A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School

mortality, that one quarter of the human race perishes in infancy. This is a fact not in accordance with the analogy of Nature. No such mortality prevails among the young of animals; it does not appear to be the design of the Creator; and it must be owing to causes which can be removed. Medical men agree in the opinion, that a great portion of this mortality, is owing to mismanagement, in reference to fresh air, food, and clothing. At birth, the circulation is chiefly in the vessels of the skin; for the liver and stomach, being feeble in action, demand less blood, and it resorts to the surface. If, therefore, an infant be exposed to cold, the blood is driven inward, by the contracting of the blood-vessels in the skin: and, the internal organs being thus over-stimulated, bowel complaints, croup, convulsions, or some other evil, ensues. This shows the sad mistake of parents, who plunge infants in cold water to strengthen their constitution; and teaches, that infants should be washed in warm water, and in a warm room. Some have constitutions strong enough to bear mismanagement in these respects; but many fail in consequence of it. Hence we see the importance of dressing infants warmly, and protecting them from exposure to a cold temperature. It is for this purpose, that mothers, now, very generally, cover the arms and necks of infants, especially in Winter. Fathers and mothers, if they were obliged to go with bare arms and necks, even in moderate weather, would often shiver with cold; and yet they have a power of constitution which would subject them to far less hazard and discomfort, than a delicate infant must experience from a similar exposure. This mode of dressing infants, with bare necks and arms, has arisen from the common impression, that they have a power of resisting cold superior to older persons. This is a mistake; for the experiments of medical men have established the fact, that the power of producing heat is least in the period of infancy. Extensive investigations have been made in France, in reference