buttons, as the vest will protect the skin from their pressure, and the robe may be trimmed according to taste. With these garments dressing is a simple matter. All that has to be done is to lay the shirt on top of the robe, the vest on the shirt, and then slip the child's arms through the arm-holes of all of them together, fasten them up, and you have finished. Thus all risk is avoided of entangling the baby in its clothes or straining it by an unnatural position while being dressed, or making it sick by turning it over and over. In order to prevent any pressure round the waist, I venture to suggest that the belt round the middle of the vest in his pattern should be omitted, as it is quite unnecessary; but, if further fastening should be required, another pair of tapes can be sewn lower down.
The difficulty with garments made in this way, to fasten down the front, is that the infant's arms have to be bent backwards in order to insert them in the sleeves. Now the natural position of an infant's arms is forwards, and if they are carelessly bent back, there is danger of their being dislocated at the shoulder, for in infancy the cup-like surface with which the main-bone of the arm articulates is very shallow, and the process at the outer and upper extremity of the shoulder-blade, which serves to protect the joint, has not reached its firm and full development. Hence, if the clothes are made to fasten down the front, they must be cut very wide in the back, and great care must be taken in inserting the little arms into the sleeves. The clothes,
