MUSCULAR BABIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 18, 30 April 1892, Page 456

MUSCULAR BABIES.

An English physician, Dr. Louis Robinson, has devoted a vast amount of time and thought to proving his theory that babies of the human species, like all monkeys, have a wonderful power in the flexor muscles of the forearm, so that during the first few hours after birth they are able to hang by the hands, entirely supporting the weight of the body for a period varying from ten seconds to two minutes and a half.

He has experimented upon one hundred and fifty children some of them a few days old, and others less than an hour, and in two cases only have they failed to hang from a stick by their tiny hands. One curious fact is that when a child lets go, and falls from its support, it seems to be rather from a desire of changing its position than because it is tired. When, even after hanging for more than a minute, a finger is given it to clutch, one will find by the energetic grip of its tiny band that the little animal is by no means exhausted. It is unnecessary to say that in each case there is no possible risk for the child.