Now That's Odd: Baby Metal Mitts And A Skull With Many Flaps (VIDEO)

Looking for a baby gift that verges on the inappropriate?

How about a pair of baby mittens that are actually metal balls.

According to Evan Michelson, star of the Science Channel series, "Oddities," the strange sounding devices were actually common in the early 20th centry.

"They would go over the hands and the lower part of the arm to prevent the babies form scratching themselves or others," Michelson said on an upcoming episode airing February 4.

The metal balls make a weird clicking noise when banged together that Michelson admits would sound "creepy" coming out of the nursery.

But there was a method to the weird device, she says.

"Baby fingernails are very thin, just like razors, and the skin is very soft," she said. "Babies haven't developed the motor skills that let them control their limbs so while these things look like medieval torture devices, they're actually very effective in protecting the baby."

Michelson's co-star, Mike Zohn, says baby mittens have progressed since then.

"Nowadays, they have mitts, but they're cotton and more like baking mitts," he said. "The metal ones went out of favor because of their look."

However, one thing that never goes out of style is the human skull, at least at Obscura Oddities and Antiques, the New York-based store co-owned by Zohn and Michelson, and that turned out be good news for one customer looking for a skull that was a cut above the usual.

So Zohn showed him a skull with enough cuts, flaps and hinges to make it "look like the advent calendar of skulls."

"There are strings to represent nerves and veins, flaps to show inner sinuses, and hinges on top to remove the jaw and the top of the skull -- even split it in half," Zohn said.

According to Zohn, skulls like this are used as teaching models and says the one that appears on an episode also debuting February 4 dates to the middle 20th century and is "very rare."

Comments

[llisa]

02:48 AM on 02/05/2012

Looks like those mitts would be more likely to hurt the baby than to protect him. Using cloth seems like a no-brainer.

[Vanderbil Covington]

12:59 AM on 02/05/2012

What happened to now lost times when people showed their children the road to a successful life meant respect and compassion for all of society? Now control of children has been wrested from parents who now leave children free to run amock down the path leading to mutually assured destruction. Many parents find comfort in ambiguous advice from cluelss experts more interested in selling books than offering traditional time proven parenting skills. Child protective laws and so stacked against the parent, now a mother is castigated for breast feeding her baby in public places. Parents can no longer use corporal punishment, fearing possible prosecution and jail time. What authorities don't seem to realize -- all children are NOT alike. Some may be controlled with time-outs and hugs, but what of the strong willed child that shrugs this treatment off as weakness of the parent? Many of these kids grow into adults, thinking the rest of society will tolerate their recalcitrant behavior just as their parents did. Only when society reminds them of a painful and sometimes, deadly lesson,-- they were wrong. Whose to blame then