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:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    17/462 (page 17)
    THE CARE OF THE BABY. INTRODUCTION. It seems often to be taken for granted that the youug mother will understand by a sort of intuition the care which her baby requires, as though it needed no more than a newborn animal of some lower order of life. The fact is that such a little animal, slight though its needs are when compared with those of a baby, has a parent which by instinct is far better able to care for it than is the human mother for her child. That she knows nothing is both the mother's safe- guard and her danger. Ready and anxious as she is to fit herself for her new duties, she is even by this anxiety rendered too ready to accept as gospel all that is told her about the care of her infant by those who assume to know, but who darken counsel by words without knowledge. She becomes thus the prey of old wives' fables and of all sorts of gratuitous advice, the injuri- ousness of which is shown too late in the condition of the unfortunate child. A well-informed monthly nurse can be of great assist- ance to a new mother beginning the care of her baby. Unfortunately, not all nurses are of this class, and some are full of absurd and harmful practices and teach- ings, while even those who are intelligent and well trained often err greatly in- many points. Of all this the mother is, of course, unable to judge, unless she herself