This should never be of feathers. There are many reasons for this prohibition, especially to the feeble.

1. They are too warm. Infants should by all means be kept warm enough, as I have all along insisted. But excess of heat excites or stimulates the skin, causing an unnatural degree of perspiration, and thus inducing weakness or debility.

2. When we first enter a room in which there is a feather bed which has been occupied during the night, we are struck with the offensive smell of the air. This is owing to a variety of causes; one of which probably is, that beds of this kind are better adapted to absorb and retain the effluvia of our bodies. But let the causes be what they may, the effects ought, if possible, to be avoided; for both experience and authority combine to pronounce them very injurious.

3. Feather beds—if used in the nursery—will inevitably discharge more or less of dust and down; both of which are injurious to the tender lungs of the infant.

Mattresses are better for persons of every age, than soft feather beds. They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses cannot be had, "the sacking bottom" may be substituted, or "even the floor;" at least in warm weather: "for almost anything," he adds, "is preferable to feathers."

Macnish, in his "Philosophy of Sleep," objects strongly to air beds, and says that he can assert "from experience," that they are the very worst that can possibly be employed. My theories—for I have had no experience on the subject—would lead me to a similar conclusion. A British writer of eminence assures us that the higher classes in Ireland, to a considerable extent, accustom themselves and their infants to sleep on bags of cut straw, overspread with blankets and a light coverlid; and that the custom is rapidly finding favor. I have slept on straw, both in winter and summer, for many years, yet I am always warm; and those who know my habits say I use less covering on my bed than almost any individual whom they have ever known.

I have no hostility to soft beds, especially for young children and feeble adults, could softness be secured without much heat and relaxation of the system. On the contrary, it is certainly desirable, in itself, to have the bed so soft that as large a proportion of the surface of the body may rest on it as possible. But I consider hardness as a much smaller evil than feathers.

It is worthy of remark how generally physicians, for the last hundred years, have recommended hard beds, especially straw beds or hair mattresses, to their more feeble and delicate patients. This fact might at least quiet our apprehensions in regard to their tendency on those who are accustomed to them in early infancy.

Some writers on these subjects appear to doubt whether, after all that they say, they shall have much influence on mothers in inducing them to give up feather beds for their infants. But they need not be so faithless. Multitudes have already been reformed by their writings; and multitudes larger still would be so, could they gain access to them. It is a most serious evil that they are often so written and published that comparatively few mothers will ever possess them.

The pillow, as well as the bed, should be rather hard; and its thickness should be much less than is usual, or we shall do mischief by bending the neck, and thus compressing the vessels, and obstructing the circulation of the blood. But on this subject I will say more, when I come to treat on "Posture."

The child's bed should not be placed near the wall, on account of dampness. There is also, during the summer, another reason. Should lightning strike the house, it will be much more apt to injure those who are near the wall than other persons; as it seldom leaves the wall to pass over the central part of the room.

Curtains are not only useless, but injurious. They prevent a free circulation of the air. Everything which has this tendency must be studiously guarded against, in the management of infants.

Nothing is more injurious to the old or the young than damp beds and damp covering. It behoves, especially, all those who have the care of infants, to see that everything about their beds is thoroughly dry. The walls and clothes should also be dry; and wet clothes should never be hung up in the room. By neglecting these precautions, colds, rheumatisms, inflammations, fevers, consumptions, and death, may ensue. Many a person loses his health, and not a few their lives, in this way. The author of this work was once thrown into a fever from such a cause.

Warming the bed is, in all cases, a bad practice. While in the nursery, if the air be kept at a proper temperature, there will be no need of it; after the child is assigned to a separate chamber, its enervating tendency would result in more evil than good. It is better to let the bed became gradually heated by the body, in a natural and healthy way.

No person, and above all, no infant, should be suffered to sleep in a bed that has been recently occupied by the sick. The bed and all the clothes should first be thoroughly aired. Could we see with our eyes at once, how rapidly these bodies of ours fill the air, and even the beds we sleep in, with carbonic acid and other hurtful gases and impurities, even while in health, but much more so in sickness, we should be cautious of exposing the lungs of the tender infant, in such an atmosphere, until everything had been properly cleansed, and the apartments properly ventilated.