I really enjoyed the post from last week, of the breastfeeding advice from a 
1916 publication.  I believe that, to be a true expert on something, it is 
very helpful to know the history of it.  I have a collection of old medical 
books, written both for medical professionals, and for home- use.  Here is a 
passage from an old edition of "The Diseases of Infancy and Childhood : For 
the Use of Students and Practitioners of Medicine", by L. Emmet Holt, M.D.

After some basic talk about the benefits of breastfeeding, Dr. Holt has this 
to say:

"In spite of all efforts to the contrary, it is nevertheless a fact that the 
capacity for maternal nursing is steadily diminishing in this country, 
chiefly in the cities, but to a considerable degree in the rural districts 
as well.  Amoung the well-to-do classes in New York, and its suburbs, of 
those who have earnestly and intelligently attempted to nurse, not more than 
25 per cent, in my experience, have been able to conitnue satisfactorily for 
as long as three months.  An intellectual city mother who is able to nurse 
her child successfullly for the entire first year is almost a phenonemnon.  
Among the poorer classes in our cities, a marked decline in nursing ability 
is also seen, although not yet to the same degree as the in the higher 
social scale.  These are facts that must be taken into account in deciding 
the questions of feeding.  While nothing is so good as good marernal 
nursing, no method of feeding gives much worse results than poor nursing.  
Among the higher classes of society, where most of the maternal nursing is 
of an inferior quality, but where every facility can be afforded for the 
best artificial feeding, one should not be slow to adopt the latter in cases 
of doubt.  Among the poor and ignorant, however, where articifical feeding 
cannot be carried on with anything like the same chances of success, one 
should persist in maternal nursing so long as there is any possibiliy of 
success."
It won't surprize anyone that such things were written during the 20th 
century.  However, it certainly surprized me to find this in an edition 
published way back in 1905!  Fortunately for my grandparents' generation, 
most mothers in those days gave birth at home and breastfed without the 
input of a physician!  They went ahead and successfully breastfed their 
children, never realizing that it was supposed to be something that most 
women failed at!

Darillyn

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