e a woman is nursing,
she ought to live very fully, and to add an allowance of wine, porter,
or other fermented liquor, to her usual diet. The only result of this
plan, is, to cause an unnatural fulness in the system, which places the
nurse on the brink of disease, and retards, rather than increases, the
food of the infant. More will be gained by the observance of the
ordinary laws of health, than by any foolish deviation, founded on
ignorance."

There is no point, on which medical men so emphatically lift the voice
of warning, as in reference to administering medicines to infants. It is
so difficult to discover what is the matter with an infant, its frame is
so delicate and so susceptible, and slight causes have such a powerful
influence, that it requires the utmost skill and judgement to ascertain
what would be proper medicines, and the proper quantity to be given.

Says Dr. Combe, "That there are cases, in which active means must be
promptly used, to save the child, is perfectly true. But it is not less
certain, that these are cases, of which no mother or nurse ought to
attempt the treatment. As a general rule, where the child is well
managed, medicine, of any kind, is very rarely required; and if disease
were more generally regarded in its true light, not as something thrust
into the system, which requires to be expelled by force, but as an
aberration from a natural mode of action, produced by some external
cause, we should be in less haste to attack it by medicine, and more
watchful in its prevention. Accordingly, where a constant demand for
medicine exists in a nursery, the mother may rest assured, that there is
something essentially wrong in the treatment of her children.

"Much havoc is made among infants, by the abuse of calomel and other
medicines, which procure momentary relief, but end by producing
incurable disease; and it has often excited my astonishment, to see how
recklessly remedies of this kind are had recourse to, on the most
trifling occasions, by mothers and nurses, who would be horrified, if
they knew the nature of the power they are wielding, and the extent of
injury they are inflicting."

Instead, then, of depending on medicine, for the preservation of the
health and life of an infant, the following precautions and preventives
should be adopted.

Take particular care of the _food_ of an infant. If it is nourished by
the mother, her own diet should be simple, nourishing, and temperate. If
t