53 



milk than fat nurses. Not much value should be attached to the 

 color of the hair. A good healthy appearance and a happy dispo- 

 sition are of far greater importance. 



2. The age : "Women of the age of 20 to 30 years furnish 

 generally the best milk. 



3. The question of food, as regards its influence upon the 

 milk, should be considered from various points. Unaccustomed 

 but good food, taken for the purpose of exerting an influence upon 

 the secretion of milk, has rarely accomplished what has been ex- 

 pected, i. e., the secretion of better and richer milk. Different it is 

 with animals, where a change in the food, from vegetable to an- 

 imal diet, for instance, is at once followed by decided changes in 

 the composition of milk. 



If, however, the consumption of food is below the normal, and 

 insufficient for the wants of infant and mother, either the one or 

 the other must suffer. 



4. Menstruation : The influence of menstruation upon the se- 

 cretion of milk has long been overestimated. Even physicians con- 

 sider it their duty to forbid the continuance of nursing on its 

 recurrence. The examinations of Vernois and Becquerel have 

 proved that such milk is richer in salts, albuminates and fat, and is, 

 therefore, better. Only the quantity of the secretion is diminished. 



5. Pregnancy: The continuance of nursing after the mother 

 has again become pregnant is accompanied by grave consequences. 

 Not only the mother and the child which she bears suffer, in conse- 

 quence of the greater demands made upon the mother, but also the 

 infant, whose supply of milk may be greatly diminished, if it does 

 not fail altogether. An additional danger to the nursing child has also 

 been found in the fact that such milk is apt to pass again through 

 the stage where colostrum is the natural secretion (Bouchut). 

 According to Davis' examinations, the solids which the milk con- 

 tains are, with progressing pregnancy, gradually diminished, es- 

 pecially so the albuminates, fat and sugar. 



6. The milk in various periods after bii'th is not equal in its 

 composition. The first milk obtained at any one time from the 

 breasts is generally thinner, while the last is the richest. A few 

 days after birth the breasts yield colostrum, containing as yet gran- 

 ulated corpuscles, ' mucus and groups of butter globules. The 



