n
the minds and hearts of parents, I have already expressed my doubts
whether they are prepared to receive and profit by advice at once
rational and physiological. Still I cannot help hoping that I shall
succeed in persuading mothers to have every part of a child's dress
perfectly loose, except the band already referred to; and that should be
but moderately tight.

Common humanity ought to teach us better than to put the body of a
helpless infant into a _vise_, and press it to death, as the first mark
of our attention. Who has not been struck with a strange inconsistency
in the conduct of mothers and nurses, who, while they are so exceedingly
tender towards the infant in some points as to injure it by their
kindness, are yet almost insensible to its cries of distress while
dressing it? So far, indeed, are they from feeling emotions of pity,
that they often make light of its cries, regarding them as signs of
health and vigor.

There can be no doubt, I confess, that the first cries of an infant, if
strong, both indicate and promote a healthy state of the lungs, to a
certain extent; but there will always be unavoidable occasions enough
for crying to promote health, even after we have done all we can in the
way of avoiding pain. They who only draw the child's dress the tighter,
the more it cries, are guilty of a crime of little less enormity than
murder.

"Think," says Dr. Buchan, "of the immense number of children that die of
convulsions soon after birth; and be assured that these (its cries) are
much oftener owing to galling pressure, or some external injury, than to
any inward cause." This same writer adds, that he has known a child
which was "seized with convulsion fits" soon after being "swaddled,"
immediately relieved by taking off the rollers and bandages; and he says
that a loose dress prevented the return of the disease.

I think it is obvious that the utmost extent to which we ought to go, in
yielding to the fashion, as it regards form, is to use three pieces of
clothing--the shirt, the petticoat and the frock; all of which must be
as loose as possible; and before the infant begins to crawl about much,
the latter should be long, for the salve of covering the feet and legs.
At four or five years of age, loose trowsers, with boys, may be
substituted for the petticoat; but it is a question whether something
like the frock might not, with every individual, be usefully retained
through life.

I wish it were unne