708 
^IZTHODS OF FEEDING INFANTS. 
There are three methods bv which infants may be fed : (a) Maternal 
nursing, (h) mixed feeding, part maternal and part artificial, and 
(c) artificial feeding exclusively. 
MATEEXAL XTESIXG. 
Importance of maternal nursing . — The importance of maternal 
nursing can not be overestimated. TTere mothers able universally to 
nurse their children, one-third to one-half of infant deaths would be 
exptmged from our mortality returns. 
The number of women capable of nursing their children is prob- 
ably greater than is supposed. Von Bunge's^ statistics, gathered 
from all parts of Europe, tend to show that probably 75 per cent of 
all women could nurse their children. I have already adverted to the 
German city of Barmen, where 63 per cent of all infants are fed at | 
the breast. Professor Budin's ® statistics of the Clinique Tarnier in 
Paris show that 448 out of 557 women who attended were able to 
nurse their children. The importance of maternal nursing is well 
recognized in France, both by the Government and by conmiercial in- 
terests. The effect of this encouragement upon public sentiment has 
been marked, and in some of the industrial districts of France where 
formerly the artificial feeding of infants was the rule it has now 
become the exception. 
In most of the factories of that country employing women, notices 
are conspicuously posted setting forth the advantages of maternal i 
nursing. In many of these establishments rooms are set apart , 
wherein mothers nurse their children, and they can always obtain i 
leave of absence at appropriate intervals for the purpose of suckling , 
their infants. 
In Italy a law has been passed compelling each industrial establish- 
ment employing 50 or more women to furnish rooms for this purpose. 
Causes preventive of maternal nursing . — Three causes are mainly 
operative in depriving infants of their right to the breast. First, 
physical inability on the mother's part to nurse her child: second, i 
inability on her part by reason of her engagement in some industrial j 
pursuit: and third, disinclination, chiefly by reason of the trouble 1 
maternal nursing involves and the divorce it necessarily entails from 
social pleasures and pursuits. 
Von Bunge has shown that apart from local *&nd systemic disease, 
alcoholism seems to be the chief cause, in any country as a whole, 
which renders mothers as a class unable to nurse their children. The 
® Von Bunge, Die zunehmende Dnfahigkeit der Frauen Ihrer Kinder zu stillen. i 
® Budin “ The Nursling.” - : 
