﻿INFANT FEEDING. 365 



age of the infant, probably not surpassed if it is equaled in any other 

 country. 



Mixed feeding is usually the first departure from exclusive breast 

 feeding; it is instituted early and continued as long as milk may be 

 obtained from the breast, or until long after the child should be weaned. 

 The only contraindication to breast feeding among the poorer classes is 

 the lack of milk; no cause for discontinuation being found in tuber- 

 culosis, in other infectious diseases or in pregnancy. The accessory 

 articles of diet in mixed feeding are very numerous, and the methods of 

 preparation and administration primitive, but as they are identical with 

 the ones administered in pure artificial feeding, their consideration will 

 be postponed until that heading is reached. 



Artificial feeding is rarely resorted to entirely so long as the breast 

 milk continues, but in most of the instances of mixed feeding the nourish- 

 ment which is taken is mainly from artificial sources, which will now be 

 discussed in detail. 



Milk is the most important of the articles of diet. That of cows, 

 goats, and carabaos is used and a large assortment of canned and condensed 

 milks is also employed. Other prepared foods of foreign manufacture 

 are given to a limited extend in addition to the different milks, and 

 homemade preparations in large variety make up the bulk of the infant 

 food among the poor people. Most of the latter articles are mixtures 

 of starch and sugar, prepared without proper regard to cleanliness, 

 and among these may be mentioned the rice sticks, made by boiling 

 rice and sugar until a glue is formed, which can be molded into a 

 stick to be sucked by the child. Potatoes, bananas and other fruits are 

 given at a very early age, and meat feeding is very frequently instituted 

 before the eruption of the temporary teeth. It is not an infrequent 

 occurrence at autopsies to find pieces of undigested meat in the stomachs 

 of four months' old children. Not only does the quality of the foods and 

 their indiscriminate use, regardless of the age of the child, bring 

 disaster, but the character and percentage of the diluents also contribute 

 very much to the bad results. Throughout the sad story — and this is 

 the pity of it — nothing but the ignorance of the people is to blame for 

 the results. 



C. THE FOREIGN MOTHER AND CHILD. 



In Manila the social customs are such that in general the foreign 

 woman neither cares so well for herself nor does she make as good a 

 mother as she would in her home country. Nevertheless, the children of 

 foreigners and of the educated class of Filipinos thrive, although sur- 

 rounded by the same climatic and other unavoidable evils which encom- 

 pass those of the ignorant classes. The infant mortality among foreign- 

 ers and wealthy natives compares favorably with that in other lands ; the 

 children are fairly strong and not overburdened with the diseases of 

 malnutrition so common in all countries. 



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