be placed over the limbs, or you will defeat the very object you desire to attain; and mothers, if you will be reckless of your own comfort, health, and life, by obeying the caprice of fashion rather than the laws of hygiene, I pray you heed the hints herein given for taking care of your children; for, possibly, by the time they become men and women, health will become more attractive than dress.

Leaving the criticism of dress, we will next turn our attention to the food of children. It would seem hardly necessary to start out with the remark that babies should not be fed on cow's milk when that from the breast of a healthy mother or nurse can be obtained; but observation proves that mothers are careless-willfully ignorant-or wantonly indifferent in regard to this matter. I would call the attention of all who are interested in it, to the comparison between the milk of the cow and that of the human mother, in the essay on milk, in Chapter II. The breasts of women are nowadays too much cultivated with reference to a pretty form and figure; and while this need not be discouraged, the necessity of developing the mammary glands, with a view to making them productive of nutritious milk when their possessors become mothers, is of far greater importance. It is especially so when young mothers decline to nurse their babies, lest the breasts should become flabby, or otherwise affected in their symmetry. Speaking of women, the Rev. O. B. Frothingham very truly remarked:-" It may be a great thing to be a merchant, a financier, an advocate, judge, writer, or orator, but before these can exist, there must be men; before these can be what they should be, there must be healthy, disciplined men; there must be well-bred youths, carefully instructed, and carefully trained children; infants lying on deep motherly bosoms, and sucking rich motherly milk. Yes, more than that, inhaling the pure womanly spirit. It may be a fine thing to have control of their property; to help in making the laws they live under; but to be good mothers of men and women, is the greatest thing in all this world." Many mothers in fashionable life, who are endowed by nature with well-developed organs for nourishing their babies, shirk the responsibility because it is a task-it soils their fine clothes-or what is a still more insulting excuse to the Deity-because suckling their young is doing so much like the inferior animals. To such folly has an undue love of ease, and a false idea of refinement led many women! When, however, such considera

tions govern mothers, or when an imperfectly developed body has failed to endow the mother with the power to nurse her child, it should not be fed on the milk of cows or goats if a wet-nurse can be obtained, for it is quite unlike human milk in its qualities, as already remarked; and then, too, some discrimination should be used in the selection of a nurse. A cross, ill-natured woman ought not to be employed, because bad temper affects the secretions of the mammary glands, as well as it does other secretions. A scrofulous nurse will not answer, because she not only gives the child scrofulous food from her breasts, but daily bodily contact with her, affects a healthy baby injuriously. Recollect what Dr. Combe said about the atmosphere of a scrofulous person being contagious. A puny, sickly nurse is also incapable of imparting to a child the nourishment it requires. A nurse must, indeed, be a healthy, temperate, goodnatured, kindly woman, with the milk of human-kindness flowing from her soul, and pure, wholesome milk issuing from wellfreighted bosoms. When such a nurse cannot be obtained, there is manifestly no nourishment so wholesome for babies as the milk of healthy animals diluted sufficiently to agree with the infant stomach, for all vegetable preparations for babies, have a tendency to cause acidity, and contain particles which the young digestive machinery is not strong enough to dissolve. Meats, and the juices of meats

will not answer, as they are too stimulating. They are not, indeed, fit for a child under ten years of age, as the reader will observe in my next essay on dietetics.

In addition to clothing and feeding babies properly, attention must be given to bathing and exercising them. If they are fat and full of animal spirits, they should be sponged every morning with tepid water and a little (very little) castile soap. If lean in flesh, they should be so treated only every alternate morning; but their little bodies should be rubbed down gently with a healthy hand, from head to foot, every day. If the child be absolutely wasted so that marasmus is threatened, it would be better to use a good quality of sweet oil instead of water, and rub them from head to foot with the magnetic hand; after which wipe them down with a dry napkin. This will keep the skin healthfully active and cleanly; and the absorbing pores may be provoked to take up some of the oleaginous matter, and with it assist in inaugurating plumpness. Babies should be carried into the open air daily in all weather, and shaken and

jostled by their nurses. Babies, as much as adults, need muscular exercise to develop the muscular system. They are not strong enough to take that exercise themselves, and it is, therefore, necessary to tumble them about, squeeze their muscles, pat them, and attend to all those little matters which go to promote muscular development. A writer in Blackwood's Magazine very sensibly advises nursery tales, rhymes, and other good things. I would," he says, "say to every parent, especially to every mother, sing to your chil dren; tell them pleasant stories; if in the country, be not careful lest they get a little dirt upon their hands and clothes; earth is very much akin to us all, and children's out-of-doors plays soil them not inwardly. There is in it a kind of consanguinity between all creatures; by it we touch upon the common sympathy of our first substance, and beget a kindness for our poor relations, the brutes. Let children have free, open-air sport, and fear not though they make acquaintance with the pigs, the donkeys, and the chickens; they may form worse friendships with wiser-looking ones. Encourage a familiarity with all that love them. There is a language among them which the world's language obliterates in the elders. It is of more importance that you should make your children loving, than that you should make them wise. Above all things make them loving; and then, parents, if you become old and poor, these will be better than friends that will neglect you. Children brought up lovingly at your knees will never shut their doors upon you, and point where they would have you go.”

Babies must also be carefully guarded from all poison, external and internal. Impure vaccination often destroys the health, if not the life of a child. Read what I have said under this head in the chapter on the causes of nervous and blood derangements. Mothers should be careful that their nipples are free from eruptions which might possibly inoculate the baby with their impure secretions. Nurses and other attendants should have clean hands and well-washed calico gowns. Look out for the napkins and towels which are em ployed about the baby. Carefully exclude from the nursery all poisonous or unwholesome things which the baby can, on floor or in chair, lay hold of. Every thing you know, goes into the mouth of an infant. Painted toys have sometimes caused the most serious conse quences in the hands of babies.

Excessive and injudicious dosing is a common cause of ill health

among children. If a child take a slight cold—if it have a little pain in the stomach-if the bowels move a little too frequently-if it have ear-ache-if it be restless and fretful-the doctor is sent for, who, either through ignorance of the injurious effects of unnecessary drugging, or from fear of not pacifying the mother, deals out a little of this, that, and the other thing, to be taken at various hours of the day or night. In the majority of cases children do not need medicating, and a mother more often injures her child by sending for the doctor too soon, than by delaying too long. External applications of proper remedies will, in a majority of cases, cure all sorts of baby complaints. I do not exactly want to assume the character of a panacea pedler, but I feel moved to say, in this connection, that if yon possess a bottle of my magnetic ointment, such as I speak of. in the closing part of my book, a doctor need seldom be called. If A child have a cold, attended with any affection of the throat or lungs, apply the ointment thoroughly to the throat and chest; if wind colic, cramping of the stomach or bowels, loss of appetite, worms, diarrhoea, or the opposite-constipation, apply the ointment to the stomach and bowels for several minutes with the hand. If the child receive a bruise, cut, or burn, the ointment will prove a never-failing remedy. For weakness of the spine, weakness or pain in the limbs, stiff neck, for cold feet, etc., it may be successfully applied to the part affected. It may be effectually applied to the region of the bladder in incontinence of the urine, or other affections of the bladder. In brief, there is hardly an infant ill which the external use of this ointment will not relieve, and generally completely cure; while grown-up children, who have once introduced it as a family medicine, feel that they cannot pass a night without it in the house. Simple hand friction will often relieve the local difficulties of children. Do any thing-do every thing, mother, but administer to the sensitive little stomach a dose of medicine. Soothing syrups are invariably anodynes in their properties, and almost invahably contain morphine or opium. Rather than use them for a nervous or fretful child, I would resort to the ridiculous remedy proposed by a Buffalo Editor. "As soon," he says, "as the squaller awakens, set the child up, propped by pillows if it cannot sit alone; smear its fingers with thick molasses; then put half a dozen feathers into its hands, and the young one will sit and pick the feathers from one hand to another, until it drops asleep. As soon as it awakes

more molasses and more feathers, and, in the place of nerve astound ing yells, there will be silence and enjoyment unspeakable."

One word in regard to the corporal punishment of children, and I will close this essay and enter upon other subjects of equal interest to all who have or are about to have babies, as well as to those who

Fi. 67.

have only themselves

to care for.

First, do

not strike a child on

the head. The brain

is the great nervous reservoir where all the nerves centre, and a blow here may kill it outright, or make it idiotic. Do not "box its ears," there is danger, by doing so, of rupturing the eardrum, thereby rendering it deaf, if no greater evil ensue. Do not

whip it with stick or lash-such a punishment deranges the action of the capillaries, and the circulation of the blood through them. Do not fill its imagination with hobgoblins, and shut it into a dark room. Kept for moments or hours under the influence of fright, the nervous system is tearfully affected, and made susceptible to attacks of a spasmodic nature. Do not punish it by depriving it of its regular food, for then stomach derangements are inaugurated. All kinds of punishment should be avoided if the child can be controlled by moral influences; but where punishment is necessary, "good spanking" is the only physical chastisement the body presents a proper place to receive; while those acting upon the fears of the child should be avoided altogether.

Dietetics for Old and Young.

Little space will be occupied under this head, because the reader may learn from the essay entitled "The Food we Eat," in the second chapter, the author's views on what may be regarded as wholesome food; but I have something important to offer in this place which,

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