So here, again, I was entirely afloat, launched on the seas of doubt without chart or compass.  The life and well-being of the race seemed to hang on the slender thread of such traditions as were handed down by-ignorant mothers and nurses.  One powerful ray of light illuminated the darkness; it was the work of Andrew Combe on “Infancy.”  He had, evidently watched some of the manifestations of man in the first stages of his development, and could tell, at least, as much of babies as naturalists could of beetles and bees.  He did give young mothers some hints of what to do, the whys and wherefores of certain lines of procedure during antenatal life, as well as the proper care thereafter.  I read several chapters to the nurse.  Although, out of her ten children, she had buried five, she still had too much confidence in her own wisdom and experience to pay much attention to any new idea that might be suggested to her.  Among other things, Combe said that a child’s bath should be regulated by the thermometer, in order to be always of the same temperature.  She ridiculed the idea, and said her elbow was better than any thermometer, and, when I insisted on its use, she would invariably, with a smile of derision, put her elbow in first, to show how exactly it tallied with the thermometer.  When I insisted that the child should not be bandaged, she rebelled outright, and said she would not take the responsibility of nursing a child without a bandage.  I said, “Pray, sit down, dear nurse, and let us reason together.  Do not think I am setting up my judgment against yours, with all your experience.  I am simply trying to act on the opinions of a distinguished physician, who says there should be no pressure on a child anywhere; that the limbs and body should be free; that it is cruel to bandage an infant from hip to armpit, as is usually done in America; or both body and legs, as is done in Europe; or strap them to boards, as is done by savages on both continents.  Can you give me one good reason, nurse, why a child should be bandaged?”

“Yes,” she said emphatically, “I can give you a dozen.”

“I only asked for one,” I replied.

“Well,” said she, after much hesitation, “the bones of a newborn infant are soft, like cartilage, and, unless you pin them up snugly, there is danger of their falling apart.”

“It seems to me,” I replied, “you have given the strongest reason why they should be carefully guarded against the slightest pressure.  It is very remarkable that kittens and puppies should be so well put together that they need no artificial bracing, and the human family be left wholly to the mercy of a bandage.  Suppose a child was born where you could not get a bandage, what then?  Now I think this child will remain intact without a bandage, and, if I am willing to take the risk, why should you complain?”

“Because,” said she, “if the child should die, it would injure my name as a nurse.  I therefore wash my hands of all these new-fangled notions.”