I by no means recommend the breast-milk to be at once superseded by artificial food, but, on the contrary, that the child should be _gradually_ accustomed to such aliment from a much earlier period; the proportion of the latter being increased by degrees, while the breast-milk is diminished in a corresponding ratio. Hence we shall produce a double advantage; the mother will be benefited as well as the child--the former, by giving suck less frequently, and in smaller quantities at a time than usual, will have the secretion of milk _gradually lessened_, and, therefore all likelihood of inconvenience, as far as regards herself when the child is entirely weaned, will be completely prevented; while, on the other hand, the child being _insensibly estranged_ from the breast, will have become accustomed to his new food, so that there will be less chance of its disagreeing with him when it forms his sole support; and thus the danger which is generally apprehended from weaning will be either materially lessened or altogether avoided. The difficulty of bringing up infants by hand, as it is termed, is well known; but I suspect that the great mortality which has been recorded as occurring from this source is not inseparable from the practice itself, but arises mainly from the improper manner in which it is usually conducted. When it is determined to bring up an infant by hand, the substitute offered for the mother's milk should as nearly as possible resemble that fluid; and the child should be constrained to imbibe it in _the same manner as_ it would _the milk from the maternal breast_; that is, it should be _sucked_ from a bottle contrived for that purpose, instead of the child being gorged with it, by means of a large spoon, or some other equally improper instrument, as is the usual custom. It is a fact too palpable to be questioned, that the food generally given to infants brought up by hand is not only administered in an improper manner, but is also of an improper quality; their tender stomachs are daily overloaded with _solid_ instead of _liquid_ aliment, and hence arises the numerous train of evils which, in my opinion, produce the great mortality just referred to. CHAPTER II. _On Lactation, and the Disorders frequently produced in Women by that process._ There can be no doubt that, speaking generally, a mother is bound to suckle her children, and that the performance of this duty is no less conducive to her own health than to the moral and physical welfare of her offspring; yet there is not a more unfounded doctrine than that which presumes every woman who is willing to be also capable of advantageously discharging the important office of a nurse.