, of which I complain so loudly, is _chiefly_
owing to this unreasonable prejudice, though this no doubt has its sway.
On the contrary, I believe it is much oftener owing to ignorance,
indolence, and parsimony.]

There are many more whims connected with bathing, as with almost
everything else, which it were equally desirable to remove. Some nurses
and mothers think that if the child's skin is wiped dry after bathing,
it will impair, if not destroy, the good effects of the operation.
Others still, shocking to relate, will even put it to bed in its wet
clothes; this, too, from principle. Not unlike this, is the belief, very
common among adults, that if we get our clothes wet--even our
stockings--we must, by all means, suffer them to dry on us; a belief
which, in its results, has sent thousands to a premature grave--and,
what is still worse, made invalids, for life, of a still greater number.

I am aware, that in rejecting the indiscriminate cold bathing of
infants, I am treading on ground which is rather unpopular, even with
medical men; a large proportion of whom seem to believe that the
practice may be useful. But I am not _wholly_ alone. Dr. Dewees--of
whose large experience I have already spoken--and some others, do not
he