Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Human Development, Medical Practitioners, Medical Treatment, Charlatanry, Crime

    Suggests some decidedly harsh measures for controlling infants' behaviour including pinching and 'whopping' noisy babies and giving babies cheap 'poppy syrup' to send them to sleep. Cynically notes that if the baby's 'little hearse / Weeping neighbours soon set eyes on, / Who'll suppose, with such a nurse' that baby 'died of taking pison'.