Household Discoveries: An Encyclopaedia of Practical Recipes and Processes
by Sidney Morse. The Success Co. Petersburg, N.Y. 1908.

There is a chapter called What the Home Nurse Ought to Know. In that
chapter is a section called Hot-Weather Care of Infants and Young Children.
It quotes a brochure written by the Chicago Health Dept. It "claims that
the advice contained in this article has been the means of saving the lives
of more than eighty thousand babies and young children during the last
eleven years, in Chicago alone." (remember the book called "Don't Kill Your
Baby" about causes of infant mortality in Chicago.)

book excerpt:
        "One third of the total yearly deaths of infants and young children in
this city occur in the two hottest months of the year - July and August.
        "Heat kills off babies and young children largely because it spoils their
milk and other food quickly. Even breast milk, when the mother is
overheated, may give the baby colic or 'summer complaint.' If a mother is
very hot, she should draw a teaspoonful or so from the breast before
nursing her baby. If the breast has not been given for two hours or more,
it should be drawn off in the same way. And if the mother has been badly
frightened or very angry or excited, it is not safe to give the breast at
all; it should be drawn and the milk thrown away."

"The Proper Food for Babies is Mother's Milk.
        "No sensible mother needs advice on this point. If she is fairly healthy,
her breast will give all the nourishment the child should have until it
begins to cut its teeth - the sixth or eighth month. Up to this time it is
a sin to give an infant one morsel of solid food of any kind, or anything
but breast milk (if the mother is healthy) except water in moderate
quantity occasionally, but never soon after nursing.
        "Many infants are killed every year by bringing them to the table with the
family and giving them a little bit of this, that, and the other - meat,
vegetables, pie, pickles, etc., which the little stomach is not fitted for.
They are killed just as surely, though not so quickly, as if they had been
fed poison out of a drug store.
        "When the baby that is fed this way sickens and dies, it is said that the
baby died of 'diarrhea,' or 'dysentery,' or 'cholera infantum,' or 'summer
complaint,' or 'teething,' or 'convulsions,' or 'brain fever.'
        "But these are only names for the result of poisoning with unfit food.
        "Wait till the baby gets its teeth before you put food into its mouth that
needs to be chewed."

"If the Breast Milk Gives Out,
        or becomes thin or watery, or if the mother has consumption or any other
long-standing sickness, the baby must be put on the bottle and fed with
cow's milk..."

End of book excerpt.

Then it goes on to describe how to pasteurize the fresh cow's milk and how
to feed other foods. This copied section is equivalent to about one column
of type in the book. There are about six more columns of infant & child
care & feeding advice remaining - if anyone is interested in reading these
also.

Phyllis


--- Phyllis Adamson, IBCLC
--- Glendale, AZ, USA
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