opment of the body, the employment of tight stays, which impede
the free and full action of the respiratory organs, being only one of
the many restrictions and injurious practices from which in latter
years they are thus doomed to suffer so severely.

Sect. VII. AIR AND EXERCISE.

IN INFANCY.--The respiration of a pure air is at all times, and under
all circumstances, indispensable to the health of the infant. The
nursery therefore should be large, well ventilated, in an elevated part
of the house, and so situated as to admit a free supply both of air
and light. For the same reasons, the room in which the infant sleeps
should be large, and the air frequently renewed; for nothing is so
prejudicial to its health as sleeping in an impure and heated
atmosphere. The practice, therefore, of drawing thick curtains closely
round the bed is highly pernicious; they only answer a useful purpose
when they defend the infant from any draught of cold air.

The proper time for taking the infant into the open air must, of
course, be determined by the season of the year, and the state of the
weather. "A delicate infant born late in the autumn will not generally
derive advantage from being carried into the open air, in this climate,
till the succeeding spring; and if the rooms in which he is kept are
large, often changed, and well ventilated, he will not suffer from the
confinement, while he will, most probably, escape catarrhal affections,
which are so often the consequence of the injudicious exposure of
infants to a cold and humid atmosphere."[FN#17] If, however, the child
is strong and healthy, no opportunity should be lost of taking it into
the open air at stated periods, experience daily proving that it has
the most invigorating and vivifying influence upon the system. Regard,
however, must always be had to the state of the weather; and to a damp
condition of the atmosphere the infant should never be exposed, as it
is one of the most powerful exciting causes of consumptive disease. The
nurse-maid, too, should not be allowed to loiter and linger about, thus
exposing the infant unnecessarily, and for an undue length of time;
this is generally the source of all the evils which accrue from taking
the babe into the open air.

[FN#17] Sir James Clark on Consumption.

Exercise, also, like air, is essentially important to the health of
the infant. Its first exercise, of course, will be in the nurse's arms.
After a month