Clothe the Babies

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · May 6, 1875

Clothe the Babies.

A Distinguished Paris physician says: "I believe that during the twenty years I have practiced my profession, 20,000 children have been carried to the cemeteries, a sacrifice to the absurd custom of exposing their arms. Put the bulb of a thermometer in a baby's mouth and the mercury rises to 90 degrees. Now carry the same to its little hand; if the arm be bare and the evening cool, the mercury will sink to 50 degrees. Of course all the blood that flows through these arms must fall from 10 to 40 degrees below the temperature of the heart. Need I say, when these currents of the blood flow back to the chest, the child's vitality is more or less compromised? And need I add that we ought not to be surprised at its frequent recurring affections of the tongue, throat, or stomach? I have seen more than one child, with habitual cough or hoarseness, entirely relieved by simply keeping the hands and arms warm."