Medicine: Care of Baby

Because all good parents are jealous of the health of their young, a house guest in a married home usually seeks to ingratiate himself by his knowing and considerate treatment of the babies with which it is blessed. He is aware, if his polish is not sadly at fault, that the art of playing with an infant is to amuse without exciting it; to lull it into a state of somnolence, and, after it is asleep, to walk on tiptoes and refrain from loud talk, from playing the phonograph.

What should be the reception, then, of a guest who, upon being presented to a tiny child, sinks his fingers into its ribs and tickles it into a paroxysm? Who—when the child, exhausted by hysterical laughter, has fallen asleep—continues to walk heavily about, talking at the top of his voice and laughing blatantly?

Surely the parents would entertain no good opinion of such a person. Yet they should actually be grateful to him. Tickling is splendid for a baby, and a noise when it is going to sleep will promote its future. It was so stated last week by Sir Harry E. Bruce-Porter, London specialist in children’s diseases. He explained that tickling makes babies laugh and thus develops their lungs; that loud sounds when they are composing themselves for slumber prepare them for “the rough and tumble of later life.”