64 TOO LITTLE AND TOO MUCH CLOTHING. 



multitude of facts. In France, as already alluded 

 to in the first chapter, it is the custom to carry every 

 infant, soon after birth, to the office of the maire 

 that its birth may be registered. Suspecting that 

 the exposure consequent upon such a practice must 

 l>e pernicious to health, especially in winter, and 

 where the distance is great, Dr. Edwards made in- 

 quiry, and on consulting the returns made to the 

 Minister of the Interior, found that the proportion 

 of deaths within a very limited period after birth 

 was much greater in winter than in summer, and in 

 the northern than in the southern departments ; and 

 on further inquiry he discovered that the mortality 

 was greater in parishes where the inhabitants were 

 scattered at a distance from the maire, than where 

 they were congregated near him ; so that the num- 

 ber of deaths in infancy seemed to be influenced by 

 the degree and duration of the exposure to the cold 

 air. What more striking proof than this can be re- 

 quired of the evils arising from the ignorance of our 

 legislators in regard to the constitution of the human 

 body ? No man who understood physiology could 

 ever have sanctioned a law, the practical effect of 

 which is to consign annually so many victims to an 

 untimely grave. 



Many parents, from over-anxiety to avoid one 

 form of evil, run blindfold into another scarcely less 

 pernicious, and not only envelop infants in innu- 

 merable folds of warm clothing, but keep them con- 

 fined to very hot and close rooms. It would be well 

 for them to recollect, however, that extremes are 

 always hurtful, and that the constitution may be 

 enfeebled, and disease induced, by too much heat 

 and clothing and too close an atmosphere, as effec- 

 tually as by cold and currents of air. The skin 

 thus opened and relaxed perspires too easily, and is 

 readily affected by the slightest variations of tem- 

 perature ; whence arise colds and other ailments, 

 which it is the chief intention to guard against : and 



