Ducking Babies in Sea is Torture
BATHING INFANTS IN THE SEA
At the present season, a mistaken and mischievous practice is much in vogue. Daily torture is inflicted on thousands of tender and helpless infants by forcibly plunging their bodies, in spite of shrieks and struggles, into the open sea. This cruel and time-honoured process may now be seen in full operation at any seaside resort. Affectionate mothers hand over their infants to stalwart and impassive bathing-women, to be plunged head foremost into the sea, under the absurd notion that the procedure vastly benefits the little ones. Day after day, with relentless regularity, very young children and babies are borne out amid the waves and subjected to their dreaded ducking, in the firm belief that their trembling bodies, often writhing to the verge of convulsions, are thus made healthy and hardy. All experience on the subject, and the teaching of all medical authorities on sea-bathing, agree in support of the two following rules; namely, that a child under two years of age ought never under any circumstances to be bathed in the open sea, and that no one, child or adult, can enter the sea without danger while under the influence of emotional excitement.
Under two years of age a child’s body is too weak to gain any benefit from the shock of immersion in the open sea. Its nervous and circulating forces are too feeble for the development of that vigorous reaction, without which sea-bathing is either useful or hurtful. In the absence of strength for such reaction, a sea-bath tends to chill infant’s body, and predisposes to internal congestions. At any age, the shock of immersion in the sea brings risk of danger, and even of death, when the emotions are powerfully excited, and specialty when the mind and body are dominated by that most depressing of human emotions, fear.
Infants are not always bathed in the sea merely with the intention of making them strong. There is an old seaside tradition that babies diligently bathed become fearless in the water when they grow up. This notion is also false. Than that infants gain courage by being plunged in the sea, it is more probable that many a nervous child has acquired a dread of bathing which no after experience could remove, because it was compelled in fear and trembling to plunge under water. If a child be sufficiently robust to develop a good reaction, if it be over two years of age, and, above all, if it be not afraid, it may be bathed in the sea with advantage. If any of these conditions be wanting, sea-bathing for children is likely to be positively injurious.
British Medical Journal
Source: Skegness Herald 1883
The picture is for illustration only. The baby in the photo is totally unconnected with the story.
