PEDIATRICS Vol. 46 No. 5 November 1970, pp. 810
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THE BOOK OF ACCIDENTS

Excerpt V: Firearms

Thomas E. Cone Jr. M.D.

Death of children caused by playing with loaded firearms continues to be among the leading causes of accidental death in childhood.1 The figure below from a book about accidents written for children in 18302 vividly illustrates the fatal consequences of playing with firearms. The lesson is written in a style more direct and moralizing than that used in contemporary children's literature. No longer would children read a sentence which minces no words as in the second one below: "We behold a little boy shooting his sister dead!" Nor would they read in any contemporary book the phrase found in the last line, "encourage them in virtuous habits." But the tone of this lesson is not at all surprising if one recalls Max Beerbohm's comment that adults, less than a century ago, thought of children as "a race apart whose very nature was held to be sinful." Lies and sloth, untidiness and irreverence and a tendency not to listen to their elders were taken to be a child's nature. (Editorial query: Have Children really changed?).