I knew a lady whose infant of two weeks was taken suddenly ill while nursing. A doctor was sent for, and when he was informed by the mother that her milk was too rich for the babe, he at once advised her to wean it. What more, think you, could have been expected with a diet of soft boiled eggs for breakfast, custards for dinner, and wines or ales at night? Surely if women ask no questions of the doctors, no answers can be given. It does seem too bad to punish the child for the faults of the parent. Eggs, like fish, may act like sure poison to the milk of a nursing woman. The continued dry belly-ache or wind colic so much fretted over by old ladies in the past, was but a sequence of the custom of feeding lying-in women on wine custards. During the time of those baby afflictions it seldom entered the mind of either nurse or doctor what caused the almost universal three months’ “belly-ache” of infants. Articles that may not perceptibly affect the mother or wet-nurse, as the case may be, may prove certain death to the sucking babe.
Infants should never be obliged to lie over their accustomed hours of rising. If necessity demands this, however, there can be far more gained by taking up, cleaning, exercising, and giving them a fresh supply of food. It is not that too much sleep may be enjoyed, but that the condition in which it is taken should warrant the refreshment needed to build up the new being.
Soft bones, enlarged joints, inverted feet, flattened back-heads, sickening sores, dropsy, blindness, and numerous ills have befallen infants from the thoughtless practice of letting them lie too much in soiled clothes, and being insufficiently fed. In the matter of early rising, the farmer’s child has the advantage of the city child. In the country a babe is looked upon as one of the family, with rights that men are bound to respect; but in the city it is, “Wait dear, till Johnny comes home from school.”
There may appear small white scales or patches on the tongue and inner surface of the mouth. This is commonly called “thrush.” It is usually caused by too great heat, either of surroundings or diet. Sugar in large quantities will create it in some babes. This complaint _may_ run on to an alarming extent, but yields readily to mild treatment timely applied. It not unfrequently happens that, during the presence of apthæ in the mouth, the back passage becomes sore, or presents much the same appearance. The thrush is then said by old ladies to have gone through the child’s bowels. This can hardly be a fact, since the whole trouble disappears readily upon removing the cause.