Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1892 — ROCKING THEIR HEALTH AWAY. [ARTICLE]

ROCKING THEIR HEALTH AWAY.

Abandonment ei the Cradle a Good Thing for the Little Ones. A chance reference in reading the other day has convinced me that Plato did not reason well every time, says Elizabeth Cavazza in the Pittsburg Dispatch. What he did not know about putting babies to sleep, for instance would fill a book. In his work upon “Laws” he lays down the rule for the management of infants that “they should be kept in perpetual motion and live as if they were always tossing at sea.” And why? Because (he opined) fear is the emotion to be subdued—“a fear caused by something .that has gone wrong within;” and the remedy for an “internal agitation is to counteract it by an external one.” Which practically interpreted means; If poor baby is afraid that he will not be allowed so look at the pretty candle Sght, or is worried by a pain or pin —trot him incessantly and vigorously up and down, churning his little digestive apparatus into disorder; rock him until the head, bobbing helplessly, becomes dizzy and dazed in a mild form of congestion; and in sheer despair, unable to express his feelings, the “agitated” baby takes refuge in an unhealthy sleep. I do believe that a large proportion of the diseases of the brain in young children ia caused by the nervous, foolish, cruel practice of keeping in perpetual motion the delicate and susceptible little bodies and heads. That I may further support myself in the position I have taken against the great Plato, I will instance the case of the woman who had been brought into the state of insomnia by means of a continual spinal headache which confused her mental powers. A new physician having been called he observed her during the first week of his attendance. One day he said abruptly: “Madam, you need no medicines. Simply abandon your rocking chair!” She had the habit common to American women-—that of always sitting in a rocking chair, rocking incessantly, though gently, whenever she sat down. Banishing the rocking chair, she recovered from both sleeplessness and headache.