Can there be any other cause why so many children are in distress from birth, and generally die young, or continue weak and sickly all their lives? There must be a reformation in the habits, taste, and education of modern females. Many mothers are as ignorant, when they have brought a child into the world, of what is to be done for it as the infant itself. Says Combe: “The leading error in the rearing of the young, I must again repeat, is _over-feeding_, an error serious in itself, but which may easily be avoided by the parent yielding only to the indications of appetite, and administering food slowly and in small quantities at a time. By no other means can the colics, and bowel-complaints, and irritability of the nervous system, so common in infancy, be effectually prevented, and strength and healthy nutrition be secured. Nature never meant the infant stomach to be converted into a receptacle for laxatives, carminatives, antacids, spicy stimulants and astringents; and when these become necessary, we may rest assured that there is something faulty in our management, however perfect it may seem to ourselves. The only exception is where the child is defectively constituted, and then, of course, it may fail to thrive under the best measures which can be advised for its relief. “Another cause of infantile indigestion, and which is too much overlooked through ignorance of its importance, is _vitiation of the quality of the milk_, caused by imprudence, neglect, or anxiety on the part of the mother. The extent to which this cause operates in inducing irritation and suffering in the child, is not generally understood; and, accordingly, it is not unusual for mothers to display as much indifference to health, regimen, and tranquillity of mind during nursing, as if the milky secretion, and all other bodily functions, were independent of every external and corporeal influence. Healthy, nourishing, and digestible milk can proceed only from a healthy and well-constituted parent; and it is against nature to expect that, if the mother impairs her health and digestion by improper diet, neglect of exercise, impure air, or unruly passions, she can, nevertheless, provide a wholesome and uncontaminated fluid, as if she were exemplary in her observance of all the laws of health. “It is no new or uncertain doctrine, that the quality of the mother’s milk is affected by her own health and conduct, and that in its turn it directly affects the health of the nursling. Even medicines given to the parent act upon the child through the medium of the milk; and a sudden fit of anger, or other violent mental emotion, has not unfrequently been observed to change the quality of the fluid so much as to produce purging and gripes in the child. Care and anxiety, in like manner, exert a most pernicious influence, and not only diminish the quantity, but vitiate the quality of the milk.