After the fourth or fifth year, two or three baths a week during the colder seasons of the year will be sufficient to keep the skin clean, and properly active. During the summer, however, a daily bath is of great advantage to children, and ought not to be neglected.
Swimming is very useful and very invigorating to the health of both sexes. It is desirable that children be taught this art.
The importance of the culture of the skin to the well-being of infancy and childhood cannot be brought too prominently to the notice of all mothers. We have therefore endeavoured to give some useful hints in regard both to the preservation of its cleanliness, and to the prevention, by means of garments and warming, of its exposure to too great changes of temperature.
By proper attention to the skin in the manner pointed out, many of the eruptions with which children are afflicted might be prevented. The appearance of these the mother ought to regard as a great calamity, for they are often difficult of cure, and render the child an object of disgust. She ought also to look upon them as the mischievous consequences of the neglect of those laws of health which it is her duty to learn and observe.
AIR AND VENTILATION IN CHILDHOOD.
Fresh air is necessary for the robust development of infancy and childhood. Infants born in the summer season should be carried out daily when the weather is pleasant, from the second or third day after birth. Those born in the winter should be kept in the house for two or three months before being introduced to the outer world on some sunny noonday. Older children can scarcely pass too much time in the open air.
A change in the dress must, of course, be made before exposing the child to the outdoor air. The head should be covered, and the chest and limbs well protected from the cold.
As a rule, a child ought to be carried out, or permitted, when old enough, to walk out, at least once every pleasant day during the year. The time of the day is to be varied with the season. In the winter, the middle of the day is to be chosen; in summer, the early portion of the forenoon, a few hours after sunrise.
Children show very quickly, even when in ill-health, the beneficial results of a ride or walk. It quiets the irritability to which they are liable, more effectually than any other procedure. For a delicate child, or one recovering from sickness, fresh air and sunshine are the best tonics which can be administered. A fretful, peevish child will soon learn to look forward to its daily jaunt on the street or road, and will be quieted by it for the rest of the day.
At all times of the year regard must be had to the state of the weather. The infant ought never to be taken out on a wet day. Exposure to a damp atmosphere is one of the most powerful causes of catarrh on the chest and inflammation of the lungs, to which young children are so subject. A very high wind, even though the day be bright and dry, is injurious to a young infant, as it has been known to suspend its breathing for a time, which accident might, if not at once observed, bring about a fatal result.