=Care and Treatment of Children.= The birth of a son was a happy day in a Roman household and the door of the house was decorated with flowers and green branches. The boy's ninth day after birth and the girl's eighth day was the day of purification, the _lustratio_. A branch of laurel or olive was dipped into water and used to sprinkle the child, incense was burned, a sacrifice was made upon the family altar for the child's welfare, and he was carried to one or more of the temples and placed under the protection of the gods. Also, as stated above, the child's name was bestowed upon him at this time. Usually a private record was made of the time of the lustratio, which was sometimes offered in cases of identification. Under Marcus Aurelius there was begun a public registry of births, as it was decreed that within thirty days after birth the name of each child, born free at Rome, should be placed in the public records in the archives of the treasury in the temple of Saturn. The birthday was religiously observed by every Roman, rich or poor, high or low, at which time the members of his family were brought together and offerings were made to the household gods and a festive time made of the day. Many mothers turned over their children to the care of nurses and the wealthy employed wet-nurses. Each Roman child wore round his neck a _bulla_, which was a small locket of gold or some other metal, sometimes of leather, usually heart-shaped, or circular, and attached to a ribbon or chain. This was a charm against the evil eye. The boy wore his bulla till he put on the toga virilis at manhood and a girl wore hers till her marriage. "Identical with modern times were the anxious care of mothers, relatives, and nurses, the words of endearment (such as birdie, little dove, little crow, little mother, little lady), and the lisping childish language and the lullabies ('sleep, my child, or suck'), rattles and other means of soothing (such as beating the stone that had hit the child), and the many superstitions, at all ages: such as binding on teeth of horses and boars to alleviate the teething, and old wives' simples and amulets against the evil eye. As a preservative against the _strigæ_, or vampires, garlic was wrapt up in the swaddling-clothes and hawthorn planted in the windows. A mother, who was passing a temple of Venus, would mumble a prayer for her daughter's beauty and make a vow. The figure of the girls was made artificially perfect. They wore tight stays from early childhood, so as to raise the hips into relief, and nurses' carelessness often produced rounded backs or unequal shoulders."[192]