all the distressing
symptoms before described, and again miscarried.

This case, finally, affords evidence of the evil consequences often
produced in children by impoverished and unhealthy milk; and of their
speedy disappearance when the exciting cause--namely, deteriorated
milk--is no longer afforded.

CHAPTER III.

_On the various Diseases which frequently arise in Children from
Lactation, especially when protracted._

Having thus briefly considered some of the disorders to which women are
subjected by performing the first duty imposed upon them as mothers, I
shall next advert to those which are very frequently observed in their
children from being suckled during too long a period; or in consequence
of the nurse's milk becoming either simply impoverished, or of a
positively injurious quality.

These diseases are numerous, and some of them serious, among which may
be enumerated the following; namely, vomiting, diarrh[oe]a, general
debility, scrofula, tabes mesenterica,--rickets, convulsions,
epilepsy,--and lastly meningitis, or that peculiar inflammation of the
investing membranes of the brain which gives rise to the effusion of
serum, constituting the well known and very fatal disease termed by
medical practitioners Hydrocephalus, or Hydrencephalus, and popularly
Water on the Brain.

The disease last mentioned being by far the most important, and that
chiefly referred to in the following observations, I shall commence with
a brief statement of the conclusions which my experience has led me to
form respecting it; they are the same I made public four years ago[E],
having since that time seen no reason to make any alteration in them. I
believe,

1st,--That if children be suckled for an undue length of time[F], they
will be liable in consequence to be affected with meningitis[G], or
inflammation of the investing membranes of the brain.

2dly,--That should they not become affected with the disorder in
question during or soon after the time they are thus improperly suckled,
they will nevertheless acquire therefrom a predisposition to cephalic
disease at some future period of their lives.

3dly,--That children who are suckled for an undue length of time, when
labouring under other diseases, will be much more liable to have the
head secondarily affected, than children brought up in a different
manner.

4thly,--And lastly, that the same effects will take place in infants if
suckled by women who have been