Dr. R. P. Harris, in speaking of milk as a diet for delicate mothers, says: “Those who with ordinary food invariably fail to nurse longer than a few weeks, are capable by this diet of becoming not only good nurses, but also of gaining flesh while secreting the milk in abundance. When a delicate mother of eighty-six pounds’ weight, who had failed after a month with each of three infants, is enabled by it to nurse a child eighteen months, and gain at the same time nineteen pounds, the diet must be an effective one.” The article next best for promoting the secretion of milk is cocoa or chocolate, prepared with plenty of milk. _Every form of malt and spirituous liquors_ should by all means be _avoided_. They derange the nervous and digestive systems of both mother and babe. Custom, happily, has to a large extent done away with the idea that “nursing women _must_ have ale or beer.” To those who still maintain this view, I would recommend the study of the question, whether the help expected is at all commensurate with the danger incurred of a pernicious appetite being cultivated in both mother and child. Good digestion is usually all that is essential for an abundant flow of milk. The food should be simple but nutritious. Depend upon grains and fruits mainly, and by no means exclude the bran from the wheat flour. The saline elements in the bran not only stimulate digestion, but excite the secretion of milk as well. Try the experiment of feeding an Alderney cow upon fine flour, excluding the bran. By the lack of milk you will prove that the bran contains elements pre-eminently stimulating to lacteal secretions. Oysters eaten raw or slightly cooked are said to increase the flow of milk. Honey, too, often proves invaluable. With bread and gems, instead of the carbonaceous butter, eat honey. It stimulates all the secretions. It is evident that foods rich in phosphates are the best to increase lactiferous flow. Therefore, study well the food table in Chapter IX, and partake of foods which were avoided in pregnancy. In the first days after confinement, if the milk is slow to secrete, apply bruised castor bean leaves. FOR EXCESSIVE FLOW OF MILK, once or twice a day use hot fomentations upon the breast, and apply cosmoline, in which there is a trace of camphor. Avoid salt and liquid food. Wear folds of cotton batting over the breast. In either insufficient or excessive flow of milk, guard against pressure of clothing. It is absolutely essential that the blood should circulate freely to and from the breasts. (No one thing more frequently causes atrophied breasts in any woman than the pressure of corsets and padding ordinarily worn. It is not unusual for a fine development of the breast to result from the removal of all pressure, accompanied by bathing daily with cold water, and following the bath by friction. Should this fail, an apparatus on the principle of dry-cupping is used. This seldom fails of giving the desired results.)