[1]. Observations on the Duties and Offices of a Physician.
[2]. Arbuthnot.
[3]. Many advantages would arise to society, as well as to individuals, from mothers suckling their own children. It would prevent the temptation which poor women are laid under of abandoning their children to suckle those of the rich for the sake of gain: by which means society loses many of its most useful members, and mothers become in some sense the murderers of their own offspring. I am sure I speak within the truth when I say, that not one in twenty of those children live, who are thus abandoned by their mothers. For this reason no mother should be allowed to suckle another’s child, till her own is either dead, or fit to be weaned. A regulation of this kind would save many lives among the poorer sort, and could do no hurt to the rich, as most women who make good nurses are able to suckle two children in succession upon the same milk.
[4]. Tacitus, the celebrated Roman historian, complains greatly of the degeneracy of the Roman ladies in his time, with regard to the care of their offspring. He says that, in former times, the greatest women in Rome used to account it their chief glory to keep the house and attend their children; but that now the young infant was committed to the sole care of some poor Grecian wench, or other menial servant.—We are afraid, wherever luxury and effeminacy prevail, there will be too much ground for this complaint.
[5]. The common opinion, that the diseases of infants are hard to discover and difficult to cure, has deterred many physicians from paying that attention to them which they deserve. I can, however, from experience declare, that this opinion is without foundation; and that the diseases of infants are neither so difficult to discover, nor so ill to cure, as those of adults.
[6]. Rousseau.
[7]. The Lacedemonians condemned their king Archidamus for having married a weak, puny woman; because, said they, instead of propagating a race of heroes, you will fill the throne with a progeny of changelings.
[8]. The Jews, by their laws, were, in certain cases, forbid to have any manner of commerce with the diseased; and indeed to this all wise legislators ought to have a special regard. In some countries, diseased persons have actually been forbid to marry. This is an evil of a complicated kind, a natural deformity, and political mischief; and therefore requires a public consideration.
[9]. A friend of mine, who was several years on the coast of Africa, tells me, that the natives neither put any clothes upon their children, nor apply to their bodies bandages of any kind, but lay them on a pallet, and suffer them to tumble about at pleasure; yet they are all strait, and seldom have any disease.