an if they had been
treated more rationally.

I knew a mother who would not trust her children to take care of their
own beds on retiring to rest, as long as they remained in her house,
even though they were twenty or thirty years old. But they had no better
or firmer constitutions than the other children of the same
neighborhood.

Hardly anything can be more injurious than covering the head with the
bed clothes; and yet some mothers and nurses cover, in this way, not
only their own heads, but those of their children. I have elsewhere
shown how impure the air is, which is imprisoned under the bed clothes.
I hope those mothers who are willing to destroy _themselves_ by covering
up their heads while they sleep, will at least have mercy on their
unoffending infants.

SEC. 6. _Night Dresses._

The grand rule on this point is, to wear as little dress during sleep as
possible. Some mothers not only suffer their infants to sleep in the
same shirt, cap, and stockings that they have worn during the day, but
add a night gown to the rest. No cap should be worn during the night,
any more than in the day time. Or if the foolish practice has been
adopted for the day, it should be discontinued at night. It is enough
for those adults whose long hair would otherwise be dishevelled, to wear
night caps, and subject themselves, as they inevitably do, to catarrh
and periodical headache. Children's heads should have nothing on them by
night; nor even by day, except to defend them from the rain or the hot
rays of the sun.

The stockings, too, should be wholly laid aside at night, unless in the
case of those who are feeble, apt to have their feet cold, or
particularly liable to bowel complaints. Such may be allowed to sleep in
their stockings, but not in those which have been worn all the day.

Indeed, neither children nor adults should ever wear a single garment in
the night which they have worn during the day. The reason is, that there
are too many causes of impurity in operation while we sleep, without our
wearing the clothes in which we have been perspiring during the
day-time--and which must be already more or less filled with the
effluvia of our bodies.

It is a very easy thing to have a loose night gown to supply the place
of the shirt we have worn during the day; and if nothing else is
convenient, a spare shirt will answer. But both a night gown and shirt
should never be admitted, especially in warm weather. The garment to