casionally, where malt liquor has
never been previously taken, a pint of good sound ale may be taken
daily with advantage, if it agree with the stomach. Regular exercise in
the open air is of the greatest importance, as it has an extraordinary
influence in promoting the secretion of healthy milk. Early after
leaving the lying-in room, carriage exercise, where it can be
obtained, is to be preferred, to be exchanged, in a week or so, for
horse exercise, or the daily walk. The tepid, or cold salt-water shower
bath, should be used every morning; but if it cannot be borne, sponging
the body withsalt-water must be substituted.

By adopting with perseverance the foregoing plan, a breast of milk
will be obtained as ample in quantity, and good in quality, as the
constitution of the parent can produce, as the following case proves:

On the 17th September, 1839, I attended a lady twenty-four years of
age, a delicate, but healthy woman, in her first confinement. The
labour was good. Every thing went on well for the first week, except
that, although the breasts became enlarged, and promised a good supply
of nourishment for the infant, at its close there was merely a little
oozing from the nipple. During the next fortnight a slight, but very
gradual increase in quantity took place, so that a dessert spoonful
only was obtained about the middle of this period, and perhaps double
this quantity at its expiration. In the mean time the child was
necessarily fed upon an artificial diet, and as a consequence its
bowels became deranged, and a severe diarrhoea followed. A wet-nurse
was advised for the child as the only means of saving its life, and
change of air for the mother as the most likely expedient (in
connection with the general treatment pointed out above) for obtaining
a good breast of milk. Accordingly, on the 5th October, the patient,
taking with her the infant and a wet-nurse, went a few miles from town.

For three or four days it was a question whether the little one would
live, for so greatly had it been reduced by the looseness of the bowels
that it had not strength to grasp the nipple of its nurse; the milk,
therefore, was obliged to be drawn, and the child fed with it from a
spoon. After the lapse of a few days, however, it could obtain the
breast-milk for itself; and, to make short of the case, on the 25th of
the same month, the mother and child returned home, the former having a
very fair proportion of healthy milk in her