an old new idea

 Earlier this week I was watching one of my new favorite shows "Finding Your Roots" on PBS.  I enjoy this show for the interesting ancestry of the people who are featured, but also for the fun little tidbits that I've never heard of before.  In the last episode the actor Christopher Meloni was one of the guests and it was disclosed to him that his great, great, great grandfather was abandoned as a newborn at a hospital somewhere in Italy and that his last name 'Meloni' means melon and was probably given to the baby because of his melon shaped head.  He eventually made his way to America when he was kicked out of the orphanage at the age of 12.  But that's not what I found most interesting.  In the written records of this child it said that he was a newborn "wrapped in rags and left on the wheel."  Picture a large 'Lazy Susan.' It turns out that these large horizontal wheels were a feature built into the walls of churches or hospitals. A person could lay the child on the wheel, turn it, and the baby would end up inside the building while the parent remained anonymously on the outside.  Now these days, when we're so much more advanced, what do we use?  Baby boxes at fire stations.  Evidently a new take on a very old idea.