To enforce this Precept, and prove the Reasonableness of not giving Children Meat so soon as is usual, I will here observe, that Physicians say the first Digestion should be in the Mouth, the second in the Stomach; whence it appears that Children have no Business with Meat ’till they have Teeth to chew it; nay, not ’till they have their Mouths almost full of Teeth; for they have not the Power of grinding down their Meat sufficiently ’till they have got some of their strongest Teeth, and those every one is sensible do not come first. Hence we are furnished with an admirable Hint, which not to endeavour to reduce to Practice, would be injuring our Children, and baffling the Labours of learned Men, who make the Good of Mankind the Study of their Lives. Parents by the same Lesson are instructed likewise, to make their Children accustom themselves to chew their Meat well their whole Lives; for it is certain they would thereby prevent many ill Effects arising from Indigestion. Having thus, as near to Nature as I am able, led Parents into the first Steps of the Management of their Childrens Health, I shall now touch on Art; a little of which may, and will be necessary. It is plain that Children are born full of Foulness, full of Excrement; and Nature to remedy this, gives a purgative Quality to the Mother’s first Milk; which Quality, as the Child cleanses, goes off. But if this first Milk be drawn away by another, as is frequent, in order to ease the Breasts; or the Child does not suck it’s Mother, but an older Milk; in that Case it should most certainly be purged three or four times in the Month. For my own Part I have gone farther, and tho’ my Children had the first Milk, I always began by giving them a little Syrup of Rhubarb and Oil of Almonds; which has constantly had a good Effect, not only on them, but on many others under my Care: the Rhubarb scours and cleanses them, and the Oil in some measure blunts its griping Quality, and prevents its leaving a Costiveness so common to that Drug. But tho’ I have frequently given this, yet Rhubarb in Substance, corrected with a small Portion of Aromatic, or mix’d with Gascoign’s Powder, is found by Experience to agree very well: Syrup of Violets or Marshmallows, join’d with Oil of Almonds, are frequently given in order to cleanse the first Passages, and are very proper; tho’ not so efficacious as Rhubarb. Nor are there any better Purges than these for new-born Infants, unless, (which very seldom happens) in great Costiveness, and then a little Manna. What farther relates to Physic and physical People, shall be spoken of hereafter.