the tube in the
infant's mouth, and either takes no further trouble or occupies herself
with something else. And yet, obvious though this is, how constantly one
sees infants taken about in the perambulator with the feeding-bottle
wrapped up and laid by its side, because it is said the child always
cries when it is not sucking, and the intelligence and the common sense
are wanting, as well as the patient love, that would strive to make out
which it is of many possible causes that makes the infant cry. One more
observation with reference to bottle-feeding may not be out of place. It
is this: that no food be left in the bottle after the child has had its
meal, but that it should be emptied, washed out with a little warm water
and soda, and it and the india-rubber end should be kept in water till
again needed. To insure the most perfect cleanliness it is always well
to have two bottles in use, and to employ them alternately.

How strictly soever an infant may be kept at the breast, or however
exactly the precautions on which I have insisted are observed, sickness,
constipation, or diarrh[oe]a may occur, causing much anxiety to the
parents, and giving much trouble to the doctor.

It sometimes happens, without its being possible to assign for it any
sufficient reason, that the mother's milk disagrees with her infant, or
entirely fails to nourish it, so that, much against her will, she is
compelled to give up suckling it. In some instances this is due to
errors in diet, to the neglect of those rules the observance of which is
essential to health, as proper exercise for instance; and then the
secretion is usually deficient in quantity as well as defective in its
composition. In such cases the child often vomits soon after sucking, it
suffers from stomach-ache, its motions are very sour, of the consistence
of putty, and either green, or become so soon after being passed,
instead of presenting the bright yellow colour and semi-fluid
consistence of the evacuations of the healthy infant, and sometimes they
are also lumpy from the presence of masses of undigested curd. In
addition, also, the child is troubled with griping, which makes it cry;
its breath is sour, or actually offensive, and the tongue is much whiter
than it should be, though it must be remembered that the tongue of the
sucking child always has a very slight coating of whitish mucus, and is
neither as red nor as perfectly free from all coating as it becomes in
the pe