Exposure of Infants To Open Air

The respiration of a pure air is at all times, andkept are large, often changed, and well ventilated,
under all circumstances, indispensable to the healthhe will not suffer from the confinement, while he
of the infant. The nursery therefore should bewill, most probably, escape catarrhal affections,
large, well ventilated, in an elevated part of thewhich are so often the consequence of the
house, and so situated as to admit a free supplyinjudicious exposure of infants to a cold and humid
both of air and light.atmosphere."
For the same reasons, the room in which theIf, however, the child is strong and healthy, no
infant sleeps should be large, and the airopportunity should be lost of taking it into the
frequently renewed; for nothing is so prejudicial toopen air at stated periods, experience daily
its health as sleeping in an impure and heatedproving that it has the most invigorating and
atmosphere. The practice, therefore, of drawingvivifying influence upon the system. Regard,
thick curtains closely round the bed is highlyhowever, must always be had to the state of
pernicious; they only answer a useful purposethe weather; and to a damp condition of the
when they defend the infant from any draught ofatmosphere the infant should never be exposed,
cold air.as it is one of the most powerful exciting causes
The proper time for taking the infant into theof consumptive disease. The nurse-maid, too,
open air must, of course, be determined by theshould not be allowed to loiter and linger about,
season of the year, and the state of thethus exposing the infant unnecessarily, and for an
weather. "A delicate infant born late in the autumnundue length of time; this is generally the source
will not generally derive advantage from beingof all the evils which accrue from taking the babe
carried into the open air, in this climate, till theinto the open air.
succeeding spring; and if the rooms in which he is