to which children are liable is the privilege of the few, so if any page of this little book can allay a pang of infant agony, stay the first inroads of life-long deformity, or save one atom of humanity from an untimely grave, by teaching those who are blest with children, but blest only when they study and carefully tend the helpless beings committed to their care, that no time or trouble lavished for so noble a purpose, is wasted or misspent, I shall feel I have not written this little treatise in vain.

When any complicated piece of domestic utility gets out of order, we send for those who are skilled in its repair to remedy the defect. How much more important is it in any derangement of that most marvellous machine-man-that those whose intellects are trained to comprehend its working should be employed to remedy the defect; so let a parent seek, when means will admit it, in any but the trifling ailments of infancy and childhood, the aid and advice of some competent practitioner in whom she can place confidence, and look to this little work more as a means of preventing the incursion of disease, and learning when to seek assistance, than of enabling her to fill his place, for she must understand, that the prescriptions given in this work, though the simplest and safest for domestic administration, are not, naturally, the most scientific in all cases.

To those who emigrate, and who in distant colonies are often placed beyond the reach of skilled assistance, I commend the study of this little work as a means of enabling them to alleviate pain and even save life; and in closing this preface, I must tender my obligations to many authors whose valuable suggestions I have interwoven with my own experience in the management and treatment, in health and disease, of the most helpless, the most interesting, and I may almost add, the most important part of the human family-the children, for, in the words of Wordsworth, 'The child is father to the man.'

SHERBORNE.

NATHANIEL EDWARD DAVIES.

January, 1884.

NURSERY HINTS.

MANAGEMENT OF THE NEW-BORN INFANT.

1. The health, growth, and happiness of a child and its parents, depend upon its management, feeding, and treatment, during the first few months of its existence.

2. To every mother,' says Dr. Marshall Hall, 'is to be committed the care of her own infant in its largest and broadest sense. She is at first to submit herself to all those rules of diet, medicine, exercise, and quiet, which are essential to ensure her own good health. She is then to supply her infant with milk and warmth (and for the latter purpose she should lay the child by her own side in the night).* She should, in the third place, become the superintendent of its health, detecting the first signs of indisposition, and seeking immediately for the remedy.'

3. It being a matter of great importance how tender infants are treated, the following rules for the management of the new born should be carefully read by every expectant parent.

4. When separated from its mother, an infant should be wrapped in soft warm flannel, and placed in the bed, or near the fire.

5. If the medical attendant has not arrived or been engaged, and the child does not breathe, it should not be separated from its mother.

6. The nurse should tap the child briskly on the chest, and

* Many authorities do not advocate this.

sprinkle cold water on its breast and face, first clearing the mouth of any phlegm with the finger. This will usually cause the child to gasp and cry, and in so doing establish the breathing.

7. Should this fail and there be pulsation in the cord, the infant should be separated from its mother, and put in a hot bath-90° F.-for one minute.

8. As long as there is any movement of a child's heart, which may be seen by watching its beat, close to the left nipple, there is hope of its surviving.

9. The signs of death in a newly born infant are : no pulsation in the cord, peeling of the skin, dulness of the eye, or if it has been dead some time, putrefaction.

10. In this case the infant may be removed without delay from the mother and placed in another room.

11. A medical certificate of the fact of its having been stillborn will then enable it to be buried without funeral rites.

12. The average weight of a new-born child is 7 lbs., but they vary from 4 lbs. or 5 lbs. to 10 lbs. or 11 lbs., and in exceptional cases even attain a weight of 14 lbs.

13. The children of first pregnancies are lighter than those of subsequent ones.

14. The average length of a new-born child is about 19 inches, but they vary between 16 and 22 inches.

15. At birth a child's brain weighs about lb.

16. Idiotcy depends upon an arrest of development of the brain from some cause before birth; this is known as congenital idiotcy. (See 'Idiotcy' and 'Signs of Intelligence').

17. If a child cries after birth, it generally arises from a feeling of cold, as it leaves a temperature of 98° F. to be exposed to one of 60° F., or under. (See 4.)

18. The sooner a child is washed after birth the better; it should be placed in a basin of milk-warm water, the head being held up with the hand, and gently sponged over first.

19. An infant should be well washed twice. a-day, at nine in the morning and at six or seven in the evening; regularity in time of washing is important.

20. After the bath it is proper that the infant should be fed and then put to sleep.

21. A mother should bathe the child herself; in this way she will learn its peculiarities, its state of health, and the dawn of its intelligence and affections.

22. It is best not to use soap with very young infants, but warm water only, as soap irritates their tender skins, and in spite of care gets into the eyes and nose.

23. If soap is used it should be 'Castile soap,' and the child should be well sponged to remove it all.

24. The child's face should be washed with a fresh supply of water, not with that used in washing the body. (See 18.)

25. After washing, the child should be thoroughly dried with a warm soft towel, and dusted over with powdered starch, or violet powder-which is, or should be, powdered starch scented.

26. If the child has a cold or diarrhoea, the bath should be omitted, the child being sponged and well dried.

27. The child's bath acts as a tonic to its nervous system, and the drying, by its friction, aids the circulation of the blood, and cleanses the skin of the products of perspiration.

28. An infant's clothes and napkins should never be washed with soda; this is a frequent cause of fraying between the buttocks.

29. Before the child is dressed the navel string should be examined to see that it does not bleed; if it does, it should be re-tied half an inch nearer the body, with three or four pieces of stout thread rolled in one." *

30. The navel cord should be passed through a hole about the size of a shilling, in a piece of clean linen four inches square, greased over with benzoated zinc ointment or lard, and this, folded over, should be retained in its place by the belly-band.'

31. Scorched or greased rags are only used by ignorant nurses,

* In animal life this cord is gnawed through by the mother, and the laceration caused arrests its tendency to bleeding; in this way we can account for the fact, that limbs torn off by cannon shot or machinery seldom bleed.

and should be discountenanced; and dip candle-grease has no virtue beyond time-honoured custom to recommend it.

32. The navel string drops off in six or seven days; it should be allowed to separate of itself: to pull at it may occasion dangerous bleeding.

33. If the navel be ruptured, a piece of cork cut the shape of half a marble and covered with soft linen should be placed in the navel aperture, and secured by a long strip of diachylon plaster carried around the body over the part.

34. The little sore left should be dressed with spermaceti ointment; it heals about the twelfth day.

35. Navel-bleeding killed eighty-six children in 1880.

36. The belly-band should be a strip of fine flannel, 4 inches wide, and long enough to go two or three times around the body; it should not encroach on the chest.

37. The belly-band should be stitched on or fastened with 'safety' pins daily, and worn for ten or twelve weeks, when it may be dispensed with.

38. The obstinate crying of many an unfortunate child arises from a pin sticking in its flesh, and no healthy child persistently cries without some remediable cause.

39. When an infant is suffering from a cough, or is much given to crying, the belly-band should be used for two or three months longer.

40. After the child is dressed it should be put to the breast, even if there is no milk, as it excites the earlier flow.

41. The first milk that comes from the mother acts as a purgative; this saves Castor Oil and the numerous purgatives old nurses are so fond of dosing infants with.

42. The only food a child should have until the mother's milk comes, is a mixture of two parts of new cow's-milk, and one of water sweetened; a few spoonfuls of this may be given every two hours.

43. Do not accustom a new-born child to the feeding-bottle, unless it is to be dry nursed, of which more by-and-by. But give the milk-and-water warm, with a spoon.