AMNovUi;i8H72RM'}  Use  of  Pepsin  Wine  in  Feeding  Infants.  491 
ON  THE  USB  OF  PEPSIN  WINE  IN  THE  ARTIFICIAL  FEEDING 
OF  INFANTS. 
Dr.  W.  Jackson  Cummins  made  an  interesting  communication  on 
this  subject  to  the  Cork  Pathological  and  Medico-Chirurgical  Society. 
"  The  value  of  Pepsin,"  he  remarked,  "in  those  forms  of  dyspepsia 
attended  by  a  deficient  secretion  of  gastric  juice,  is  so  well  known  and 
generally  understood,  that  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  trespass  on  the 
time  of  the  Society  by  more  than  an  allusion  to  them.  In  the  dis- 
eases of  children,  however,  and  especially  as  a  substitute  for  a  wet 
nurse,  when  a  mother  is  unable  or  unwilling  to  suckle  her  own  child, 
the  benefit  of  this  valuable  aid  to  digestion  is  not,  I  believe,  as  gene- 
rally known,  although  allusions  to  it  are  to  be  found  in  medical  es~ 
says.    *    *    *  * 
"  There  is  nothing  of  course  like  a  good  breast  of  milk  for  an  infant^ 
if  it  can  be  had  ;  and  in  the  '  good  old  times,'  when  the  peasantry  and 
small  farmers  lived  on  potatoes  and  milk,  without  stimulating  their 
nerves  with  strong  tea,  nor  their  brains  with  penny-a-liner's  novels,, 
there  was  an  ample  field  for  the  selection  of  a  foster  parent,  but  now 
even  when  the  vara  avis,  a  good  nurse,  is  procured,  she  is  so  inde- 
pendent and  knows  her  power  so  well,  that  any  caprice  must  be  hu- 
mored, and  she  is  always  ready  to  throw  up  her  situation  or  neglect 
her  charge. 
aA  wet  nurse  is,  then,  an  admitted  torment,  and  a  balance  struck 
between  its  advantage  and  disadvantage  is  generally  against  the 
former. 
"  Artificial  feeding  by  bottle  is  a  great  improvement  upon  the  old 
system  of  spoon  feeding,  as  the  act  of  suckling  stimulates  the  saliva- 
ry glands  and  insures  due  insalivation,  which  is  an  important  part  of 
infantile  digestion.  With  such  an  aid  the  stomach  of  most  human 
infants  is  vigorous  enough  to  fall  into  the  way  of  digesting  cow's  milk, 
properly  diluted,  and  mixed  with  sugar  and  cream  to  assimilate  the 
proportion  of  its  constituents  to  human  milk — but  besides  the  relative 
excess  of  casein  and  albumen  contained  in  cow's  milk  when  com- 
pared with  human,  the  coagulum  of  the  latter  is  'soft,  flocculent,  and 
not  so  thoroughly  separated  from  the  other  elements  of  the  fluid  as 
the  firm,  hard  curd  of  cows'  milk  is  from  the  whey  in  which  it  floats.* 
(West.) 
