the want of an abundance of water. An infant who is every morning well
soused and well swilled with water seldom suffers either from
excoriations, or from any other of the numerous skin diseases.
Cleanliness, then, is the grand preventative of, and the best remedy
for excoriations. Naaman the Syrian was ordered "to wash and be
clean," and he was healed, "and his flesh came again like unto the
flesh of a little child and he was clean." This was, of course, a
miracle; but how often does water, without any special intervention,
act miraculously both in preventing and in curing skin diseases!

An infant's clothes, napkins especially, ought never to be washed with
soda; the washing of napkins with soda is apt to produce excoriations
and breakings-out. "As washerwomen often deny that they use soda, it
can be easily detected by simply soaking a clean white napkin in fresh
water and then tasting the water; if it be brackish and salt, soda has
been employed." [Footnote: Communicated by Sir Charles Locock to the
Author.]

10. _Who is the proper person to wash and dress the babe_?

The monthly nurse, as long as she is in attendance; but afterwards the
mother, unless she should happen to have an experienced, sensible,
thoughtful nurse, which, unfortunately, is seldom the case. [Footnote:
"The Princess of Wales might have been seen on Thursday taking an
airing in a brougham in Hyde Park with her baby--the future King of
England--on her lap, without a nurse, and accompanied only by Mrs
Brace. The Princess seems a very pattern of mothers, and it is
whispered among the ladies of the Court that every evening the mother
of this young gentleman may be seen in a flannel dress, in order that
she may properly wash and put on baby's night clothes, and see him