How often we hear such remarks as this: “I never was so surprised in my life as I was to hear of Miss Blank’s death——perfect picture of health——fat, hearty, red-cheeked——the last person in the world I would have thought of dying.” This shows how much the people know about health. Ninety-nine in a hundred would have called this young lady a specimen of health, when, in fact, any expert would have known that she was a typhoid subject——almost sure to be down with it sooner or later, and, with her whole physical conditions so against her, that recovery would be almost a miracle, _under the prevailing system of treatment_. Just recall the scores of cases where you, my dear reader, have been surprised at the death of this or that friend, “always so strong and well.” In fact, this is so common that we expect to be surprised continually, and are not much surprised when we are! How many healthy-born infants die before their first year is reached——babies that for months are mistakenly regarded as pictures of health——“never knew a sick day until they were attacked” with cholera-infantum, scarlatina, or something else. They are crammed with food, made gross with fat, and for a time are active and cunning, the delight of parents and friends——and then, after a season of constipation, a season of chronic vomiting, and a season of cholera-infantum, the little emaciated skeletons are buried in the ground away from the sight of those who have literally _loved them to death_. This is the fate of one-third of all the children born. As a rule, babies are fed as an ignorant servant feeds the cook-stove——filling the fire-box so full, often, that the covers are raised, the stove smokes and gases at every hole, and the fire is either put out altogether, or, if there is combustion of the whole body of coals, the stove is rapidly burned out and destroyed. With baby, “overheating” means the fever that consumes him, and, in “putting out the fire,” too often the fire of life goes out also.[3] [Footnote 3: For a thorough discussion of this question see the author’s work on Infant Dietetics, entitled “How to Feed the Baby” New York: Fowler & Wells.]