688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by anything else, has often restored a nursing baby to equanimity and 

 to health. 



Of less vital importance to a child perhaps than its food, yet claim- 

 ing no little attention, is the clothing. The mothers of to-day have 

 learned by experience how to clothe their children better than their 

 mothers clothed them. It hardly seems possible that at one time the 

 fashion of dresses low in the neck and with short sleeves was well-nigh 

 universal for infants. The babies of the aristocratic and middle 

 classes are, as a general thing, warmly and properly clothed. Careless 

 attendants sometimes dress them too tightly, not allowing room for the 

 expansion of the chest and lungs and interfering with the stomach. 

 The senseless extravagance displayed in embroidered dresses for small 

 children is reprehensible, and too fine dressing which prevents young 

 children from obtaining proper exercise and trammels their freedom of 

 play interferes with their health and development. American mothers 

 are often very blameworthy in this respect. 



The effects of disease on city infants are much more wide-spread 

 than upon those in the country, not only of disease caused by improper 

 feeding, to which we have already alluded, but more especially of those 

 of a contagious nature. All sanitarians recognize this, and bewail it 

 as one of the greatest evils of the present tenement system that so 

 many children are crowded together in such houses, which become hot- 

 beds of diphtheria, scarlet fever, and measles. 



The terrible stories with reference to baby-farming which used to 

 fill the columns of the newspapers are not so often seen in these days. 

 Owing to the ventilation of the subject, the abuse has been very much 

 lessened. But the question may be asked, "Who supply the baby- 

 farmers? A few are those who would abandon their offspring, no 

 matter how, to hide their shame, but for the most part they are poor 

 women who are without a home, and must win a support the best way 

 they can for themselves and their infants. They go out as wet-nurses ; 

 return to the factories and shops ; or engage in general house-work. 



The women who find their way, utterly destitute, to the lying-in 

 institutions of a great city, amount to a considerable number in a year. 

 Any of these coming to New York can go to Charity Hospital by ob.- 

 taining a permit from the Superintendent of the City Poor. They 

 leave the Maternity from ten days to two weeks after confinement. 

 If they wish they can go with their infants to Randall's Island, or 

 they can leave their children there while they go out to seek employ- 

 ment. At almost all other institutions the women are obliged to pay 

 at least twenty-five dollars for board and care during confinement, or 

 stay with their children three months. They can and often do remain 

 with them a year. 



twenty-hour, receiving three ounces of milk at each feeding, which at six months is in- 

 creased to four. The times of feeding should be fixed, but of course the amount taken 

 will vary more or less with the individual. 



