of infants under the guidance of hygiene. How
were they treated formerly? Many, no doubt, can still remember certain
practises that were regarded as indispensable by the masses. An infant
had to be strapped and swaddled, or its legs would grow crooked; the
ligament under its tongue had to be slit, to ensure its speaking
eventually; it was important that it should always wear a cap to keep
its ears from protruding; the position of a recumbent baby was so
arranged as not to cause permanent deformity of the tender skull; and
good mothers stroked and pinched the little noses of their nurslings
to make them grow long and sharp instead of round and snub, and put
little gold earrings through the lobes of their ears very soon after
birth "to improve their eyesight." Such practises may be already
forgotten in some countries; but in others they obtain to this day.
Who does not remember the various devices for helping a baby to walk?
Even in the first months after birth, at a period of life when the
nervous system is not completely developed, and it is impossible for
the infant to coordinate its movements, mothers wasted several
half-hours of the day "teaching baby to walk." Holding the little
creature by the body, they watched the aimless movements of the tiny
feet, and deluded themselves with the belief that the child was
already making an effort to walk; and because it does actually by
degrees begin to arch its feet and move its legs more boldly, the
mother attributed its progress to her instruction. When finally the
movement had been almost established--though not the equilibrium, and
the resulting power to stand on the feet--mothers made use of certain
straps with which they held up the baby's body, and thus made it walk
on the ground with themselves; or, when they had no time to spare,
they put the baby into a kind of bell-shaped basket, the broad base of
which prevented it from turning over; they tied the infant into this,
hanging its arms outside, its body being supported by the upper edge
of the basket; thus the child, though it could not rise on its feet,
_advanced_, moving its legs, and was said to be _walking_.

Other relics of a very recent past are a species of convex crowns
which were put round the heads of babies when they were considered
capable of rising to their feet, and were accordingly emancipated from
the basket. The child, suddenly left to himself after being accustomed
hitherto to supports comparable to t