h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Keeping them tucked up in bed so they didn't get enough movement?

TRiG.

I've said it was a principle not a specific action. Like a belief in something...

Isn't there some movement for "free defecation" or whatever they call it, where they refuse to diaper their babies?

I'm sure I read about it in some advice column recently. Seems to be all the rage among the green hipsters these days. It involves carrying a bucket to hold your baby over when it has to go.

Again with the "ewww"

Fresh Air!!!!

They believed that 'Fresh Air' was a cure-all, so all windows were kept open, and the temperature in the wards was too cold for vulnerable kiddywinks!!!


GT

Gut and lung infections suggests the opposite of fresh air.

Good lateral thinking but that's not it.

So we've got isolation, lack of physical attention, though not what could be called neglect - ie lack of desire to help - the people wanted to help but were basically doing something that was - with hindsight - dumb, and causing kids to die. Is that a fair summary?

It's connected to a lack of attention/affection. I'm guessing it's some odd take on Freudian (or something of that sort) thinking. Some idea that children should grow up "free" of influence, perhaps? No. Too postmodernist for 1915, surely. They'd be more likely to be strict. Either way, the lack of affection was probably a deliberate policy, rather than a simple expression of the staff's lack of interest.

TRiG.

Flappy envelope thing

Excellent summaries!

I have to keep making summaries for myself, otherwise I'll be posting "Circumcised Nubians? I blame 2legs"

S'good idea.

The answer is there, you just have to think about it.

But I'm off to bed.

so, to be continued....

ummm... they weren't allowed to socialize with the other kids, and that led to depression, and ultimately, death? (haven't read the backlog, so, apologies if anyone's already said this)

Late nineteenth/early twentieth century death certificates stated cause of death to be 'Infantile Paralysis'....

Close??


GT

Tzjin, I would advise reading the backlog and the excellent summaries above.

The last piece of this puzzle is a principle that could drive people to behave in such a way, sort of like a motivation; it was this that was the root of the lack of attention and the subsequent illnesses and death of those involved.

Would the principle be "self reliance", don't molly coddle the children, they will have to stand on their own two feet soon enough and there will be no one for them to lean on when they go out into the big bad world?

Mmm.. *thoughtful pause* Yes, I'll give that.

Pebblederook +3

There's really two principles at work here, we'll call that one of them, as that was a pervading ethos of child rearing; that leaves just one other outstanding - a sort of kill or cure, unfortunately it was the former.

My mother always said "you'll eat a peck of dirt before you die".

Was the other principle the idea that the sooner children were exposed to germs and diseases and built up a natural resistance the better?

No, but you're heading in the right direction.