I just came across this very interesting passage from *Mrs Beeton's Book of
Household Management* , a guide to all aspects of running a
household<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_management>in
Victorian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era>
Britain<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom>,
which was published in 1861. I did not realise that there was such a
distrust of human milk and the breastfeeding process so early in our
history.

This is from CHAPTER 42 - THE REARING, MANAGEMENT, AND DISEASES OF INFANCY
AND CHILDHOOD
http://www.mrsbeeton.com/42-chapter42.html

>As we do not for a moment wish to be thought an advocate for an artificial,
in preference to the natural course of rearing children, we beg our renders
to understand us perfectly on this head; all we desire to prove is the fact
that a child can be brought up as well on a spoon dietary as the best
example to be found of those reared on the breast; having more strength,
indeed, from the more nutritious food on which it lives. It will be thus
less liable to infectious diseases, and more capable of resisting the
virulence of any danger that may attack it; and without in any way
depreciating the nutriment of its natural food, we wish to impress on the
mother's mind that there are many cases of infantine debility which might
eventuate in rickets, curvature of the spine, or mesenteric disease, where
the addition to, or total substitution of, an artificial and more
stimulating aliment, would not only give tone and strength to the
constitution, but at the same time render the employment of mechanical means
totally unnecessary. And, finally, though we would never—where the mother
had the strength to suckle her child—supersede the breast, we would insist
on making it a rule to accustom the child as early as possible to the use of
an artificial diet, not only that it may acquire more vigour to help it over
the ills of childhood, but that, in the absence of the mother, it might not
miss the maternal sustenance; and also for the parent's sake, that, should
the milk, from any cause, become vitiated, or suddenly cease, the child can
be made over to the bottle and the spoon without the slightest apprehension
of hurtful consequences.<


norma

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