s, which require trouble to prepare properly
and are, moreover, exposed to various risks from which the mother's milk
is free.

A further reason, especially among the poor, against the use of any
artificial foods is that it accustoms those around the child to try
experiments with its feeding and to fancy that any kind of food they eat
themselves may be good for the infant. It thus happens that bread and
potatoes, brandy and gin, are thrust into infants' mouths. With the infant
that is given the breast it is easier to make plain that, except by the
doctor's orders, nothing else must be given.

An additional reason why the mother should suckle her child is the close
and frequent association with the child thus involved. Not only is the
child better cared for in all respects, but the mother is not deprived of
the discipline of such care, and is also enabled from the outset to learn
and to understand the child's nature.

The inability to suckle acquires great significance if we realize
that it is associated, probably in a large measure as a direct
cause, with infantile mortality. The mortality of
artificially-fed infants during the first year of life is seldom
less than double that of the breast-fed, sometimes it is as much
as three times that of the breast-fed, or even more; thus at
Derby 51.7 per cent. of hand-fed infants die under the age of
twelve months, but only 8.6 per cent. of breast-fed infants.
Those who survive are by no means free from suffering. At the end
of the first year they are found to weigh about 25 per cent. less
than the breast-fed, and to be much shorter; they are more liable
to tuberculosis and rickets, with all the evil results that flow
from these diseases; and there is some reason to believe that the
development of their teeth is injuriously affected. The
degenerate character of the artificially-fed is well indicated by
the fact that of 40,000 children who were brought for treatment
to the Children's Hospital in Munich, 86 per cent. had been
brought up by hand, and the few who had been suckled had usually
only had the breast for a short time. The evil influence persists
even up to adult life. In some parts of France where the
wet-nurse industry flourishes so greatly that nearly all the
children are brought up by hand, it has been found that the
percentage of rejected conscripts is nearly double that for