OF INFANCY. -^,95 



o: 



months, it is fix and a half, or feven inches ; 

 in fix months, it is eight and a half, or nine 

 inches ; in feven months, it is more than 1 1 

 inches; in eight months, it is 14 inches; and in 

 nine months, it is 18 inches. Though thefe 

 meafures vary in different fubjed:s, yet the uni- 

 form refult is, that the foetus, in equal times, 

 continues to liave a proportionally greater in- 

 creafe. But, if a child at birth be 1 8 inches long, 

 it will not acquire, for the next 12 months, a- 

 bove fix or (even inches more ; that is, at the 

 end of the firft year, it will be 24 or 25 inches; 

 in two years it will only be 28 or 29 inches ; 

 in three years it will be no more than 30, or, at 

 nioft, 32 inches ; and afterwards, till the age of 

 puberty, it will not acquire above one and a 

 half, or two inches, every year. Thus the foe- 

 tus grows more in one month, when near the 

 termination of its abode in the uterus, than the 

 child does in one year, till it arrives at the age 

 of puberty, when Nature feems to make a fud- 

 den effort to bring her work to maturity. 



For preferving the health of children, virtu- 

 ous and wholefome nurfes are of the utmod im- 

 portance. We have too many melancholy ex- 

 amples of certain difeafes beiPig communicated 

 from the nurfe to the child, and from the child 

 to the nurfe. Whole villages have, in this man- 

 ner, been infected with the venereal virus. 



Children, it is probable, would be much more 

 ftroiig and vigorous, if they were nurl'cd by 



their 



