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"Whenever he cries." All crying on the baby's part is interpreted
as due to hunger. The fact that the baby may cry through
inability to digest his last meal is not recognised; he is accordingly
put to the breast again, with the result that he cries still
more. After a time, in addition to an excess of breast-feeding,
the mother resorts to biscuits or breadsop "to pacify him." It
is quite usual to find the mother of a three or four weeks old baby,
giving, in addition to a plentiful supply of breast-milk, bread,
biscuits, or some other pernicious substance. These cases give
one considerable trouble. I always find that the best way to deal
with them is to make the mother demonstrate her error to herself.
Having assured her that the baby cannot starve, I ask her to try
the experiment of absolutely regular breast-feeding, and no
artificial food, whatever, for a few days. On re-visiting on the
appointed day, I almost invariably find that the experiment has
been honestly tried, that the baby is satisfied, and contented, and
that the mother is now persuaded that breast-milk alone is sufficient.
"I have no doubt whatever, that not only are a large number
of breast-fed babies given unnecessary artificial food, but many
are entirely weaned under the mistaken impression that the
mother's milk does not suit them, when all that was needed was
proper regularity in feeding, or possibly some attention to the
mother's health, to have enabled suckling to have been carried
on successfully for the normal period.
"With regard to the hand-fed child, the chief errors one finds
made are giving food wrong in kind (i.e., such substances as are
unfit for infants), and food right in kind, but improperly stored,
prepared, or administered; an example of this last is cow's milk,
which one not infrequently finds stored in uncleanly jugs, exposed
to flies and dust, mixed in the wrong proportions and administered
through a foul tube bottle. Apart from such an extreme instance
of the mis-management of cow's milk, there is no doubt whatever
that women of the poorer classes have great difficulty, not only in