SPECIAL ARTICLES

Abstract

THERE was a day not so long ago when the habitual thumbsucking baby was looked upon as being a happy baby. Today, however, the ignorance of the people who held this point of view is sometimes looked upon as an indication of the progress of modern times. It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to show briefly how the modern point of view has come about, to indicate that the ignorance of the past is largely still with us, and finally to put forth a theory to account for the arousal of the thumbsucking response in terms of general learning theory principles.

There were 3 main reasons for the fall of the old theory. First came the rise of modern medicine and the discovery of the germ. There need be little said here about the ensuing rapid awareness of the public as well as the better informed of the necessity for cleanliness, especially with respect to things which might go into the body. Thus, it naturally followed that babies should not put their fingers in their mouths for fear that germs would enter their defenseless bodies. It might be mentioned before leaving the subject that today there seems to be general agreement in the medical profession that there are hundreds of sources of germs which enter the body in many hundreds of ways, one of the least important of which is by thumbsucking; and further, that disease usually does not directly follow the entrance of germs into the body but often occurs in a period of lowered resistance during which time germs already in the body are enabled to multiply and cause symptoms.