The care of the baby : a manual for mothers and nurses, containing practical directions for the management of infancy and childhood in health and in disease / by J.P. Crozer Griffith.

  • Griffith, J. P. Crozer (John Price Crozer), 1856-1941.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The care of the baby : a manual for mothers and nurses, containing practical directions for the management of infancy and childhood in health and in disease / by J.P. Crozer Griffith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    what is right. The baby’s grandmother, although often of great assistance, is naturally sometimes rather rusty in matters relating to the care of children. Moreover, it is most true, in the words of the old song, that “ Times have changed since then, And life is a different thing,” and many methods which were considered entirely cor¬ rect years ago have since been greatly improved or even found to have been actually wrong. The mother there¬ fore is liable to find herself, after the departure of her nurse and physician, ignorant and without reliable re¬ sources upon which to draw. Such being the case, we may profitably consider, as briefly as possible with due regard to completeness, some of the matters connected with babyhood from birth, and even before it, up to the time when childhood ceases. Baby is, indeed, a very indefinite term, often applied by mothers to children who have far outgrown their right to the name as strictly used. But “baby” the child still is to its mother, unless a newcomer has added dignity to the first-born’s position; so “baby” it shall be to us in our present study of its wants; for we must not forget that a child even of several years demands just as great care, although of a different sort, as it did when still in arms. From a strictly medical standpoint babyhood and childhood are very commonly divided into three periods, concerning the exact limits of which physicians are not altogether agreed. Most conveniently we may speak of, first, infancy, which extends from birth to the age of two years; second, early childhood, from the age of two to that of six years; and, third, later childhood, from the age of six years to that of puberty—that is, thirteen to fifteen years. We shall repeatedly have occasion during