The great desideratum, in devising an infant's formula for food, is to make it, until he be nine months old, to resemble as much as possible, a mother's own milk, and which my formula, as nearly as is practicable, does resemble hence its success and popularity.
As soon as a child begins to cut his teeth the case is altered, and farinaceous food, with milk and with water, becomes an absolute necessity.
I wish, then, to call your especial attention to the following-facts, for they are facts—Farinaceous foods, of all kinds, before a child commences cutting his teeth (which is when he is about six or seven months old) are worse than useless—they are, positively, injurious, they are, during the early period of infant life, perfectly indigestible, and may bring on—which they frequently do— convulsions. A babe fed on farinaceous food alone would certainly die of starvation, for, "up to six or seven months of age, infants have not the power of digesting farinaceous or fibrinous substances"—Dr Letheby on Food.
A babe's salivary glands, until he be six or seven months old, does not secrete its proper fluid—namely, ptyalin, and consequently the starch of the farinaceous food—and all farinaceous food contains starch—is not converted into dextrine and grape-sugar, and is, therefore, perfectly indigestible and useless—nay, injurious to an infant, and may bring on pain and convulsions, and even death, hence, the giving of farinaceous food, until a child be six or seven months old, is one and the principal cause of the frightful infant mortality at the present time existing in England, and which is a disgrace to any civilized land!
In passing, allow me to urge you never to stuff a babe—never to overload his little stomach with food, it is far more desirable to give him a little not enough, than to give him a little too much. Many a poor child has been, like a young bird, killed with stuffing. If a child be at the breast, and at the breast alone, there is no fear of his taking too much, but if he be brought up on artificial food, there is great fear of his over loading his stomach. Stuffing a child brings on vomiting and bowel-complaints, and a host of other diseases which now it would be tedious to enumerate. Let me, then, urge you on no account, to over load the stomach of a little child.
There will, then, in many cases, be quite sufficient nourishment in the above. I have known some robust infants brought up on it, and on it along, without a particle of farinaceous food, or of any other food, in any shape or form whatever. But if it should not agree with the child, or if there should not be sufficient nourishment in it, then the food recommended in answer to No. 34 question ought to be given, with this only difference—a little new milk must from the beginning be added, and should be gradually increased, until nearly all milk be used.
The milk, as a general rule, ought to be unboiled; but if it purge violently, or if it cause offensive motions—which it sometimes does—then it must be boiled. The moment the milk boils up, it should be taken off the fire.
Food ought for the first month to be given about every two hours; for the second month, about every three hours; lengthening the space of time as the baby advances in age. A mother must be careful not to over-feed a child, as over-feeding is a prolific source of disease.
Let it be thoroughly understood, and let there be no mistake about it, that a babe during the first nine months of his life, MUST have—it is absolutely necessary for his very existence—milk of some kind, as the staple and principal article of his diet, either mother's, wet-nurse's, or asses', or goats', or cow's milk.
37. How would you choose a wet-nurse?