If possible, every healthy mother should nurse her babe; there are, however, a few excellent reasons why she should not. Nervous women, those who are tubercular, or who were born of tubercular mothers, or those who have any form of chronic disease or general debility, should not attempt to nurse a child. It not only endangers the life and health of the child, but it is injurious to the mother. Volumes of directions might be given every mother who wishes to nurse her infant, but each individual case is a law unto itself and should be regulated by the attending physician.

For Artificial Feeding secure good, clean cows' milk, from a herd of good cows, and not from a single cow, unless so ordered, and modify it to resemble as nearly as possible, human milk. Use no farinaceous substances of any sort, or cane sugar. An infant is wholly unprovided with the necessary secretions for the digestion of starches or cane sugar.

Overfeeding and dirty, diluted cows' milk, and "Infants' Foods" kill thousands of babies every year; in fact, in crowded sections of large cities these badly-fed babies rarely reach the end of their first year, and it must not be forgotten that most of these deaths occur from preventable causes.

Milk is the natural food for an infant. Human milk contains more fat, more sugar of milk, less mineral matter and more friable casein than cows' milk. Cows' milk simply diluted with water is not enough, for cows' milk is intended for the rapid growth of the young of the cow, the calf. If we simply add water to cows' milk, we have reduced the fat and milk sugar, two elements very necessary to the growth of the infant; we have not changed the casein, nor have we reduced the mineral matter. Children fed on diluted milk are usually underfed and colicky. If their constitutions are strong they thrive and grow for a time, but fall ill on the slightest provocation. The cutting of teeth is a task. Extreme hot or cold weather influences them to a marked degree. Their childhood is too often a drawn-out invalidism. Such children are frequently found among the "backward" at school. Their foundations are poor.