Infant immunity baths
Things seem to have operated slightly backwards in colonial times. A good example of that would be how hospitals today consider it mandatory to bathe newborns for the prevention of possible bacteria growth. However, for mothers in the colonial era, it was quite the opposite.
Although they bathed their children regularly, the purpose wasn’t to clean the child; instead, it was to harden them against possible future diseases and other ailments. In their minds, bathing their children was more like a form of immunization, similar to that of a vaccine. How strangely interesting is that?
