Buffon's Natural History, Volume 03 (of 10) / Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c.

by comte de Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon

OF INFANCY.

Nothing can give us a more striking idea of imbecility, than the condition in which an infant appears on its first entrance into the world. Incapable of making use of its organs, or senses, the infant is in want of every assistance. It is an image of pain and misery; it is more helpless than the young of any other animal; it seems as if every moment would finish its doubtful existence; it can neither move nor support itself; hardly has it strength enough to exist or announce, by its cries, the sufferings it experiences; as if nature chose to apprise it, that it was born to suffer, and that it has obtained a place among the human species to partake of its infirmities and sorrows.

Let us not disdain to consider that state through which we have all passed; let us view human kind in the cradle; let us enquire by what degrees this delicate machine, this new-born and hardly existing body, acquires motion, consistency, and strength.

The infant at its birth comes from one element into another. On emerging from its watery residence in the womb, it becomes exposed to the air, and instantly experiences the impressions of that active fluid. The air acts upon the olfactory nerves and upon the organs of respiration, and thereby produces a shock, a kind of sneezing which expands the chest, and allows the air a passage into the lungs; the vesicles of which it dilates, and the air remaining for some time becomes warm and rarified to a certain degree; after which this spring of the fibres thus dilated re-acts upon this light fluid, and expels it from the lungs. Instead of undertaking to explain the causes of the alternate motion of respiration, we shall confine ourselves to an elucidation of its effects. This function is essential to the existence of man and of several species of animals. It is by respiration that life is preserved; and when it is once begun, it never ceases till death. Yet there is reason to believe that the foramen ovale is not closed immediately after the birth; and of consequence a part of the blood may continue to pass through that aperture. All the blood cannot, therefore, at first have a communication with the lungs; and it is probable a new-born child might sustain a privation of air for a considerable time without losing its existence. Or at least the possibility of this, I once seemingly confirmed fey an experiment upon some young dogs. I put a pregnant bitch, of the large greyhound species, just as she was about to litter, into a tub filled with warm water, where after fastening her in such a manner that the lower parts were covered with some water, she brought forth three puppies, which were accordingly received into a liquid as warm as they had left. After washing them in this water, I removed the puppies, without giving them time to breathe, into a smaller tub filled with warm milk; I chose milk in order that they might receive nourishment if they required it. In this milk they were kept immersed above half an hour: and when taken out they were all found alive. They began to breathe, and to discharge some moisture by the mouth. Having allowed them to respire for half an hour, I again put them into warm milk, and left them a second half-hour; at the expiration of which two of them were taken out vigorous and seemingly no wise incommoded, but the third appeared rather in a languishing state; this I caused to be carried to the mother, which by this time had produced, in the natural way, six other puppies; and though it had been brought forth in water and had lived in milk one half hour before, and another after it had breathed, it yet received so little injury from the experiment, that it presently recovered and was as strong and lively as the rest of the litter. After allowing the other two about an hour to breathe, I put them once more into the warm milk, in which they remained another half hour. Whether they swallowed any of this liquor or not is uncertain; but on being taken out they appeared nearly as vigorous as ever. After being carried to the mother, however, one died the same day; but whether by any accident, or by what it had suffered while immersed in the liquid, and deprived of air, I could not determine. The other lived, as well as the first, and both throve equally with those which had not gone through the same trials. This experiment I never carried farther; but I saw enough to convince me that respiration is less necessary to a new-born, than to a grown animal; and that it might be possible, with proper precautions, to keep the foramen ovale from being closed, and thus produce excellent divers, and different kinds of amphibious animals, which might live equally in air or in water.

The air, on its first admission into the lungs, generally meets with some obstacle, occasioned by a liquid collected in the wind-pipe. This obstacle is more or less great, in proportion as the liquid is more or less viscous. At its birth, however, the infant raises its head, which before reclined on its breast, and by this movement the canal of the wind-pipe is lengthened, the air obtains a place, and forces the liquid into the lungs: and by dilating the bronchia, it distributes over their coats the mucous substance which opposes its passage. The superfluity of this moisture is presently dried up by the renewal of the air; or, if the infant is incommoded by it, it coughs, and at length relieves itself by expectoration, which, as it has not yet the strength to spit, is seen to flow from the mouth.

As we remember nothing of what happened to us at this period, it is impossible to determine what feelings the impression of air produces in a new-born infant. Its cries, however, the instant it first draws breath, are pretty certain signs of the pain it feels from the action of the air. Till the moment of its birth, the infant is accustomed to the mild warmth of a tranquil liquid; and we may suppose, that the action of a fluid, whose temperature is unequal, gives too violent a shock to the delicate fibres of its body. By warmth and by cold it seems to be equally affected; in every situation it complains, and pain appears to be its first, its only sensation.

For some days after they are brought into the world, most animals have their eye-lids closed. Infants open them the moment of their birth, but they are fixed and dull; they want that lustre which they afterwards acquire; and when they move, it is rather an accidental roll than an act of vision. The pupil of the eye is seen to dilate, or contract, in proportion to the quantity of light it receives, yet is incapable of distinguishing objects, because the organs of vision are still imperfect; the tunica cornea, or horny tunicle is wrinkled, and perhaps the retina is also too soft to receive the images of external objects, and admit the sense of seeing.

The same remark is equally applicable to the other senses; they have not acquired that consistency which is necessary to their operations; and even when they have, a long time must elapse before the sensations of the infant can be just and complete. The senses are so many instruments which we must learn to employ. Of these sight, which seems to be the noblest and the most admirable, is also the most uncertain and delusive; and were its effects not every moment corrected by the testimony of touching we should constantly be misled and draw false conclusions. This sense of touching is the measure and criterion of all the others; it alone is essential to the animal's existence; and is alone diffused universally over its body. Yet, even this sense, in an infant just born, is imperfect; by its cries, indeed, it gives indication of pain; but it has no expression to denote pleasure. It is forty days before it begins to smile; about the same time also it begins to weep; its former expressions of pain being unaccompanied with tears. On the countenance of a new born infant there appears no vestige of the passions, the features of the face not having acquired that consistence and form which are necessary for expressing the sentiments of the soul. All the other parts of its body are alike feeble and delicate; its motions are unsteady and uncertain; it is unable to stand upright; its legs and thighs are still bent, from the habit it contracted in the womb; it has not strength enough to stretch forth its arms or to grasp any thing with its hands; and, if abandoned, it would remain on its back, without being able to turn itself.

From all which it appears, that the pain felt by infants soon after their birth, and which they express by crying, is a sensation merely corporeal, similar to that of other animals, who also cry the minute they are brought forth; as also, that the mental sensations do not begin to manifest themselves till forty days have elapsed; smiling and weeping being produced by two internal sensations, which both depend on the action of the mind. The former is the effect of an agreeable emotion, which can only arise from the sight, or resemblance of an object known, beloved, and desired; the latter is that of a disagreeable impression, compounded of sympathy, and anxious concern for ourselves; both imply a certain degree of knowledge, as well as an ability to compare, and to reflect. Smiles and tears, therefore, are signs peculiar to the human species, for expressing mental pleasure or pain; while cries, and the other signs of bodily pain and pleasure, are common to man, and to the greatest part of the animal creation.

But let us return to the material organs and affections of the body. The size of an infant born at the full time, is usually about twenty-one inches; this is not without exception, some falling short of and others exceeding this measurement. In children of twenty-one inches, the breast, measured by the length of the sternum, is nearly three inches; and in those of fourteen, only two inches. At nine months, the fœtus generally weighs from twelve to fourteen pounds. The head is large in proportion to the rest of the body; but this disproportion gradually wears off as the size of the child increases. Its skin is very soft, and from its transparency, by which the blood beneath appears, it is also of a reddish cast. It is even pretended, that those children whose skins are the most red when born, will afterwards be the fairest, and the most beautiful.