Attention to exercise ought to be commenced before the child is more than ten days old.  For this purpose he should be placed on his back, on a pillow, in order that the body may rest at as many points as possible.  In this position he has the opportunity to move his limbs with the most perfect freedom, and to exercise his numerous muscles.  There is nothing more important to the infant—­not even sleep itself—­than the action of all his muscles; and nothing contributes more to his rapid growth.

At first, the body should be kept, while on the arm, in nearly a horizontal position, with the head perhaps a very little elevated; but after a few weeks, it will be proper to change the position for a small part of the time; placing the body so that it may form an angle of a few degrees with the horizon.  When this is done, however, it should always be by placing the hand against the shoulders and head, in such a manner as to support well the back; for it is extremely injurious to suffer the feeble spine to sustain, at this early period, any considerable weight.

Still more erroneous is the practice of some careless nurses, of carrying the child quite upright a part of the time, almost without any support at all.  There can be no doubt that the spinal column of many a child is injured for life in this way.  There can be no apology for such things.

But it is not sufficient to denounce, merely, the custom of holding the infant’s body in an erect position.  Every inquiring mother—­and it is for such, and no other, that I write—­will naturally and properly ask the reason why.

The child is not born with all its bones solid.  Some are mere cartilage for a considerable time.  This is the case with the bones of the back.  Now every person must see that the weight of the child’s head and shoulders, resting for a considerable time on the slender cartilaginous spinal column, may easily bend it.  And a curvature, thus given, may, and often does, deform children for life.

Dr. Dewees mentions a nurse who, from a foolish fondness for displaying them, made the children consigned to her charge sit perfectly upright before they were a month old.  It is truly ludicrous, he says, to see the little creatures sitting as straight as if they were stiffened by a back board.  It is truly horrible, I should say, rather than ludicrous.  Crooked spines must be the inevitable consequence, if nothing worse.

The practice of bracing children, as it is called, by straps, back boards, corsets, &c., where it has produced any effect at all, has always had a tendency to crook the spine.  This may be seen first, by observing one shoulder to be lower than the other, and next by a projection of the part of the shoulder blades next to the spine.  Whenever these changes begin to appear, it is time to send for a physician, though it may often be too late to effect a cure.  But on the general subject of bracing and corseting, I have treated at sufficient length elsewhere.