Memoirs of Erasmus Darmitf M, D, ill 



the north window of his house, he observed, that those iu 

 the colder situation hved many (hiys longer than those in 

 the warmer one. From these observations it appears, that 

 the wearing of flannel clothing next the skin, whi<:h is now 

 so much in fashion, however useful it may be in the winter 

 to those who have cold extremities, bad digestions, or ha- 

 bitual coughs, must greatly debilitate them, if worn in the 

 warm months, producing fevers, eruptions, and premature 

 old age." 



He makes the following ingenious and unfortunately too 

 true observations respecting the diarrhoea infantum, gripes 

 in infants : 



" Milk is found curdled in the stomachs of all animals, old 

 as well as young, and even ot carnivorous ones, as of havvkft 

 (Spallanzani). And it is the gastric juice of the calf which 

 is employed to curdle milk in the process of making cheese. 

 Milk is the natural food for children, and must curdle in 

 their stomachs previous to digestion ; and as this curdling 

 of the milk destroys a part of the acid juices of the stomach, 

 there is no reasfon for discontinuing the use of it, though it 

 is occasionally ejected in a curdled stale. A child of a 

 week old, which had been taken from the breast of its dying 

 mother, and had by some uncommon error been suffered to 

 take no food but water gruel, became sick and griped iu 

 twenty-four hours, and was convulsed on the second day, 

 at)d died on the third ! When all young quadrupeds, as 

 well as children, have this natural food of n)ilk prepared 

 for them, the analogy is so strong in favour of its salubrity, 

 that a person should have powerful testinxjny indeed of its 

 disagreeing, before he advises the discontinuance of the use 

 of it to young children in health, and much more so iu 

 svckness. The farmers lose many of iheir calves, which arc 

 brought up by grud, or gruel and old milk ; and among 

 the poor children of Derby, who are thus fed, hundreds are 

 Carved Into the scrophula, and either perish, or live in a 

 state of wretched debility. 



*' When young children are brought up without a breast, 

 they should for the first two months have no food but new 

 Hiilk 3 since the addition of any kind of bread or floiar is 



liable 



