ssured there is
a great mistake either in the quantity or quality of children's food, or
both, as it is usually given them, because they are made sick by it; for
to this mistake I cannot help imputing nine in ten of all their
diseases.

"As to quantity, there is a most ridiculous error in the common
practice; for it is generally supposed that whenever a child cries, it
wants victuals: it is accordingly fed ten or twelve or more times in a
day and night. This is so obvious a misapprehension, that I am surprised
it should ever prevail.

"If a child's wants and motions be diligently and judiciously attended
to, it will be found that it never cries, but from pain. Now the first
sensations of hunger are not attended with pain; accordingly, a very
young child that is hungry will make a hundred other signs of its want,
before it will cry for food. If it be healthy, and quite easy in its
dress, it will hardly ever cry at all. Indeed, these signs and motions I
speak of are but rarely observed, because it seldom happens that
children are ever suffered to be hungry.[Footnote: That which we
commonly observe in them, in such cases, and call by the name of hunger,
the Doctor, I suppose would regard as morbid or unnatural feeling,
wholly unworthy of the name of HUNGER.]

"In a few, very few, whom I have had the pleasure to see reasonably
nursed, that were not fed above two or three times in twenty-four hours,
and yet were perfectly healthy, active, and happy, I have seen these
signals, which were as intelligible as if they had spoken.

"There are many faults in the quality of children's food.

"1. It is not simple enough. Their paps, panadas, gruels, &c. are
generally enriched with sugar, spices, and other nice things, and
sometimes a drop of wine--none of which they ought ever to take. Our
bodies never want them; they are what luxury only has introduced, to the
destruction of the health of mankind.

"2. It is not enough that their food should be simple; it should also be
light. Many people, I find, are mistaken in their notions of what is
light, and fancy that most kinds of pastry, puddings, custards, &c. are
light; that is, light of digestion. But there is nothing heavier, in
this sense, than unfermented flour and eggs, boiled hard, which are the
chief ingredients in some of these preparations.

"What I mean by light food--to give the best idea I can of it--is, any
substance that is easily separated, and soluble in warm wate