fully attended to, many a fond mother will have reason to rejoice in the experiment. "Think not that I would bid your softness share Chesnut Hill, June, 1810. CHAPTER I. SECTION I. On the proper treatment of Infants under the age of four months. "For thee health gushes from a thousand springs." POPE. I NEED not attempt to describe the rap. ture that swells a mother's heart, when, after agonies almost insupportable, her babe is given to her arms. Every mother knows that language is inadequate to such a description. It is perhaps equally impossible to paint her anxiety to preserve a life so dearly bought, so highly valued; or with what fervent devotion she lifts her soul to Him who gave it, in supplications for its 1 health and safety. In the sweet yet humble hope of contributing towards an end so des sirable, I shall attempt to exhibit in the following pages the fruits of sixteen years' unremitted attention to the complaints, the wants, the tempers, dispositions, and desires of children. And when I assure my readers that I have nursed all my children myself, and have been their constant attendant in sickness and in health, they will allow me to have had a competent share of experience. In this long course of observation I have become convinced that if the simple method I shall recommend was generally adopted, the lives of thousands would be saved, and many a fond parent's heart escape the reiterated " sting of death" in the persons of their children a consummation Devoutly to be wished" in the accomplishment of which no pains should be spared; no means left unessayed. Good nursing, especially cleanliness, is among the first things to be considered. Therefore, after a new born babe has under gone the usual washing with warm suds, made with castile, or other purified soap, let it be carefully washed with cold water; not immersed, for that appears to me, a cruel and unnecessary practice; but let the nurse have ready a basin of cold water, and with a warm hand wash the infant's head, face, neck, behind its ears, under the arms, the legs, feet, in the groin, and every part peculiarly subject to excoriation; she must then have a warm soft cloth, and wipe it perfectly dry as quick as possible, and proceed to dress it, as usual. Particular attention should be paid to wiping it, for if the water is left in the creases of the neck or elsewhere, it may do more hurt than good, by increasing their natural liability to chafe and become sore. This washing I would have repeated every morning, with this exception, that after the first dressing the cold water will be sufficient. Do not, I entreat you, my fair friends, from a mistaken tenderness reject this salutary practice. We are acknowledged creatures of habit; and when the cold bathing is thus used from the birth, infants in general will soon become pleased with it. I have now a fine boy, scarce four months old, who was born in the winter, when the weather was most inclement; yet this did not deter me from insisting upon his being thoroughly washed with cold water before he was dressed; and the practice has never been omitted a single day since; and now he will spring to the basin, evidently wishing to put his hands in the water, and laugh while it trickles down his neck. Many good women have called me cruel, and protested it was unnatural thus to deluge a poor little innocent with cold water; asserting that a little spirit of any kind was much better. Now I would ask which is the most cruel or unnatural; to lave its little limbs with the pure element, designed by a beneficent Creator for our purification, and consequent health, and beauty; or with ardent spirits, which, when applied to the skin of a new born babe, already perhaps in many places excoriated, must occasion intolerable smarting and pain. Let an experiment for once be tried of each, and the child by its cries will quickly decide to which it gives the |