Practical observations on the diet of infancy and childhood / by Thomas Herbert Barker.

  • Barker, T. Herbert (Thomas Herbert), 1814-1865.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on the diet of infancy and childhood / by Thomas Herbert Barker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    foster-mother in this respect must be carefully- watched and guarded against. To give solid food to an infant, when there is plenty of far superior food in the breast of a nurse is gross folly. The infant organs of digestion are suited to assimilate the only natural food—milk, while even the lightest farinaceous food may produce dyspepsia. Mauri- CEAU, a French accoucheur, has recorded the case of a healthy child which was fed, on the third day after birth, with bouillie, (or flour boiled in milk). The consequence was that the infant died under a severe attack of colic attended with convulsions. There can be no need of any artificial food, if during the first five or six months, the infant is applied to the breast at regular intervals of about three or four hours, by night as well as by day. The appetite of the child can be thus duly understood and satisfied by regularity of attention. A single ounce of milk, says Dr. Combe, well digested will nour- ish more than double the quantity when it oppresses the still feeble stomach.* The infant should not be confined to one breast; nor should it be allowed to sleep with the nipple in its mouth. The mother or nurse should carefully guard against the commence- ment of this bad habit—for should it become con- firmed it will materially abridge the period of sleep both of herself and the child, lead to undue repletion of the stomach of the latter, and to a long train of * A Treatise on the Pliysiological and Moral Management of Infancy.'' By Andrew Combe, M.D.