The theory and practice of infant feeding, with notes on development, by Henry Dwight Chapin.

  • Chapin, Henry Dwight, 1857-1942.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The theory and practice of infant feeding, with notes on development, by Henry Dwight Chapin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    method of feeding come more from the care and cleanli- ness with which the milk is handled than from the minute changes in the percentages that are often advised; in- deed, analysis sometimes shows that these fine changes are more on paper than in the ingredients of the milk. It is well to think in percentages and be as exact as pos- sible in feeding a baby, but the problem has not thus been completely solved, when we are putting the milk of one species of animal into the stomach of another spe- cies having a different digestive apparatus. The greatest problem in the life of any animal is that of securing sufficient food. All forms of animal life de- mand the same ultimate food elements, so that really their great diversification is along the lines of methods and organs provided by nature for securing and digesting food. While the outward forms of animals are apparent to every casual observer, their digestive systems, which are hidden, are as much diversified as their more appar- ent shapes, and are as much adapted for the digestion of a particular food as the outward organs are for securing it. Hence the milk of each type of animal must be stud- ied from the standpoint of its special adaptation to the digestive tract for which it is ijitended: a hard curding milk is intended for a polygastric digestive tract that can- properly deal with it; a soft curding milk for a monogas- tric digestive tract. These differences assume the great- est importance when the milk of one species of animal is fed to another species. This subject will be carefully considered in the present work, as it has a direct practical bearing upon successful infant feeding. While percen- tage feeding and the physical differences in the same