One can, therefore, only press the importance, as being yet
greater in the case of children, greatest in the case of sick children,
of attending to these things.
That which, however, above all, is known to injure children seriously is
foul air, and most seriously at night. Keeping the rooms where they
sleep tight shut up, is destruction to them. And, if the child's
breathing be disordered by disease, a few hours only of such foul air
may endanger its life, even where no inconvenience is felt by grown-up
persons in the same room.
The following passages, taken out of an excellent "Lecture on Sudden
Death in Infancy and Childhood," just published, show the vital
importance of careful nursing of children. "In the great majority of
instances, when death suddenly befalls the infant or young child, it is
an _accident_; it is not a necessary, inevitable result of any disease
from which it is suffering."
It may be here added, that it would be very desirable to know how often
death is, with adults, "not a necessary, inevitable result of any
disease." Omit the word "sudden;" (for _sudden_ death is comparatively
rare in middle age;) and the sentence is almost equally true for all
ages.
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