pearance of the first teeth (about the sixth or seventh month), and if the parent be a healthy woman, the quantity of milk supplied to the breast will generally be found sufficient to afford adequate nourishment to the child, without additional assistance from artificial food. The latter is on no account to be given (up to this period) unless, from deficiency of milk or some other cause, it be positively required. If, however, after the expiration of some months, this deficiency should exist, it must be made up by the mixture of cow's milk and water, and of this alone, if it agree with the child. It must be given, too, through the sucking-bottle until the teeth appear; after which time an alteration in the kind of food, and the mode of exhibiting it similar to that proposed below, may be adopted.

The Plan to be followed after the first Teeth have appeared. When the mother, at this period, has still an abundant supply of nourishing milk, and the child is healthy and even flourishing upon it, I would not recommend any immediate change. The parent may, with benefit to her own health, as well as with advantage to the child, pursue the same plan as heretofore for a few weeks longer. In general, however, the mother will require some little aid at this time; and artificial food may now be given twice in the course of the day, without risk or injury to the child. Good fresh cow's milk, with the addition of water, or not, as it is found to best agree; Hard's farinaceous food; tops and bottoms; or, if these disagree with the stomach, weak beef-tea, veal or mutton-broth, clear and free from fat, and mixed with an equal quantity of farinaceous food, and a few grains of salt-any one of these which the parent finds to agree best, may be given with benefit.

As this is the first time that artificial food has been particularly referred to, it is right to observe, as a general remark applicable to its use at all times, that the greatest care must ever be taken in the selection of it, in its preparation, in the quantity given, and in the mode of giving it. In the choice of the food the mother must be guided by circumstances; she must find out that which suits best; and so long as the child flourishes, she should from no trivial cause change it. The different kinds just pointed out may be tried in the order given, till one is found to agree. The mode of making these preparations is detailed at length at p. 259.* This has been done because the defective manner in which artificial food is prepared is not unfrequently the sole cause of its failure. It is only necessary further to observe upon this point, that the vessel in which it is made, as well as that out of which it is given to the child, must be perfectly sweet and clean. The quantity given must be small, lest the stomach be overloaded, which seldom fails, after a little while, to impair its tone, and gives rise to the distressing dyspeptic symptoms before alluded to. The child must be fed slowly; and, minding this precaution, the sucking-bottle may now be discontinued, and the spoon I used in its stead. But more full instructions upon all the foregoing points will be found in the ninth section of this chapter.

In about six weeks or two months after the artificial food has been in part commenced, it may he given, if necessary, more frequently-three or four times in twenty-four hours, and the breast of course less frequently. This will prepare the infant for

* See also Maternal Management of Children, pp. 64-70.

weaning, which, under these circumstances, when the time arrives, will be easily accomplished.

Such is the plan of nursing to be followed by the mother until the infant is weaned entirely from the breast. The period when this ought to take place, as also the manner of accomplishing it, are detailed in the sixth section of this chapter.

Sect. 4.-Rules for the Health of the Nursing Mother.

A careful attention on the part of the mother to her health is especially called for during nursing. Nourishing and digestible milk can be procured only from a healthy parent; and it is against common sense to expect that if a mother impairs her system by improper diet, want of sleep, neglect of exercise, and impure air, she can nevertheless provide as wholesome and uncontaminated a fluid for her child as if she were diligently attentive to these points. Every ailment of the nurse is liable to affect the suckling infant.

If good health has always been enjoyed, there should be no alteration in the diet: it should be the

same as before confinement. If the natural appetite increase, the extra demand must be met by an increase in that kind of food which is wholesome, nourishing, and simple in quality, and not in that which is of a rich and pampering description. Stimuli are to be avoided; and it will be well both for parent and child to adopt a barley-milk beverage. It is a very prevalent and most mischievous error to suppose that because a woman is nursing she ought therefore to live fully, and to add an allowance of wine, porter, or other fermented liquors to her usual diet. The only result of this plan is, to cause an unnatural degree of fullness

This

in the system, which places the nurse on the brink of disease, and which of itself frequently puts a stop to, instead of increasing, the secretion of milk. practice of taking fermented liquor generally commences in the lying-in room. The young mother is there told that it is essential to the production of a plentiful supply of good breast-milk. And, from a sense of duty, this course is adopted, however disagreeable, as it really is to many who submit to it. The advice, however well-meant, is not good advice, but frequently most mischievous. Malt liquor or wine is only useful to the woman who, possessing a healthy constitution, and a system free from disease, is rather delicate than robust; but who, nevertheless, with advantage to herself or without detriment to the child, may suckle. Such an individual may make a trial of wine, or of a pint of good sound ale or porter in the four-and-twenty hours; and if it is found to have a favourable effect upon her health, and not produce discomfort or disturbance to the system, it should be persevered in. But here, as in the former case, more good will result from the assiduous employment day by day of general measures, than from any stimuli. The bowels must be duly regulated; and if at any time an aperient is required, the selection is not unimportant. If it be desirable to act at the same time upon the infant's bowels, a saline purgative should be taken this, through its effect on the milk, will act on the child; if otherwise, a vegetable aperient should be chosen, as castor-oil, confection of senna, or five grains of the compound extract of colocynth, with two grains of the extract of henbane, to prevent its griping.

I need scarcely remind the nursing parent of the importance of attending to the state of the skin, and

of the invigorating effects of the tepid or salt-water shower-bath, taken every morning upon rising. If the latter cannot be borne, sponging the body with tepid or cold salt-water must be substituted. Exercise and fresh air are essential to the production of good and nourishing breast-milk, as they also contribute to increase the quantity secreted. No one can have seen much of practice in this metropolis, and not have been fully convinced of this fact. Wet or fine, if the mother be in good health, she should take the daily walk. The injurious influence of an indulgence in late hours night or morning, and the luxuries and dissipation of high life, will soon become manifest. Such habits not only lessen the mother's attention to her offspring, but really diminish her power of affording it nourishment; so that she is often a worse mother in these respects than the inhabitant of the meanest hovel.

A tranquil temper, and a happy cheerful disposition, tend greatly to promote the production of healthy milk. Indeed there is no secretion of the human body that exhibits so quickly the injurious influence of the depressing emotions as that of the breast. And, although we are not able at all times to detect by any agent we possess the changes which take place in the physical properties of this fluid, so delicate an apparatus for testing its qualities is the digestive system of the infant, that it will sometimes be instantly manifest that such changes have occurred, by the serious symptoms which arise. Fear has a powerful influence on this secretion-first changing its properties, and then frequently stopping the secretion altogether. A fretful temper will lessen the quantity of milk, make it thin and serous, and cause it to disturb the child's bowels,