PRE-NATAL CARE.
It would be improper to close this section, touching child-life, without some special reference to pre-natal care. It has been well said by eminent authorities that a child's "education should begin long before its birth." This to many may seem mysterious or even foolish, according to their advancement on the plane of knowledge. But America has long ago awakened to the truth of it, and pre-natal clinics have been established on a large scale—notably in New York—for the scientific supervision and comfort of expectant mothers who may need it. The natural right of every child to be born in health and happiness, is at length recognized.
Human magnetism, or nerve force, is beginning to be understood and utilized as a great vital, health-compelling, harmonizing factor of vast significance to the future of the race.
The real and practical alliance between the physical and the psychic—between body and mind—is better realized; as for instance: You may be seized with an idea, or a passion, and it disturbs your health of body; you may take indigestible food, or suffer injury or fatigue, and it disturbs your health of mind.
But beyond and behind all else are all those seemingly occult and sinister, pre-natal influences centered in hereditary and kindred considerations which are still more significant and difficult to locate and overcome.
These problems have been thought out and solved long before the dawn of the present social awakening and the conclusions have been tabulated in the closest detail from the first moment of embryonic life, faithfully defining the paths that inevitably lead to the desired goal of Hygienic Birth, of Physical Perfection and the Mental State termed Happiness, in Infancy.
All these things will be found minutely focussed in picturesque relief, in my previous work entitled: "Within the Bud."