s he
lies in unconsciousness because no ordinary stimulus from the outer
world can reach him to exert its effect. He lies immersed in fluid,
which, obeying the laws of physics, exercises a pressure which is
uniformly distributed over all points of his body. No sound reaches
him, and no light. After birth all this is suddenly changed. The sense
of new points of pressure breaks in upon his consciousness. Cold air
strikes upon his skin. Loud sounds and bright lights evoke a
characteristic response. A placid child who inherits a relatively
obtuse nervous organisation will be but little upset by this sudden
and radical change in the nature of his environment. His brain is
readily but healthily tired by the new sensations which stream in from
all sides, and he falls straight away into a sleep from which he
rouses himself at intervals only under the impulse of the new
sensation of hunger.

Babies of nervous inheritance, on the other hand, will show clearly by
the violence of the response provoked that their nervous system is
easily stimulated and exhausted. They will wriggle and squirm for
hours together, emitting the same constant reflex cry. The whole body
will start convulsively at a sudden touch or a loud sound which would
evoke no response from a more stolid infant. The sleeplessness and
crying exhaust the baby, rendering the nervous system more and more
irritable, while the sensation of hunger which is delayed in other
children by twelve hours or more of deep sleep appears early and is of
extreme intensity. We must see to it that sense stimuli are reduced to
the lowest possible level. True, we cannot again restore the child to
a bath of warm fluid, of the same temperature as his body, where he
can be free from irksome pressure and from all sensations of sound and
light, but we can so arrange matters that he is not disturbed by loud
sounds and bright lights, and that he is not moved more than is
necessary. Sudden unexpected movements are especially harmful. Jogging
him up and down, patting him on the back, expostulation, and
entreaties are all out of place and do all the harm in the world. The
first bath should be as expeditious as possible, and above all the
baby must not be chilled by tedious exposure. Cold irritates his
nervous system more than anything else, unless it be excessive warmth.
In preserving the proper temperature so that we do not render the
child restless by excess of heat or by excess of cold, we
too-c