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Overfeeding is almost as common as underfeeding'. Mothers
who breast-feed their children, give them boiled bread or cow's
milk as well, because the infant "does not seem to be satisfied,"
or because they think "he does not get enough at one whack."
the results to the child are disastrous. His tiny stomach becomes
overloaded and distended. He vomits and wastes.
The practice of drinking stout "to make milk" is very common
A mother stated that to give the baby sufficient nourishment,
she should have 2 pints of stout and 2 pints of ale a day.
"Stout made the milk, and ale put it in the breast." When a
mother really has insufficient breast milk, she endeavours to
make up for the deficiency by giving the infant boiled bread or
barley water, or both. The use of supplementary feeds of cow's
milk is not popular for the alleged reason that "cow's milk and
breast milk will not mix." And sometimes when a mother has
been induced to give supplementary feeds of cow's milk, a young
hospital student with little knowledge and less experience has
been known to wrongly advise her to give up breast-feeding
entirely and to start artificial feeding.
The use of boiled bread, "pobs," or "sop," for infant feeding
is extremely common. It is traditional in the borough and is
encouraged by obstinate grandmothers who "have brought up
and buried more children than their daughters ever had."
This feeding with boiled bread is probably responsible for much
of the malnutrition observed in the pasty, sallow, pinched, muddycomplexioned,
ricketty children of mean streets.
Barley water is possibly even more popular than boiled bread
and is much ordered by medical men, who probably have never
seen the thick grumous mucilage, almost of the consistency of
glue, which the mothers make with dirty hands in filthy utensils
and which they call barley water. As made in Finsbury, barley
water is probably responsible for many infant deaths every year.
The mothers make it far too thick; they do not wash their hands
before making it. It is made in a dirty glass, cup, or jug which
may contain the dregs of a little stout, or may have been fouled
by Hies or animals. There are two other very important reasons
for condemning the use of barley water. In recent years, barley