Among the problems which the mother must solve, that of nutrition outranks all others in importance; and unless the infant is nourished with human milk, it also exceeds them in perplexity. For, although great advances have been made in artificial feeding, science has not yet removed all the intricacies and dangers involved in the use of the bottle. On the other hand, mothers who nurse their babies rarely meet with difficulty. Human milk is perfectly adapted to the wants of the infant; and all substitutes, though carefully designed to duplicate it, are only partially successful. We have learned how to modify cow's milk so that in chemical constituents, at least, it is a very close imitation of human milk; but human milk possesses, in addition to its chemical properties, other desirable qualities which cannot be instilled into an artificial food. We must agree, therefore, that attempts to disseminate a wider knowledge of the correct principles of bottle-feeding do not have the highest aim. Our real need is a vastly greater proportion of women who nurse their children. THE BREASTS.--For success in nursing the first essential is healthful breasts. With this the largeness or smallness of a breast has nothing to do, for size is no more an index of its capacity for producing milk than is the weight of a woman an index of her energy. The breast is not a warehouse, but a factory, with very limited storage capacity for its product. Differences of size are generally to be explained by the variable amount of fatty-tissue the breast contains. And so far as the secretion of milk is concerned the fat is entirely passive; it fills in the space between the glandular elements; and a layer of fat just beneath the skin protects the glands against external influences that otherwise might disturb their activity. Stripped of their fatty envelope the structures which actually secrete the milk and convey it to the nipple resemble a miniature cluster of grapes. Each tiny, spherical gland corresponds to one of the grapes and contains a cavity lined with cells which manufacture the milk. From this cavity the milk flows through a microscopic tube which unites with similar tubes to form a larger one; this in turn joins others of its kind; and so on, until ultimately the milk enters a relatively large duct-- the figurative stem of the cluster--which conducts the milk to its destination. There are from ten to fifteen of these terminal ducts; each drains a separate group of glands, but all end in the nipple.