O F I N F A N C Y. 379 



yet much fewer of them die of child-bearing 

 than in other countries, where a pradice of this 

 kind would be regarded as extremely dangerous. 



Infants, a few minutes after birth, and gene- 

 rally after feeling the heat of a fire, difcharge 

 urine, and likewife the meconium- or excrement 

 which had been formed in the inteftines during 

 their abode in the womb. But this laft evacu- 

 ation does not always happen fo foon ; and, 

 when it is retarded during the firft day, the 

 child is often afieded with cholic pains ; the dif- 

 charge muft, therefore, be promoted by proper 

 remedies. The meconium is black, and, when 

 entirely purged off, the flools are of a whitifh 

 colour. This change generally happens on the 

 fecond or third day. The odour of the excre- 

 ment becomes then more offenfive than that of 

 the meconium ; which is a proof that the bile, 

 and other bitter humours of the body, begin to 

 be mixed with the faeces. 



This obfervation fcems to confirm what was 

 formerly advanced concerning the growth and 

 nourilhmcnt of the foetus. We then remarked, 

 that the foetus was nourifhed by abforption, 

 and that it received no food by the mouth. This 

 change in the odour of the excrement is a proof 

 that the ftomach and inteftines of the foetus have 

 no adion, or, at leaft, that they ad not in the 

 fame manner, as after the motions communica- 

 ted to ihem by refpiration ; fince it is only after 

 this period that digcllion, and the mixture of 



the 



