much more so still, to see food in copper vessels, or in the red earthen
ones, glazed with a poisonous oxyd! I speak now more particularly of
vessels in which food is given; for with the administration of medicine,
and nursing the sick, I do not intend in this volume to interfere.

EXCEPTION 3.--We come now to the consideration of those cases--for such
it will not be doubted there are--where a hired nurse is to be preferred
to feeding by the hand.

Before proceeding farther, however, it is important to say, that if a
nurse could always be procured whose health, and temper, and habits were
good, who had no infant of her own, and who would do as well for the
infant, in every respect, as his own mother, it would be preferable to
have no feeding by the hand at all.

But such nurses are very scarce. Their temper, or habits, or general
health, will often be such as no genuine parent would desire, and such
as they ought to be sorry to see engrafted, in any degree, on the child.
For even admitting what is claimed by some, that the temper of the nurse
does _not_ affect the properties of the milk, and thus injure the child
both physically and morally, still much injury may and inevitably will
result from the influence of her constant presence and example.

Others have infants of their own, in which case either their own child
or the adopted one will suffer; and in a majority of cases, it can
scarcely be doubted _which_ it will be. And I doubt the morality of
requiring a nurse, in these cases, to give up her own child wholly. If
_one_ must be fed, why not our own, as well as that of another?

The only cases, then, which seem to me to justify the employment of a
nurse, are where she possesses at least the qualifications above
mentioned; and as these are rare, not many nurses, of course, would on
this principle be employed. But when employed, it is highly desirable
that the following rules should be observed:

1: The nurse should suckle the child at both breasts; otherwise he is
liable to acquire a degree of crookedness in his form. There is another
evil which sometimes results from the too common neglect of this rule,
which is, that it endangers the deterioration of the quality of the
milk.

2. The milk which is thus substituted for that of the mother, should be
as nearly as possible of the same age as the child who is to receive it.
It should be remembered, however, that the milk is not so good after the
twelfth or thirte