Читать книгу The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease - Thomas Bull - Страница 12

Table of Contents

The line of demarcation made between infancy and childhood, both by ancient and modern writers, has always been arbitrary. I would draw the line between the two, at a period of time which appears to me to be the most natural, the most simple, and least likely to lead the reader into the danger of misapplying any part of the practical directions of this, or any future chapter of the work. We will consider, then, that—

Infancy, commencing with birth, extends to about the end of the second year, when the first dentition is completed.

Childhood extends from about the second, to the seventh or eighth year, when the second dentition is commenced.

Sect. I. DIETETICS OF INFANCY.

In the early months of infancy the organs of digestion are unsuited to any other food than that derived from the breast of the mother. So little capable are they, indeed, to digest any other, even of the blandest and most digestible kind, that probably not more than one infant in six or seven ever arrives at the more advanced periods of life when deprived of the kind of nourishment nature intended for this epoch.

It is not every parent, however, who is able to become a nurse; and with many this office would not only be highly injurious to their own health, but materially so to that of their offspring. This may arise from various causes, hereafter to be noticed, but whenever they exist a wet-nurse is demanded.

Again, the latter resource is not always attainable, so that the hazardous experiment of an artificial diet, or bringing up by hand, as it is then termed, is obliged to be resorted to.

Thus, infantile dietetics naturally divides itself into Maternal

Nursing, Wet-Nurse Suckling, And Artificial Feeding.