France generally. Corresponding results have been found by
Friedjung in a large German athletic association. Among 155
members, 65 per cent. were found on inquiry to have been
breast-fed as infants (for an average of six months); but among
the best athletes the percentage of breast-fed rose to 72 per
cent. (for an average period of nine or ten months), while for
the group of 56 who stood lowest in athletic power the percentage
of breast-fed fell to 57 (for an average of only three months).

The advantages for an infant of being suckled by its mother are
greater than can be accounted for by the mere fact of being
suckled rather than hand-fed. This has been shown by Vitrey (_De
la Mortalite Infantile_, These de Lyon, 1907), who found from the
statistics of the Hotel-Dieu at Lyons, that infants suckled by
their mothers have a mortality of only 12 per cent., but if
suckled by strangers, the mortality rises to 33 per cent. It may
be added that, while suckling is essential to the complete
well-being of the child, it is highly desirable for the sake of
the mother's health also. (Some important statistics are
summarized in a paper on "Infantile Mortality" in _British
Medical Journal_, Nov. 2, 1907), while the various aspects of
suckling have been thoroughly discussed by Bollinger, "Ueber
Saeuglings-Sterblichkeit und die Erbliche functionelle Atrophie
der menschlichen Milchdruese" (_Correspondenzblatt Deutschen
Gesellschaft Anthropologie_, Oct., 1899).

It appears that in Sweden, in the middle of the eighteenth
century, it was a punishable offense for a woman to give her baby
the bottle when she was able to suckle it. In recent years Prof.
Anton von Menger, of Vienna, has argued (in his _Burgerliche
Recht und die Besitzlosen Klassen_) that the future generation
has the right to make this claim, and he proposes that every
mother shall be legally bound to suckle her child unless her
inability to do so has been certified by a physician. E.A.
Schroeder (_Das Recht in der Geschlechtlichen Ordnung_, 1893, p.
346) also argued that a mother should be legally bound to suckle
her infant for at least nine months, unless solid grounds could
be shown to the contrary, and this demand, which seems reasonable
and natural, since it is a mother's privilege as well as her duty
to suckle her infa