mitted data, seems to _prove that
Meningitis_, or inflammation of the brain, _in children can be produced
by their being suckled for too long a period_, and _that it is so
produced I assert from repeated experience_.

An accidental perusal of Mr. Dendy's able work on the cutaneous diseases
of children, published shortly after the appearance of my paper before
referred to in the Medical and Physical Journal, has recently afforded
me the pleasure of finding that the author had been led to entertain
similar general views on the subject under discussion with myself; I
have, therefore, taken the opportunity of adding that gentleman's
testimony to my own, by quoting the following passage from his work
above mentioned.

'It may be truly said, that _the infantine disease excited by milk of a
deleterious, or simply impoverished quality, "grows by what it feeds
on;"_ and we shall witness the internal debility and the infantine
disorder running their course together. Tabes is the natural consequence
of this error; but its effect is evinced by the occurrence of other
disorders. A defective degree of nutrition, as I have elsewhere stated,
predisposes the system to become influenced by comparatively slight
excitement; and thus, in addition to the direct excitement of disease,
it becomes indirectly its predisposing cause. _Under its influence the
serous_[L] and mucous _membranes become readily the seat of
inflammatory action_.'

Those who feel a difficulty in relinquishing old opinions and adopting
new views upon any particular subject, may perhaps ask how it has
happened, if inflammation of the brain from protracted suckling be so
common as the preceding observations and cases would appear to prove,
that medical men of more advanced age and far greater experience than
myself have not previously noticed the circumstance. I would observe, in
reply, that until Harvey pointed out the circulation of the blood, no
one ever suspected the existence of such a phenomenon; yet now the
wonder appears to be, not that Harvey made the discovery, but that
others had not previously done the same. Multitudes, it may be added,
and among them the great Newton, had witnessed the fall of objects to
the ground without thinking of the cause which produced their downward
tendency; the propitious moment, however, arrived--the apple fell, and
the philosopher was led to those deductions which have rendered his name
immortal. So is it with observers of every