who is furnished with strong teeth, and possessed of
a fully-grown stomach. The mastication, digestion, and primary
assimilation of the nursing infant's food is thrown upon the
mother's organs; but the tissues of the child are nourished
precisely as are the tissues of the mother, and a nursing mother
requires simply to digest a larger supply of wholesome, and
appropriate food. As a matter of course mothers with imperfect
teeth, or weak stomachs, cannot perform the digestion of extra
food for the infant so well as those mothers who have an
abundance of reserve power in their digestive apparatus; and
with such patients, the question arises, how are they to make up
for the deficiency which they soon experience in the supply of
milk? Such mothers appeal to their medical advisers to prescribe
some stimulant which will enable them to overcome the difficulty
which they experience, and often are greatly dissatisfied if
informed that there is no drug in the _materia medica_ which
will make up for structural weakness in the organs which
masticate, digest or assimilate the food. The proper course for
such women to adopt is a simple and rational one. They should
assist their digestive apparatus as much as possible by securing
an abundance of suitable and nutritious food, prepared in the
best way, and as is most digestible, while they should lessen
the demands of their own system by the avoidance of bodily
fatigue, and mental excitement. These means, aided by that
philosophical hygiene which is at all times essential to the
preservation of pure and perfect health, will enable them to
supply a maximum quantity of pure and wholesome milk; and
further calls by the child require proper artificial food.
Unfortunately such advice fails to satisfy many anxious mothers
who refuse to admit, or believe, that they are less robust, or
less capable, than other ladies of their acquaintance, and such
mothers fall easy victims to circulars vaunting the nourishing
properties of 'Hoare's Stout,' 'Tanqueray's Gin,' or Gilbey's
'strengthening Port,' circulars which are always backed up by
the example, and advice, of lady friends, who themselves have
acquired the habit of using these liquors, and who view as a
reproach to themselves the practice of any other lady who may
not keep them in countenance, as the