3.  But besides the change of the air by breathing, the surface of the body is perpetually changing it in the same manner, as was stated in the chapter on Ventilation.  Now a child will almost inevitably breathe a stream of this bad air, as it issues from the bed; and what is still worse, it is very apt, in spite of every precaution, to get its head covered up with the clothes, where it can hardly breathe anything else.  This, if frequently repeated, is slow but certain death;—­as much so as if the child were to drink poison in moderate quantities.

Let me not be told that this is an exaggeration; that thousands of mothers make it a point to cover up the beads of their infants; and that notwithstanding this, they are as healthy as the infants of their neighbors.  I have not said that they would droop and die while infants.  The fumes of lead, which is a certain poison, may be inhaled, and yet the child or adult who inhales them may live on, in tolerable health, for many years.  But suffer he must, in the end, in spite of every effort and every hope.  So must the child, whose head is covered habitually with the bed clothing, where it is compelled to breathe not only the air spoiled by its own skin, but also that which is spoiled by the much larger surface of body of the mother or nurse.

But I have proof on this subject.  Friedlander, in his “Physical Education,” says expressly, that in Great Britain alone, between the years 1686 and 1800, no less than 40,000 children died in consequence of this practice of allowing them to sleep near their nurses.  I was at first disposed to doubt the accuracy of this most remarkable statement.  But when I consider the respectability of the authority from which it emanated, and that it is only about 350 a year for that great empire, I cannot doubt that the estimate is substantially correct.  What a sacrifice at the shrine of ignorance and folly!

It should be added, in this place, both to confirm the foregoing sentiment, and to show that British mothers and nurses are not alone, that Dr. Dewees has witnessed, in the circle of his practice, four deaths from the same cause.  If every physician in the United States has met with as many cases of the kind, in proportion to his practice, as Dr. D., the evil is about as great in this country as Dr. F. says it is in Great Britain.

If a child sleeps alone, it cannot of course be liable to as much suffering of this kind as if it slept with another person; though much precaution will still be necessary to keep its head uncovered, and prevent its inhaling air spoiled by its own lungs and skin.

4.  There is one more evil which will be avoided by having a child sleep alone.  Many a mother has seriously injured her child by pressure.  I do not here allude to those monsters in human nature, whose besotted habits have been the frequent cause of the suffocation and death of their offspring, but to the more careful and tender mother, who would sooner injure herself than her own child.  Such mothers, even, have been known to dislocate or fracture a limb![Footnote:  There may be instances where the debility of an infant will be so great that the mother or a nurse must sleep with it, to keep it warm.  But such cases of disease are very rare.]