Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-07-01
UGLY BABES ARE MADE
PRETTY BY SURGEONS
Infant at New York Hospital Will
be Wondrous Beauty at
Sixteen.

II Edith Doe, aged FIVE months, Is not
a raving, tearing beauty sixteen years
| from DOW il wont be the fault Of Miss
| Florence Mckay and the other nurses in
| the maternity ward at Flower Hospital.
| Some people ght think a nurse too
busy to care for the future looks of bnby
| patients, but white cap and print
uniform haven't taken the eternal fcm-
| inine out Of Miss Mckay. But, then,
she's very pretty herself, and perhaps
that makes n difference.
Edith at five months weighs only
eight pounds one ounce, which is less
than many babies weigh at birth. Miss
M ckay says:
Visitors consider her rather homely,
but we've fused over her 30 much that
we think she's real nice looking" She
has nice eyes and an engaging smile
when in good humor, but when crying for
her bottle she resembles nothing so much
as \ young bird, all mouth and bone or
two. Like so many East Side babies,
she started like under q handicap. She
was brought to Flower Hospital with her
mother, who WAS i'll and who soon died,
leaving the understood, undernourished
Edith with father who had no WY Of
caring for her, 80 perforce she was kept
on In the maternity ward. For a time
it seemed as il she must follow her mother.
but the nurses and doctors made up their
minds she should live. and she did live.
Now Edith's ears were great worri-
ment to Miss Mckay. Their shape was
all right, but they betrayed tendency
TO stick out at right angles, and the one
she lay on most got doubled under the
wrong way, 40 that it almost began TO
flap around toward her small pug nose.
Her devoted nurse saw that that would
never do. Being pretty herself, as afore-
said, with big, dancing eyes fringed with
long dark lashes, and a mouth that smiles
naturally and masses OF hair curling over
her own small ears, it hurt her tender
heart to think what Edith's future beaus
might say if she grew up with happy
ears.
"And I'm afraid" she said, "that
the child isn't going to have much hair
to hide them" The chances for Edith's
She practically is bald and though the
nurses are doing their best with discreet
shampooing To 'bring on the blond fuzz
on her small pate, they haven't had much
success so far. So with the aid of court
plaster Miss Mckay set out to train
Edith's ears IN the way they should 60
Long strips of the plaster hold them pain
lessly fiat, and will continue to do so
until they submit to training.
Edith Is already developing into
sociable youngster, smiling brightly,
If toothlessly, at the nurses when they
bend over her bed, and clinging raptlIrous-
ly to their arms when they take her up.
She spends most Of her time in the little
room of the ward that is lined with tiny
cages containing newborn babies, whose
mothers lie outside. To all of them Miss
Mckay, Miss Horton IA plump and pretty
nurse who adores babies and all the other
student nurses give due attention as to
their future looks. Little pug noses are
frequently and tendeily nodded into more
classic shape, and the notified compilations
with which the human young come into
the world are anxiously watched to see
that they clear up properly. The babies
are kept carefully lying on their sides
lying on their backs, as so many mothers
place them, is all wrong-and generally
at Flower Hospital you viii find them on
their hight sides, SO the heart has plenty
of room for action. Not a few of these
maternity cases are charity cases from
the teeming tenement house region over
there, but they are going to have their
chance in life. And if the drive Flower
Hospital is now making for funds to buy