known; but I suspect that the great mortality which has been recorded as
occurring from this source is not inseparable from the practice itself,
but arises mainly from the improper manner in which it is usually
conducted. When it is determined to bring up an infant by hand, the
substitute offered for the mother's milk should as nearly as possible
resemble that fluid; and the child should be constrained to imbibe it in
_the same manner as_ it would _the milk from the maternal breast_; that
is, it should be _sucked_ from a bottle contrived for that purpose,
instead of the child being gorged with it, by means of a large spoon, or
some other equally improper instrument, as is the usual custom. It is a
fact too palpable to be questioned, that the food generally given to
infants brought up by hand is not only administered in an improper
manner, but is also of an improper quality; their tender stomachs are
daily overloaded with _solid_ instead of _liquid_ aliment, and hence
arises the numerous train of evils which, in my opinion, produce the
great mortality just referred to.

CHAPTER II.

_On Lactation, and the Disorders frequently produced in Women by that
process._

There can be no doubt that, speaking generally, a mother is bound to
suckle her children, and that the performance of this duty is no less
conducive to her own health than to the moral and physical welfare of
her offspring; yet there is not a more unfounded doctrine than that
which presumes every woman who is willing to be also capable of
advantageously discharging the important office of a nurse.

If the mother enjoy good health, and the process be not continued too
long, it is likely to produce beneficial effects both in herself and her
infant; but if she be of a very delicate habit--labour under any
dangerous disease--be subject during the period of lactation to great
affliction, or constant mental inquietude--or should the periodical
appearance return, pregnancy occur, or suckling be continued too long,
it may not only prove highly detrimental to herself, but may be the
means of occasioning serious or fatal consequences to her child.

In cases of extreme delicacy of constitution, lactation will often
produce the worst effects. Many young ladies, on becoming mothers, are
incapable of supporting the constant drain to which the wants of their
infants subject them--they lose their good looks, become gradually
weaker, and as their strength declines,