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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    HOW TO APPROACH THE SUBJECT OF INFANT FEEDING. I. Any one called on to feed an infant during the period it is normally nourished by its mother has a great respon- sibihty thrust upon him and one not to be assumed lightly or without preparation. Too many are satisfied when something that is retained in the stomach and causes a gain in weight is found, no thought being given to whether the food contains material out of which healthy tissue can be formed. It has often been stated that an artificial food for in- fants should contain nothing that is not found in mother's milk, and that it should contain just what is found in mother's milk. To prove the suitability of various substi- tutes for mother's milk chemical analyses of both have been published, to show how closely the substitutes ap- proximate mother's milk. At first sight this seems a ra- tional procedure, but when it is remembered that there is no difference between a diamond and a piece of charcoal chemically, and that mixtures of butter, cheese, sugar, salts, and water, or of beef suet, raw beef, sugar, salts, and water, can be made which when analyzed by the usual methods will show the same composition as mother's milk, the fallacy of judging the suitability of a food for an infant, or for an adult for that matter, by its chemical