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Thousands of lives are lost annually in this country
from absolute ignorance as to the proper feeding of
an infant, and too often when the doctor is called in,
he finds disease has got a firm hold, and that it is
almost hopeless to strive for a real and lasting
alteration in the mothers' system of rearing. Something
has been attempted, and with some measure of
success, but the future mothers of our race should,
as girls, get some instruction in their school days,
and I am sure it would be found to bear excellent
fruit in clue course.
The crusade against "bottle-fed" infants should
be pushed with the utmost vigour, and mothers
should be encouraged to perform their maternal
duties in all classes of life. Sir William Broadbent,
when recently speaking of the india-rubber tube for
feeding bottles, said "it was never sweet" and was
"infected with microbes," also that the so-called
comforter, a rubber teat constantly seen in the
mouths of infants, and frequently dipped into sugar,
glycerine, or the mother's mouth, was an "invention
of the devil"! The obvious difficulty against
keeping these rubber tubes clean has largely led to
their disuse, and the boat-shaped bottle, in cases
where hand feeding is absolutely necessary, is much
to be preferred.
Dr. Hope, Medical Officer of Health for Liverpool,
has shown that the incidence of death is no
less than 15 times greater amongst children under
three months of age, bottle fed, than amongst an
equal number who are breast fed.
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