But when the head is kept, from the first, totally uncovered, the hair grows more rapidly, dandruff and other scurfy diseases rarely attack the scalp; catarrh, snuffles, and other similar complaints, and above all, dropsy in the head, seldom show themselves; and the period of cutting teeth, that most dangerous period in the life of an infant, is passed over with much more safety.
"Nothing but custom," says a foreign writer, "can reconcile us to the cap, with all its lace and trumpery ornaments, on the beautiful head of a child; and I would ask any one to say candidly, whether he thinks the children in the pictures of Titian and Raffaelle would be improved by having their heads covered with caps, instead of the silken curls—the adornment of nature—which cluster round their smiling faces. If there were no other reason for disusing caps for infants, but the improvement which it produces in the appearance of the child, I would maintain that this is a sufficient inducement." And I concur with him fully.
As to the notion—now I hope nearly exploded—that it is necessary to cover up the "open of the head," as it is called, nothing can be more idle. This part of the head requires no more covering than any other part; and if it did, all the dress in the world could not affect it in the least, except to retard the growth of the bones, which, in due time, ought to close up the space; and this effect, anything which keeps the head too hot might help to produce. Of the folly of wetting the head with spirits, or any other medicated lotions, and of making daily efforts to bring it into shape, it is unnecessary to speak in the present chapter.
The hats worn in this country are almost universally too warm. But if it is a great mistake in adults to wear thick, heavy hats, it is much more so in the case of children.
The infant in the nursery, as we have already seen, needs no covering of the kind. It is absolutely necessary that the head should be kept as cool as possible; and absolutely dangerous to cover it too warmly. At a later period, however, the danger greatly diminishes, because the circulation of the blood becomes more equal, and does not tend so much towards the brain.
Still, however, the head is hotter than the limbs, especially the hands and feet; and I cannot help thinking that the hair is the only covering which is perfectly safe, either in childhood or age; except in the sunshine or in the storm. There may be—there probably is—some danger in going without hat or bonnet in the hot sun; though I have known many children, and some grown persons, who were constantly exposed in this way, and yet appeared not to suffer from it.
But this may be the proper place to state that we are ever in great danger of deceiving ourselves on this subject. If the individuals who follow practices usually regarded as pernicious, while their habits in other respects are just like those of other persons around them who have similar strength, &c. of constitution,—if these individuals, I say, were wholly to escape disease, through life, or if they were to be so much more free from it, and live to an age so much greater than others as to constitute a striking and obvious difference in their favor, we might then safely argue that the practices which they follow are at least without dangers, if not of obvious advantage. But when we see them beset with ills, like other people, it is not safe to pronounce their habits favorable to health, since it is impossible to know whether some of the ills which they suffer are not produced by them.
These remarks are applicable to the disuse of any covering for the head in the sun and in the rain. For you will find those who adopt this practice from early infancy,2 subject to as many diseases as those around them with similar constitutions, but with habits somewhat different; and as our diseases are generally the consequences of our errors in one way or another, it is impossible to say with certainty that some of them might not have arisen from exposure of the head.
I should not hesitate, therefore, to advise all mothers to put a light hat or bonnet on the heads of their children, whenever they are to be exposed to the direct rays of the summer sun, or to the rain. And as we cannot always foresee when and where these exposures will arise, and as it is believed that these coverings, if light, will never be productive of much injury while we are abroad in the open air, it will follow that it is better to wear than to omit them.
But while I contend for their use as consistent with health and sound philosophy, I must not be understood as admitting the use of such hats as are worn at present, even by children. They are, as I have said before, too hot. What should be substituted, I am unable to determine; but until something can be supplied, which would not be half so oppressive as our common wool hats, I should regard it as the lesser evil to omit them entirely. The danger of going bare-headed, if the practice is commenced early, we know from the customs of some savage nations, can never be very great.
The same reason for avoiding the use of any covering for the head, in early infancy, is a sufficient reason for covering the feet well. For just in proportion as the blood is sent to the head in superabundance, and keeps up in it an undue degree of heat, just in the same proportion is it sent to the feet in too small a quantity, leaving these parts liable to cold. Now it is a fundamental law with medical men, that the feet ought to be kept warmer than the head, if possible; especially while the child is very young, and exposed to brain diseases.
So long, therefore, as children are young, and unable to exercise their feet, stockings ought to be used, both in summer and winter; but I prefer to have them short, unless long ones can be used without garters. Everything in the shape of a garter or ligature round the limbs, body, or neck of a child, except a single body-band, already mentioned in another chapter, ought forever to be banished.
It has often been objected, I know, that stockings will make the feet tender. But as no child was ever hardened by continued and severe cold applied to any part of the body, but the contrary, so no one was ever made more tender by being kept moderately warm. Excess of heat, like excess of cold, will alike weaken either children or adults; but there is little danger of heating the feet and legs of infants too much during the first year of infancy.
It is also said that stockings are apt to receive and retain wet. But as I shall show in another place that wet clothes should be frequently changed, this objection would be equally strong against wearing coats and diapers.
As to shoes, there is some variety of opinion among medical men. A few hold that they cramp the feet, and prevent children from learning to walk as early as they otherwise would. If it were best for children that they should learn to walk as early as possible, the last objection might have weight. But it seems to me not at all desirable to be in haste about their walking. Indeed, I greatly prefer to retard their progress, in this respect, rather than to hasten it.
As to the first objection, that shoes cramp the feet too much, nearly its whole force turns upon the question whether they are made of proper materials or not. There is no need of making them of cow-hide, or any other thick leather. The soles are the most important part. These will defend the feet against pins, needles, and such other sharp substances as are usually found on the floor; and the upper part of the shoe, so long as the wearer remains in the nursery, may be made of the softest and most yielding material—even of cloth. Infants' shoes should always be made on two lasts, one for each foot.
The philosopher Locke held, that in order to harden the young, their shoes ought to be "so that they might leak and let in water, whenever they came near it." There may be and probably is, no harm in having a child wet his feet occasionally, provided he is soon supplied with dry stockings again; but it is hazardous for either children or adults to go too long in wet stockings, and especially to sit long in them, after they have been using much active exercise. I am in favor of good, substantial shoes and stockings for people of all ages and conditions, and at all seasons; and believe it entirely in accordance with sound economy and the laws of the human constitution.
The custom of using ten or a dozen pins in the dressing of children, ought by all means to be set aside. They not only often wound the skin, but they have occasionally been known to penetrate the body and the joints of the limbs. So many of these dreadful accidents occur, and where no accident happens, so much pain is occasionally given by their sharp points to the little sufferer, who cannot tell what the matter is, that it is quite time the practice were abolished.
Do you ask what can be substituted?—The following mode is adopted by Dr. Dewees in his own family, as mentioned in his work on the "Physical and Medical Treatment of Children," at page 86.
"The belly-band and the petticoat have strings; and not a single pin is used in their adjustment. The little shirt, which is always made much larger than the infant's body, is folded on the back and bosom, and these folds kept in their places by properly adjusting the body of the petticoat: so far not a pin is used. The diaper requires one, but this should be of a large size, and made to serve the double purpose of holding the folds of this article, as well as keeping the belly-band in its proper place; the latter having a small tag of double linen depending from its lower margin, by which it is secured to the diaper, by the same pin.
"Should an extraordinary display of best 'bib and tucker' be required upon any special occasion, a third pin may be admitted to ensure the well-sitting of the 'frock' waist in front;—this last pin, however, is applied externally; so that the risk of its getting into the child's body is very small, even if it should become displaced."
The writer from whom the last two paragraphs are taken, says be has seen needles substituted for pins; and relates a long story of a child whose life was well nigh destroyed in this manner. It underwent months of ill health, and many moments of excruciating agony, before the cause of its trouble was suspected. Sometimes its distress was so great that nothing but large doses of laudanum, sufficient to stupify it, could afford the least relief. At last a tumor was discovered by the attending physician, near one of the bones on which we sit, and a needle was extracted two inches long. The needle had been put in its clothes, and, by slipping into the folds of the skin, had insinuated itself, unperceived, into the child's body. It is pleasing to add, that, although the little sufferer had now been ill seven or eight months, and had endured almost everything but death,—fever, diarrhoea, and the most excruciating pain,—it soon recovered.
This shocking circumstance is enough, one would think, to deter every mother or nurse, who becomes acquainted with it, from using needles in infants' clothes. Happy would it be, if, in banishing needles, they would contrive to banish pins also, and adopt either the plan of Dr. Dewees, or one still more rational.
On the subject of changing the wet clothing of a child, there is a strange and monstrous error abroad; which is, that by suffering them to remain wet and cold, we harden the constitution. The filthiness of this practice is enough to condemn it, were there nothing else to be said against it.
It is insisted on by many, I know, that as water which is salt, when it is applied to the skin, and suffered to remain long, while it secures the point of hardening the child, prevents all possibility of its taking cold, it hence follows, that wet diapers are not injurious. But this is a mistake. Every time an infant is allowed to remain wet, we not only endanger its taking cold, but expose it to excoriations of the skin, if not to serious and dangerous inflammation. In short, if frequent changes are not made, whatever some mothers and nurses may think, they may rest assured, that the health of the child must sooner or later suffer as the consequence.
Nor is it enough to hang up a diaper by the fire, and, as soon as it is dry, apply it again. It should be clean, as well as dry. Let us not be told, that it is troublesome to wash so often. Everything is in a certain sense troublesome. Everything in this world, which is worth having, is the result of toil. Nothing but absolute poverty affords the shadow of an excuse for neglecting anything which will promote the health, or even the comfort of the tender infant.
Of the impropriety and danger of suffering wet clothes to dry upon us, I shall speak elsewhere; as well as of the evil of suffering children to remain dirty,—their skins or their clothing.
Whatever tends to disturb the growth of the body, or hinder the free exercise of the limbs, during the infancy and childhood of both sexes is injurious. And as every mother has the control of these things, I have thought it desirable to append to this chapter a few thoughts on the particular dress of each sex. I begin with that of boys.
"Nothing can be more injurious to health," says a foreign writer, "than the tight jacket, buttoned up to the throat, the well-fitted boots, and the stiff stock." And his remarks are nearly as applicable to this country as to England. The consequences of this preposterous method of dressing boys, are diminutive manhood, deformity of person, and a constitution either already imbued with disease, or highly susceptible of its impression.
No part of the modern dress of boys is more absurd, than the stiff stock, or thick cravat. It is not only injurious by pressing on the jugular veins, and preventing the blood from freely passing out of the head, but, by constantly pressing on the numerous and complex muscles of the neck, at this period of life, it prevents their development; because whatever hinders the action of the muscular parts, hinders their growth, and makes them even appear as if wasted.
It would be a great improvement, if this part of dress were wholly discarded; and when is there so appropriate a time for setting it aside, as before we began to use it; or rather while we are under the more immediate care of our mothers?
The use of jackets buttoned up to the throat, except in cold weather, is objectionable; but this is very fortunately going out of fashion.
Boots, if used at all, should fit well; to this there can be no possible objection. What the writer, whom I have quoted, referred to, was probably the tight boot, worn to prevent the foot from being large and unseemly; but producing, as tight boots inevitably do, an injurious effect upon the muscles, a constrained walk, and corns.
What can be more painful, than to see little boys—yes, little boys—boys neither fifteen, nor twenty, nor twenty-five, walk as if they were fettered and trussed up for the spit; unable to look down, or turn their heads, on account of a thick stock, or two or three cravats piled on the top of each other—and only capable of using their arms to dangle a cane, or carry an umbrella, as they hobble along, perhaps on a hot sun-shiny day in July or August?
But this evil, you who are mothers, have it very generally in your power to prevent, if you are only wise enough to secure that ascendancy over your children's minds which the Author of their nature designed. At the least, you can prevent it for a time—the most important period, too—by your own authority. This you will not need any urging to induce you to do, if you ever become thoroughly convinced of its pre-eminent folly.
The same general principles which should guide the young mother in regard to the dress of boys, are equally important and applicable in the management of girls. The whole dress should, as much as possible, hang loosely from the shoulders, without pressing on the body, or any part of it. This, I say, is the grand point to be aimed at; and this is the only great principle, whatever some mothers may think, which will lead to true beauty of person, and gracefulness of gesture.
There is, however, a slight difference to be made between the dress of girls and that of boys. The greater delicacy of the female frame requires that the surface of the body should be kept rather warmer, as well as better protected from the vicissitudes of the atmosphere.
But is this the fact? Is not the contrary true? While boys in the winter are clad in warm woollen vestments, covering every part of their trunk, many portions of the female frame, and especially many parts of their limbs, are left so much exposed, that in cold weather you scarcely find a girl abroad, who appears to be comfortable.
Nay, they are not only uncomfortable abroad, but at home; and if I were to present to mothers in detail, a tenth of the evils which their daughters suffer from not adopting a warmer method of clothing, I should probably be stared at by some, and laughed at by others. All this, too, without speaking of going out of warm concert rooms, theatres, ball rooms and lecture rooms, into the night air, or out of school rooms and churches, to walk home with measured and stiffened pace, lest the sin unpardonable of walking swiftly or RUNNING,—that active exercise which health requires, which youthful feeling prompts, and which duty ought to inspire,—should unwarily be committed.
The tremendous evils of confining the lungs have been adverted to at sufficient length. In reference to that general subject, I need only add, that if the chest be not duly exercised and expanded, the liver, the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal organs of the body are active, they act at a great disadvantage. The blood which they "work up," is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very difficult of removal.
What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting, frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a picture.
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