sider the respectability of the authority from which it
emanated, and that it is only about 350 a year for that great empire, I
cannot doubt that the estimate is substantially correct. What a
sacrifice at the shrine of ignorance and folly!

It should be added, in this place, both to confirm the foregoing
sentiment, and to show that British mothers and nurses are not alone,
that Dr. Dewees has witnessed, in the circle of his practice, four
deaths from the same cause. If every physician in the United States has
met with as many cases of the kind, in proportion to his practice, as
Dr. D., the evil is about as great in this country as Dr. F. says it is
in Great Britain.

If a child sleeps alone, it cannot of course be liable to as much
suffering of this kind as if it slept with another person; though much
precaution will still be necessary to keep its head uncovered, and
prevent its inhaling air spoiled by its own lungs and skin.

4. There is one more evil which will be avoided by having a child sleep
alone. Many a mother has seriously injured her child by pressure. I do
not here allude to those monsters in human nature, whose besotted habits
have been the frequent cause of the suffocation and death of their
offspring, but to the more careful and tender mother, who would sooner
injure herself than her own child. Such mothers, even, have been known
to dislocate or fracture a limb![Footnote: There may be instances where
the debility of an infant will be so great that the mother or a nurse
must sleep with it, to keep it warm. But such cases of disease are very
rare.]

To cap the climax of error in this matter, some mothers allow their
infants to lie on their arm, as a pillow. This practice not only exposes
them to all or nearly all the evils which have been mentioned, but to
one more; viz. the danger of being thrown from the bed.

A young mother, with whom I was well acquainted, was sleeping one night
with her infant on her arm, when she made a sudden and rather violent
effort to turn in the bed, in doing which she threw the child upon the
floor with such violence as to fracture its little skull, and cause its
death.

Enough, I trust, has now been said to convince every reasonable young
mother, where absolute poverty does not preclude comfort and health,
that her child ought never to be permitted to sleep in the same bed with
her; but that it should be placed on a bedstead by itself at a short
distance from her, and pro