INFANCY. 137 



taste any other food. The Canadian savages nurse their chil- 

 dren four or five years, and sometimes six or seven. In cases 

 of necessity, the milk of quadrupeds may supply that of the 

 mother. But, in such cases, it is best the child should draw 

 it from the animal ; for the degree of heat is always uniform 

 and proper, and the milk, by the action of the muscles, is 

 mixed with the saliva, which is a great promoter of digestion. 

 Several robust peasants have been known to have had no other 

 nurses than ewes. After two or three months, children may 

 be gradually accustomed to food somewhat more solid than 

 milk. Before the teeth shoot through the gums, infants are 

 incapable of mastication. During that period, therefore, it is 

 obvious that Nature intended they should be nourished solely 

 by soft substances. But after they are furnished with teeth, 

 it is equally obvious that they should occasionally be allowed 

 food of a more solid texture. 



The lives of children, during the first three or four years, 

 are extremely precarious. After that period, their existence 

 becomes gradually more certain. According to Simpson's 

 tables of the degrees of mortality in London at different ages, 

 it appears, that, of a certain number of infants brought forth 

 at the same time, more than a fourth part died the first year, 

 more than a third in two years, and at least one half at the 

 end of the third year. But the mortality of children is not 

 nearly so great in every place ; for, by a number of obser- 

 vations made in^France, it has been shown, that one half of 

 the children born at the same time are not extinct in less than 

 seven or eight years. 



To treat of the diseases of children, or to enter minutely 

 into the causes which contribute to the great mortality of 

 mankind in early infancy, is no part of our plan. In general, 

 these causes are to be referred to unnatural practices in the 

 management of children, introduced by superstition, by igno- 

 rance, and by foolish notions arising from over-refinement, 

 from prejudice, and from hypothetical systems, while the 

 economy and analogy of Nature, in the conduct and situation 

 of the inferior animals, are almost totally neglected. An 

 infant is no sooner brought into the world, than it is cram- 

 med with physic. Nature's medicine for cleansing the bow- 

 els of infants is the milk of the mother. But nurses absurdly 

 imagine that drugs will answer this purpose much better. 

 All other animals that give suck, nurse their own offspring; 

 but we too frequently delegate this tender and endearing 

 office to strange women, whose constitutions, habits of life, 

 12* 



