“Childhood Clothing”

The clothing of the child should possess the same properties as that of infancy. It should afford due warmth, be of such materials as do not irritate the skin, and so made as to occasion no unnatural constriction.

In reference to due warmth, it may be well again to repeat, that too little clothing (that state of semi-nudity which the vanity of some parents encourage) is frequently productive of the most sudden attacks of active disease; and that children who are thus exposed with naked breasts and thin clothing in a climate so variable as ours are the frequent subjects of croup, and other dangerous affections of the air-passages and lungs.

On the other hand, it must not be forgotten, that too warm clothing is a source of disease,–sometimes even of the same diseases which originate in exposure to cold,–and often renders the frame more susceptible of the impressions of cold, especially of cold air taken into the lungs.

Regulate the clothing, then, according to the season; resume the winter dress early; lay it aside late; for it is in spring and autumn that the vicissitudes in our climate are greatest, and congestive and inflammatory complaints most common.
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