April 21, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



215 



JAPANESE NURSERY NOTES. 



BT ALBERT S. ASHMEAD, M.D., NEW YORK CITY. 



It has often been said that the Japanese are the most interest- 

 ing, the strangest, even the quaintest, people we know. In no 

 regard is this truer than in the care they take of their babies. 

 Such a strong foundation is more necessary than elsewhere, to a 

 nation where man is born to remain a baby his whole life. We, 

 destined to exercise stronger and more serious minds, would be, 

 at the very beginning of our existence, deteriorated by such in- 

 genuous, untiring care. 



I have spoken in another article ' of the long-continued lacta- 

 tion of Japanese women, as benefiting both mother and child ; 

 also of the care taken of pregnant women, in which a solicitude 

 displays itself, at the same time, clever and loving. This 

 tender and intelligent attention paid to the born baby is the 

 second part of that unique Japanese system of rearing healthy 

 and happy men, which makes European and American ladies 

 forget that so many other Japanese conceits are a severe shock to 

 their feelings. During the dentition period the children have an 

 extra diet, consisting of fish and small crustacese. Japanese not 

 being a carnivorous people, this is natural enough. If they ate 

 meat, they would give their children beef very likely. But it is 

 certainly to the advantage of the bony structure of the child to 

 be, on first entering the adult course of eating, fed in the Japanese 

 manner. 



The. abominable diaper is unknown to the Japanese. They use 

 only a breech-clout, which is removed at the moment of defeca- 

 tion. The child then is put in such a position that its legs strad- 

 d le the arms, his body and head resting against the abdomen of the 

 parent, who, gently rocking it in a certain rhythmical, tentative 

 fashion, and accompanying his action with a kind of low whis- 

 tling, reminding you of a lullaby, gives his offspring its first 

 lesson in personal cleanliness, which, to the Japanese mind, is 

 exceedingly next to godliness. It will be seen how, by this 

 method, unnatural positions are avoided, a thing the more im- 

 portant that Japan is the country of worms, distomata, etc. 



It is known probably to every reading person that Japan, like 

 all oriental lands, is, for obvious reasons, furnitureless. It does 

 not even know the cradle. As Diogenes made a cup of his hollow 

 hand, thus the Japanese mother makes a cradle with the back of 

 an older child, an ambulating, delightful cradle, where it stays 

 from morning to night, and is unrhythmically rocked according 

 to the chances and sports which the day offers to its patient and 

 loving victim. Her back, of course, is its first cradle; when it 

 wants the breast, it reaches over or under her arm for it. 



The cause of the absence of furniture is the presence of tropical 

 vermin. This awful presence is probably also the cause of the 

 carpetless state of the nursery. The floor is covered with stuffed 

 straw mats, thick and elastic; it is the usual floor of a Japanese 

 house. The floor is mopped every day with salt water; it is, in 

 fact, a chlorine wash. It must be remembered that in Japan the 

 dirt of the street is not carried into the room, sandals and shoes 

 being left at the front door. The necessity of keeping the floor 

 in a sanitary condition is more important in Japan than anywhere 

 else, because of the national habit not only of sitting, but sleeping 

 on the floor. 



There is a singular difference between the carriage of Japanese 

 children and the way in which our children walk and move about. 

 The Japanese urchin, whose feet never knew the unkind pressure 

 of tight shoes, and, in fact, no pressure at all, walks more erect, 

 is more sure-footed. In fair weather he wears flat straw-sandals ; 

 in these sandals the big toe is widely separated from the others, 

 which gives the child a surer foundation. In wet weather he 

 must maintain his equilibrium on his stilt-like wooden clogs, 

 which keep his feet dry, at the same time compelling him to ac- 

 quire an extraordinary power over his own motions. 



There is in Japan no kissing, not even in the nursery. All the 

 dangers, which have been so elequently described in newspapers 

 some time ago, arising from the touch of lips, in human love 



1 "On the Non-Exlstence of Rachitis In Japan," Medlceil Record, Oct. 11, 



directly, and at the communion table indirectly, are avoided by 

 the national aversion for labial contact. 



The sexes are separated at an early age, and the separation is 

 maintained until marriage. After marriage the husband has a 

 right to annex to his household as many concubines as his means 

 allow. If his wife is delicate, she will perhaps suggest some 

 friend of hers, who will prove rather an ally than a rival. At 

 any rate, there will be no diminution of the friendship between 

 the two women. When pregnancy occurs, a second concubine 

 may be suggested, and no such addition ever troubles the quiet 

 waters of a Japanese household. It is incredible of what amount 

 of peace and, consequently, happiness, the absence of the green- 

 monster alone may be the cause. 



When she loses a child, the Japanese mother does not wring 

 her hands and look up to heaven; she sits with folded hands, 

 sunken head, her eyes looking into her lap. Japanese grief has 

 been very eloquently described by my colleague in Japan, Pro- 

 fessor Wernich, and I think it will be a good winding-up of this 

 little article if I quote a passage of his remarkable book, " Geo- 

 graphioo-Medical Studies:" "However often I have witnessed 

 the death of dear relations, children, for instance, or husbands, I 

 never had occasion to observe the wringing of hands, to which 

 European women of the lower classes are so much addicted. A 

 bitter sorrow was expressed through deep sinking of the head, 

 grasping the hands together, shedding of tears. That strong 

 mental agony, which digs into the soul, so to speak, and takes 

 hold of it, like a bodily pain, seems to be unknown to them. They 

 never ' turn to heaven their faces bathed in tears,' an action which 

 to us seems not only natui'al and in perfect accord with the 

 essence of grief, but is considered as beautiful and as a worthy sub- 

 ject of artistic representation. In prayers the Japanese mother does 

 not lift her eyes to heaven ; with bent head, the body somewhat 

 shrunk together, with hands put together by the palms and 

 slightly raised -to the level of the chin, she sends her humble 

 prayer, for quite concrete things, you may be sure, to Buddha." 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Professor Martin, on account of his serious and prolonged 

 ill health, has tendered his resignation of the professorship of 

 biology which he has held in the Johns Hopkins University since 

 1876. 



— The third volume of "Hermetic Philosophy," by Styx, has 

 just been issued from the press of J. B. Lippincott Company of 

 Philadelphia, completing the work. It is quite different in form 

 from the other two volumes, being a dialogue in imitation of 

 Plato on the question, " Can virtue and science be taught?" The 

 author says in his preface: "Having already written two vol- 

 umes on the essential teachings of the Hermetic Philosophy, and 

 finding that they are not profitable attractions, as we hoped they 

 would be, we have concluded to vary the performance." Whether 

 the new volume will prove more attractive than the earlier ones 

 or not may perhaps be doubted ; but it is more readable, and con- 

 tains much less of the peculiar stuff known as occultism than 

 they did, though it contains enough for most readers. A large 

 part of the book is taken up with ridicule of the " Christian sci- 

 entists," which is suggestive of the dispute between the pot and 

 the kettle; but a good deal of space is also devoted to setting 

 forth the theosophical doctrine of reminiscence and reincarnation, 

 or, in other words, the transmigration of souls. The question 

 about the nature of virtue and whether virtue can be taught is 

 discussed in various aspects; but the light that is shed upon it is 

 rather what Milton calls " darkness visible." The production of 

 several works of this kind in these times seems to us a singular 

 phenomenon, hardly to be accounted for on ordinary principles; 

 but it is apparently due to the general breakup of the old creeds, 

 which has left a vacuum that men seek to fill with some doctrine 

 or other, true, false, or nonsensical, as the case may be. For our 

 part, we cannot conceive how any one can write such books, and, 

 as we read them, we cannot help thinking that the authors do 

 not really believe the doctrines they set forth. 



