I ought to state, in this place, that many people--mothers among the rest--have very inadequate ideas of digestion. They appear to have no farther notion of the digestive process than that it consists in reducing to a pulp the substances which are swallowed; and hence, whatever is reduced to a pulp, they regard as being digested. Whereas nothing is better known to the anatomist and physiologist, than that this--the formation of _chyme_ in the stomach--constitutes only a very small part of the digestive process. The chyme must pass into the duodenum and other portions of intestine beyond the stomach, and be retained there for some time, before it will form perfect chyle. This is a more important part of the work of digestion than even the former. For, suppose the chyme to be perfect, though even this may be mere pulp, rather than chyme, and suppose it pass quietly along into the duodenum and other small intestines. All this process, thus far, may go on naturally enough, and yet the chyle may not be well formed, and the chymous mass may find its way out of the system without answering any of the purposes of nutrition. For no matter how well the food is dissolved in the stomach, if it do not become good and proper chyle, the blood which is formed will not be good and perfect blood; or, lastly, if it _seem_ to make good blood, it may still be faulty, so that the particles which should be applied to build up or repair the system, are either not used, or if used, answer the purpose but imperfectly. We hence see how little prepared a large proportion of the community, are, to judge of the digestibility or fitness of a substance for infants, by their own observation and experience merely; and how much more wisely they act, in contenting themselves with giving them--at least until they have teeth--such food only as the Author of nature seems to have assigned them; especially when thus course, is precisely that which is recommended or sanctioned by nearly every judicious physician, as well as by almost all our writers on health. SEC. 6. _On Feeding before Teething._ Having laid down the general rule, that until the appearance of teeth, the sole food of an infant should be the milk of its own mother, I proceed to speak of some of the more common exceptions to it. EXCEPTION 1.--The first of these is when the supply furnished by the mother is scanty. There may be two causes of the scantiness of this supply; 1st, the want of suitable nourishment by the mother; and, 2dly, a feeble constitution, or bad health. In the former case, it should be her first object, as it undoubtedly will be that of her physician, to improve the quality of her diet; and in the latter, to restore her health, or at least invigorate her constitution.