MODE OF TRANSPORTING CHILDREN IN JAPAN.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1521, 5 March 1886, Page 3

MODE OF TRANSPORTING CHILDREN IN JAPAN.

In a communication to the Union Medicals of a late date, Dr. Vidal, the director of the Hospital Medical School at Niigata, Japan, describes the mode of carrying young chidren in Japan, which, he says, possesses many advantages for mother and child. The child from its birth to the third or fourth year is always and everywhere carried in a very simple manner on the back. The national dress consists of a long robe (kimono) with wide sleeves, which is open iu front along its whole length, being tightened round the waist by a girdle. It is nearly alike for both sexes; but for the women the girdle is several metres in length, and from twenty-five to thirty centimetres in breadth. This is passed several times around the body, seeping the two sides of the robe exactly crossed. The latter is so fashioned that, by slightly separating the crossed sides in front of the chest, a space more or less large is left be* tween the robe and the back, being in the shape of a funnel, closed below the girdle. In this space the infant is placed, having its limbs quite free, only its head appeariug above the kimono. In this way it is kept warm ly in contact with the mother, while she is left at liberty in all her movements, and bears her burden with the least possible fatigue. Indeed it is quite common to see children not more than five or six years old thus carrying children younger than them* selves, and pursuing all their games notwithstanding. The infants thus carried do not seem to suffer any inconvenience, sleeping even when shaken about, and crying when placed in arms until restored to their nest When a child even five or six years old falls ill, the first thing he demands is to be placed on his nurse's back ; and the children of Europeans are nursed in this way without inconvenience. Dr. Vidal states that so rare are deformities that in nearly a thousand patients he has not met an instance.