NURSING.
A child must not be put to the breast, if the mother’s health is very poor, or if she has any venereal, scrofulous, consumptive taint, or herpetic disease, St. Anthony’s fire, &c. We have conversed with females who are subject to the last complaint, and who have communicated it to their children, which destroyed them all. The poison is transmitted from the mother to the child. In any of these cases, the infant must be reared on the nursing bottle. It is best to use cream instead of milk; the child thrives well upon it, less quantity answers, and it does not curdle, like milk, upon the stomach.
Atrophy from Suckling.—Some women of a delicate constitution cannot suckle long without an evident appearance of declining health; and, if persisted in, it might terminate in a general wasting of the body and loss of strength, or some morbid affection of the lungs. When, therefore, a woman finds her health declining, and that she gets weaker every day with loss of appetite and languor, she ought immediately to leave off suckling; she should use a generous diet, with a moderate quantity of wine bitters daily, and, if convenient, change the air, particularly if an inhabitant of a large and populous city or town. If the change is not found sufficiently efficacious of itself, when conjoined with a restorative diet, a course of tonics should be given. Gentle exercise on horseback or in a carriage will greatly assist the effect of these remedies.