The care of infants : a manual for mothers and nurses / by Sophia Jex-Blake.

  • Sophia Jex-Blake
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The care of infants : a manual for mothers and nurses / by Sophia Jex-Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/136 (page 44)
    4-i therefore is deprived of one chief source of heat, and exposure to any chill is more dangerous for it than for adults. A proper guard round the fire is essential as soon as the child begins to crawl about; and all matches, or indeed dangerous novelties of any kind, should be put carefully out of its way, as the young mind is naturally and properly anxious to investigate everything within its reach. ]\Iore care should also be taken than is usually the case to keep away from a baby all playthings, balls, pictures, etc., that are coloured with poison- ous paints. An infant’s first instinct is to put everything new into its mouth, and a considerable amount of lead, arsenic, or similar deadly sub- stances may thus be introduced into its system without any suspicion on the part of its mother. When there are elder children in a nursery, they often have a toy paint-box, and the colours are not unfrequently dropped on the floor, and so may readily fall into the baby’s hands. I only the other day heard of a young child who was found composedly sucking a cake of white lead, and a little delay in the discovery might have easily led to fatal results. A word of caution may also be necessary about the cheaper kinds of “ corals ” with bells suspended on them; these toys are often very insecurely fastened together, and I know of one baby who was almost choked by a loose bell which it had swallowed.