260 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



reveals the presence of the madder, save the remarkable effects on the 

 osseous tissues of mother and offspring. The doubt thus raised helps 

 to strengthen the idea that probably it was not through the milk, that 

 these little pigs received the coloring matter, but in some more direct 

 vvay. This doubt M. Flourens very wisely considered. He observed 

 that when the sow was admitted to her young ones, she had her snout 

 covered with the remains of the food in which she had plunged it, 

 and this the little ones began to lick greedily enough. Pie therefore 

 chose other animals with whom he could.be certain of no such possible 

 source of error. He chose white rats and rabbits. The rats are born 

 blind and naked ; they never eat during the first few days after birth, 

 they only suck ; and they quit the nest when between two and three 

 weeks old. Rabbits also are born blind and naked, and quit the nest 

 on the twenty-fifth or thirtieth day, and only suck at first. Here were 

 all the conditions for an unexceptionable experiment. M. Flourens 

 began to feed a rat with madder directly after she had produced her 

 young, and examining the young on the eleventh day, every part of their 

 osseous tissue was red. It was the same with rabbits on the ninth day. 

 He carefully examined, in each case, the mouth, throat, stomach, and 

 intestines of these animals, without finding a trace of the madder. 



The conclusion is inevitable. The milk of the mother affects the 

 organism of the child, and whatever the mother eats or drinks affects 

 her milk. It has long been known, that medicines administered to the 

 nurse affect the nursling, that if the nurse indulge in alcohol, the 

 nursling suffers for it. But it is now clear that influences less obvious 



^j 



than these, influences which do not betray themselves by such easily 

 recognized effects, must also affect the milk, and through the milk, the 

 nursling. Although the organism, by its marvellous chemistry, trans- 

 mutes the most various substances of food into the few organic com- 

 pounds, assimilating them, as we say, so that the herbage of the mea- 

 dow is converted into bone, muscle, membrane, and nerve, not distin- 

 guishable from those got out of beef-steak, there are, nevertheless, 

 very many substances which resist this transmutaiton, which cannot be 

 assimilated, and which act, therefore, for good or evil, like strange 

 bodies. 



MENTAL CONDITION OF BABIES. 



A writer in the Cornliill Magazine, (May, 1863,) after discussing at 

 some length the interesting question, " What is the mental condition 

 of very young infants ? " considers that the following conclusions are 

 substantiated by recent scientific experiment and investigation. He 

 says, " We cannot escape the conclusion that, from the first, a baby 

 manifests the special sensibilities which are, as it were, the pabulum of 

 the mind, and through which it gains its knowledge of the external 

 world. Not only are the senses active, but desire, will, and expres- 

 sion, also manifest themselves, and all these are manifested in such vary- 

 ing degrees as to indicate marked individuality in several infants. Thus 

 far science leads us. If we wish to penetrate further, and learn the 

 condition of the " higher faculties," we are left without our experimen- 

 tal guide, and must rely on inference. Up to this point we have had 

 some means of testing our inferences. The organs of sense, when 

 stimulated, respond in the baby very much as in the adult. The 



