Only in case of emergency is the baby weaned within a day or so after birth. As a rule, the mother attempts to nurse the child, and weans him only when she realizes beyond all question that her milk is not sufficiently nourishing. In such cases it is not necessary to wean the child abruptly; the feedings can be alternated, breast and bottle. In this way certain properties in the mother’s milk correct possible ill-effects on the digestion from bottle feedings. Moreover, the mother sometimes gains in strength, the milk improves and the bottle is then given at rarer intervals. When it becomes necessary to wean the child completely from the breast, because of its age, or pregnancy in the mother, half the battle has been fought in accustoming the child and its digestive apparatus to the bottle food. A question frequently asked by mothers is this: “What is the difference between pasteurized milk and boiled milk, and which is better for the child?” Pasteurizing milk consists of heating it to a temperature varying from 155° to 175° F. in apparatus specially made for this purpose, which can be bought at prices varying from four to eight dollars through dealers in surgical instruments. Directions come with the apparatus. To pasteurize milk without an apparatus, fill the bottles with milk, cork them with sterile cotton wool, set in a pail, fill the pail with boiling water, cover it tightly and set aside for forty-five minutes; then cool the bottles rapidly and place them on the ice. Boiling milk—or sterilization, as it is known to medical men—means keeping the milk at a boiling point for at least one hour in a double-boiler. The utensil containing the milk is then set in ice-water so that it will chill in twenty minutes or less. The milk is next poured into clean bottles, corked with sterile cotton wool, and placed on ice. The milk to be fed to babies should be pasteurized or boiled when there is doubt as to the source of milk supply; also when there is an epidemic current, such as typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc. Both processes are supposed to kill bacteria, boiling being more effective than pasteurization. It is far better for the baby’s health, however, to secure certified milk than to treat it as described above. Boiled milk may be given to a baby during the first two or three weeks of its life, also to babies suffering with diarrhea and other acute digestive disturbances. But the child who is fed for a great length of time on boiled milk receives no fresh food, and is therefore subject to scurvy. If, for any reason, the mother feels that it is necessary to feed her baby the boiled milk, she may counteract the effects on a child, three months old or more, with the strained juice of half an orange, morning and evening.