Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Page 4

evening, indeed it may be necessary to use a sponge and a little warm water frequently during the day, namely, each time after the bowels have been relieved. Cleanliness is one of the grand incentives to health, and therefore cannot be too strongly insisted upon. If more attention were paid to this subject, children would be more exempt from chafings, "breakings-out," and consequent suffering, than they at present are. After the second month, if the babe be delicate, the addition of two handfuls of table-salt to the water he is washed with in the morning will tend to brace and strengthen him.
With regard to the best powder to dust an infant with, there is nothing better for general use than starch--the old fashioned starch _made of wheaten flour_--reduced by means of a pestle and mortar to a fine powder, or Violet Powder, which is nothing more than finely powdered starch scented, and which may be procured of any respectable chemist. Some others are in the habit of using white lead, but as this is a poison, it ought on no account to be resorted to.
9. _If the parts about the groin and fundament be excoriated, what is then the best application_?
After sponging the parts with tepid rain water, holding him over his tub, and allowing the water from a well filled sponge to stream over the parts, and then drying them with a soft napkin (not rubbing, but gently dabbing with the napkin), there is nothing better than dusting the parts frequently with finely powdered Native Carbonate of Zinc-Calamine Powder. The best way of using this powder is, tying up a little of it in a piece of muslin, and then gently dabbing the parts with it.
Remember excoriations are generally owing to the want of water,--to the want of an abundance of water. An infant who is every morning well soused and well swilled with water seldom suffers either from excoriations, or from any other of the numerous skin diseases. Cleanliness, then, is the grand preventative of, and the best remedy for excoriations. Naaman the Syrian was ordered "to wash and be clean," and he was healed, "and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child and he was clean." This was, of course, a miracle; but how often does water, without any special intervention, act miraculously both in preventing and in curing skin diseases!
An infant's clothes, napkins especially, ought never to be washed with soda; the washing of napkins with soda is apt to produce excoriations and breakings-out. "As washerwomen often deny that they use soda, it can be easily detected by simply soaking a clean white napkin in fresh water and then tasting the water; if it be brackish and salt, soda has been employed." [Footnote: Communicated by Sir Charles Locock to the Author.]
10. _Who is the proper person to wash and dress the babe_?
The monthly nurse, as long as she is in attendance; but afterwards the mother, unless she should happen to have an experienced, sensible, thoughtful nurse, which, unfortunately, is seldom the case. [Footnote: "The Princess of Wales might have been seen on Thursday taking an airing in a brougham in Hyde Park with her baby--the future King of England--on her lap, without a nurse, and accompanied only by Mrs Brace. The Princess seems a very pattern of mothers, and it is whispered among the ladies of the Court that every evening the mother of this young gentleman may be seen in a flannel dress, in order that she may properly wash and put on baby's night clothes, and see him safely in bed. It is a pretty subject for a picture."--Pall Mall Gazette.]
11. _What is the best kind of apron for a mother, or for a nurse, to wear, while washing the infant_?
Flannel--a good, thick, soft flannel, usually called bathcoating--apron, made long and full, and which of course ought to be well dried every time before it is used.
12. _Perhaps you will kindly recapitulate, and give me further advice on the subject of the ablution of my babe_.
Let him by all means, then, as soon as the navel-string has separated from the body, be bathed either in his tub, or in his bath, or in his large nursery-basin, for if he is to be strong and hearty, in the water every morning he must go. The water ought to be slightly warmer than new milk. It us dangerous for him to remain for a long period in his bath, this, of course, holds good in a ten fold degree if the child have either a cold or pain in his bowels. Take care that, immediately after he comes out of his tub, he is well dried with warm towels. It is well to let him have his bath the first thing