“We don't want any strong medicine put in a baby's eyes.”
“It don't make a bit of difference what you want. I'm going to the drug store now to get what I need and I want you to have warm water and clean cloths ready by the time I get back. Is there anyone here to do it?”
“There's a piece of a girl out there in the kitchen. She ain't much 'count.” The doctor went to the kitchen door and gave his orders.
“I'd ruther you'd let the baby's eyes alone. I'm afraid to have strong medicine put in 'em.”
For answer he went out, got into the buggy and drove rapidly back to town where he procured what he needed and in a few minutes was back.
“You'd better come in this time, Mary, you'll get tired of waiting and besides I want you to see this baby. I want you to know something about what every father and mother ought to understand.”
They went in and the doctor took the baby up and seated himself by the chair on which stood a basin of water. The mother, with very ungracious demeanor, looked on. Mary, shocked and filled with pity, looked down into the baby's face. The inflammation in the eyes was terrible. The secretion constantly exuded and hung in great globules to the tiny lids. Never in her life had she seen anything like it. “Let me hold it for you,” she said, sitting down and taking the baby in her lap.
The doctor turned the little head toward him and held it gently between his knees. He took a pair of goggles from his pocket and put them over his eyes to protect them from the poison, then tenderly as any mother could have done, he bathed and cleansed the poor little eyes opening so inauspiciously upon the world. He thought as he worked of this terrible scourge of infancy, producing one-third of all the blindness in the world. He thought too, that almost all of this blindness was preventable by prompt and proper treatment. Statistics had proven these two things beyond all doubt. He thought of the earnest physicians who had labored long to have some laws enacted in regard to this stupendous evil but with little result.[1]
[1] 1. Ophthalmia Neonatorum
2. There has been legislation for the prevention of blindness in the States of New York, Maine, Rhode Island and Illinois.