The fecula of narcotic plants for medicinal purposes is obtained by allowing the expressed
juice to repose for 24 hours, and then decanting the clear portion, and drying the residue. Sometimes heat is employed. See Arrow-root, Starch, &c.
FEEDING BOTTLES. We extract from ‘The Sanitary Record’ the following valuable paper on ‘Feeding Bottles,’ by Dr Eustace Smith, assistant-physician to the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, and Physician to the East London Hospital for Children:—“In the artificial rearing of infants it is of importance that food should be given to them from a feeding-bottle. By this means the natural method of taking nourishment is imitated; the muscles of the mouth and cheeks are brought into play; and the secretion of saliva—a secretion which, very scanty at birth, becomes gradually more copious and takes so active a part in digestion—is encouraged and increased.
“Almost all babies will take their food more readily by this method, their instinct teaching them to suck everything that is put into their mouths. Even in cases where a deficiency in the hard palate presents so great an obstacle to sucking, on account of the impossibility of creating the necessary vacuum in the mouth, the difficulty can be overcome by a simple mechanical contrivance. Therefore, in every case of hand-feeding, a suitable bottle is the first thing to be desired.
“To be satisfactory a feeding-bottle must fulfil three indispensable conditions: it must be simple in construction and easily manageable; it must be capable of being readily cleaned; and in its use the milk must flow easily and without great effort on the part of the infant. The ordinary feeder in use at the present time consists of a flattened glass flask, closed at the mouth by a cap, which fits over the neck. A caoutchouc tube passes through the cap, and is connected inside the bottle with a straight glass pipe. The other end of the elastic tube is attached to the teat, or mouth-piece, by means of a short hollow cylinder called the ‘union-joint.’ The teat is firmly fixed to this by means of the shield. In the construction of the cap and union-joint, metal, earthenware, or wood, is employed. The metal used by the best makers is tin, and this, if cleanliness be properly attended to, is not objectionable. In cheaper bottles, sold in the shops for sixpence, the mouth is closed by a perforated cork, through which the flexible tube passes. Here there is no cap, but in all essential points the construction is the same as in the more expensive articles.
“In this apparatus it is important that the channel through the tubes should be perfectly free. The point at which the channel is narrowest is the union-joint, which connects the mouth-piece with the flexible tube. In a badly made bottle an impediment may exist at this point from carelessness in the manufacture, and may present a great obstacle to the ready passage of the fluid. Care also should be taken that the flexible tube passes completely through the cap, before it becomes connected with the glass pipe. This is very important. In the early feeding-bottles constructed upon this model by O′Connel, the glass pipe passed from within the bottle through the cap, and was attached outside this to the caoutchouc tube. It was thus held rigidly in the centre of the bottle, and as a natural consequence, when the apparatus was in use, unless the bottle was held upright during the whole meal, long before its contents were exhausted the milk ceased to flow, as the end of the pipe soon came to be above the surface of the fluid, which necessarily gravitated to the lowest part as the bottle lay on its side.
“When, however, the connection between the two tubes is made within instead of outside the bottle, this disadvantage no longer exists, for the glass tube being free to move, its end is able to sink to whichever side of the bottle is undermost, and therefore always remains below the level of the fluid. The best bottles have a small cylindrical stop, i.e. a thick ring of metal or wood placed within the flexible tube, just above its junction with the glass pipe. The object of this is to prevent the latter being drawn through the cap, and thus held rigidly in the centre of the bottle.
“The method of connection of the cap with the neck of the bottle is not unimportant. It should not be too tight or air will be prevented from entering the bottle to supply the place of the milk which is withdrawn. A common plan is to line the interior of the cap with cork, but this substance, besides its risk of being broken and detached by careless handling, has the further disadvantage of absorbing milk, which turns sour and may afterwards set up fermentation in fresh milk put into the bottle for a subsequent meal. In the best bottles the cap is constructed to screw on to the neck, as in the ‘Alexandra’ Feeding bottle made by the Messrs Maw; or is united to it by an application of the ‘bayonet catch,’ as in the ‘Improved’ feeding-bottle made by Messrs Lynch and Son. In this very admirable apparatus three grooves in the inside of the cap pass over corresponding projections on the neck of the bottle; the cap is then turned to the right, with a slight screwing motion, and becomes securely fastened.
“With badly made bottles infants often have very great difficulty in drawing up the milk, and can only do so by violent efforts, which soon exhaust their strength or their patience. There are two reasons why milk in these cases may not flow easily—either the cap fits too tightly, so that air cannot enter with sufficient facility in proportion as the liquid contents become diminished, as has just been mentioned; or the caoutchouc forming the flexible tube is too thin, so that it collapses when suction is applied. In the first case a small hole should be made through the cap, so as to allow a free admission of air, or if the
bottle be a simpler one, closed at the mouth by a perforated cork, this may be slightly eased at the neck of the bottle, so as to fit less closely. In the second case, stouter caoutchouc should be used in the construction of the tube. In weakly infants, or those much reduced in strength by acute disease, special attention should be paid to these points, as such children will often refuse to take the bottle, if they find any difficulty in drawing up the milk.