CLEANING AND DRESSING THE CHILD. 567 



and I do not see why the accoucheur should refuse this Utile grati- 

 fication to the parents when they desire to have it done; if I gene- 

 rally neglect it, it is because it takes up too much time, and assuredly 

 does not deserve to be made of so much consequence as is done by 

 some accoucheurs. 



1217. It is difficult to conceive how certain grave authors can 

 defend the conduct of the ancient people of Germany, Britain, 

 Scythia and Greenland, and recommend the Lacedaemonian custom 

 of plunging the foetus into cold water or ice-water, or even to roll 

 it in the snow immediately after its birth, as appears to be still the 

 practice in some remote districts of the vast empire of Russia, 

 The vigor and the robust constitution of those people depended 

 upon their diet and the exercises to which they were accustomed. 

 If they had among them no weak and delicate children, that may 

 be accounted for, not by saying that the cold bath gives strength 

 and health to weakly children, but that those that were weakly 

 at first soon died, and that none remained but such as were endowed 

 ■with more vigorous constitutions. This practice was quite a natural 

 test among a people who desired to have in their republic none but 

 strong citizens, and looked upon infirm men as more troublesome 

 than useful; but in our present state of civilisation the most robust 

 men are not always those who perform the most important parts in 

 the slate; it is no longer allowable to be careless of the life of any 

 individual, and every child, whether delicate or vigorous, has an 

 equal right to the protection of its parents and of society in general. 



The foetus has enough to do to bear the inlemperature of the 

 atmosphere; and can any thing be more absurd than to wish to 

 make it pass at once from a temperature of 32° of Reaumur to 

 some degrees below zero? A transition so sudden as this in a 

 being so frail — is it natural? Even although it should be efiected 

 by degrees, las Rousseau wished, it would nevertheless be dangerous 

 and wrong. 



1218. Medicated, alcoholic, or strengthening baths seem to me 

 to deserve the same reprobation, as a general rule: if they are 

 strong they deprive the skin of its suppleness, interfere with the 

 expansive movement of the fluids, and may give rise to the most 

 serious accidents; if weak, they at least do no good, and I should 

 not make use of them except where the foetus might be excited in 

 a general manner, so as to communicate a greater degree of activity 

 to its languid functions. Thus, except under particular indications, 

 lotions and baths of plain warm water are the only ones that pru- 

 dence permits us to recommend. 



49* 



