into a proper shape, like bear-cubs, which, according to a similar myth, "want licking." The swaddled baby is as incapable of moving a limb as if it were in reality the mummy it resembles in appearance, and the only apparent advantage of the practice is that a mother, when going out, could conveniently hang up her swaddled baby to a nail out of harm's way, in the comfortable assurance that by no possibility could it wriggle itself into mischief during her absence. The custom of swaddling arose from a belief that Nature was unable to perform her duties towards the growing child without aid from Art.
An author, writing in 1658, remarked in evident regret and surprise, when speaking of the Caribs, "They do not swaddle their infants, but leave them to tumble about at liberty in their little hammocks, or on beds of leaves spread on the earth in a corner of their tents; and nevertheless (mark the naiveness of this expression) their limbs do not become crooked, and their whole body is perfectly well made." In France, it was Voltaire who first raised a voice against the practice of swaddling, and he maintained that it was the cause of most of the deformities so common in civilized countries. Yet so firmly rooted was this custom in the country of Voltaire, that I have heard my lamented friend, the late Prof. Cassal, say that he was swaddled when an infant.
The treatment ordinarily received by infants in civilized London at the present time is not altogether undictated by the same barbarous idea of
