Chapter 5
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of a room poisoned by the tobacco-user’s tainted breath. Many infants
are poisoned beyond remedy by sleeping in beds with their tobacco-
using fathers. By inhaling the poisonous tobacco effluvia, which is
thrown from the lungs and pores of the skin, the system of the infant is
filled with the poison. While it acts upon some as a slow poison, and
affects the brain, heart, liver, and lungs, and they waste away and fade
gradually, upon others it has a more direct influence, causing spasms,
fits, paralysis, palsy, and sudden death. The bereaved parents mourn
the loss of their loved ones, and wonder at the mysterious providence
of God, which has so cruelly afflicted them, when Providence designed
not the death of these infants. They died martyrs to the filthy lust of
tobacco. Their parents ignorantly, but none the less surely, kill their
infant children by the disgusting poison. Every exhalation of the lungs
of the tobacco slave, poisons the air about him. Infants should be
kept free from every thing which would have an influence to excite
the nervous system, and should, whether waking or sleeping, day and
night, breathe a pure, cleanly, healthy atmosphere, free from every
taint of poison.
Another great cause of mortality among infants and youth, is the
custom of leaving their arms and shoulders naked. This fashion cannot
be too severely censured. It has cost the life of thousands. The air,
bathing the arms and limbs, and circulating about the armpits, chills
these sensitive portions of the body, so near the vitals, and hinders the
healthy circulation of the blood, and induces disease, especially of the
lungs and brain. Those who regard the health of their children of more
value than the foolish flattery of visitors, or the admiration of strangers,
will ever clothe the shoulders and arms of their tender infants. The
mother’s attention has been frequently called to the purple arms and
hands of her child, and she has been cautioned in regard to this health
and the life-destroying practice; and the answer has often been, “I
always dress my children in this manner. They get used to it. I cannot
endure to see the arms of infants covered. It looks old-fashioned.”
These mothers dress their delicate infants as they would not venture
to dress themselves. They know that if their own arms were exposed
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without a covering, they would shiver with chilliness. Can infants
of a tender age endure this process of hardening without receiving
injury? Some children may have at birth so strong constitutions that
they can endure such abuse without its costing them life; yet thousands