Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1877 — Exposure of Young Children to the Cold. [ARTICLE]

Exposure of Young Children to the Cold.

We should say that no child tod young to walk or run should be taken out when the external temperature is below fifty degrees; that the rooms in which they live and sleep should never be below fiftyeight degrees; and the day room should be three or four degrees warmer. The practice of wheeling children about in perambulators, sitting or reclining in one position without exercise, is particularly harmful. We would earnestly appeal to mothers to put aside all feelings of vanity, or what is sometimes miscalled natural pride, and cover the arms, neck and legs of their children as a simple sanitary precaution. High frocks, long sleeves and warm stockings should be worn out out-of-doors; hats which cover the head, and boots which keep the feet as dry and warm as possible. On coming in from our streets, nearly always damp, both boots and stockings should be changed; and, if the feet be cold, a warm foot-bath should be used for a few minutes. The exquisite pain of chilblains could be saved to many children by this use of hot water for hands and feet. We see that flannel has yielded to merino, chiefly on account of the greater convenience of ready-made under-clothing; but there is nothing equal to flannel in the property of preserving warmth. — British Medical Journal. —A Fair Haven, Vt, drug clerk sent J. J. Perkins to the happy hunting grounds the other day, by giving him hellebore instead of valerian. The drug clerk was much chagrined when they told him of his mistake, and he said the first day there wasn’t much doing he. believed he'd have to paste labels on some of the bottles; the old man was getting to cany such a stock of stuff on the shelves now, that no feUqw could remember half of it. —A few nights ago Mrs. Keys, residing at West Bloomfield, N. Y., went out with her husband sleigh-riding. She took her infant boy in her arms, and wrapped a buffalo robe around her to keep it warm. When she reached a friend’s house she discovered that her child had smothered in her arms.