The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-28 00:00:00

Infanticide and Infant Mortality,

(From Me Medical Circular.)

Into the painful question of the motives which
induce many a mother to pervert the finest feelings
of female human nature, and to imbrue her hands in
the blood of her own offspring, it is net our inten-
tion to enter, and, like many modern juries who
have such cases placed before them, we may pity
the culprit while we abhor the crime; and knowing
that two parties at least must have been concerned
in th 9 steps which indirectly led to the crime in
question, we cannot but feel the cruelty of aban-
doning the criminal of the weaker sex to a fearful
doom, while the equally or perhaps more guilty
partner of her delinquency is allowed to escape.
The prevention of this kind of child murder will
hardly be accomplished by the verdicts of juries,
however severe, but by the inculcation of a higher
tone of morality than that which at present exists,
and by the visitation of severer punishments than
now fall to the lot of the male delinquent.

The causes of infant melt tality, so far as they are
connected with faulty plans of nursing and alimen-
tation, have lately been examined with very great
care by a lady, Mrs Baines, who has written some
pamphlets upon the subject, characterised by much
good sense and good feeling. She attributes many
evil consequences to the practice of hiring wet
nurses, especially those from the "fallen ;" many
to artificial feeding as a substitute for breast-milk;
and many to the absence of farinaceous matters in
infant food.

In the primary truth laid down by this lady, all
members of our profession most cheerfully coincide,
namely, that much of the mortality among children
is due to the neglect on the part of mothers to per-
form the obvious duty of suckling their children.
This neglect is sometimes caused by the obedience
rendered by some females rather to the demands of
fashion than to the dictates of nature, and often,
among the labouring classes, it is due to the nem.
eity, either real or supposed, of leaving the children
while the mothers are earning their living. Ad-
mitting, as we ail must do, the existence of the
evil, the remedy obviously lies in the province of
ladies, who by precept and example may prevail
upon their sisters, both of high and low estate, to
fulfil their maternal duties, even at the sacrifice of
fashion or of the claims of industry. As to fashion,
it is easy enough to dispense with the allegiance to
suckle a fickle deity; and as to industry, it ie al.
leged that the husbands among the working classes
are prepared to forego the advantages obtained by
the earnings of their wives in return for the greater
comfort they would enjoy by the undivided atten-
tion of the women to their domestic duties. It ia a
remarkable fact that, during the Preston strike,
there was a marked diminution of the infant mor-
tality, which is explained by the fact that the
women were unable to obtain work at the mills,
and were thus obliged to stay at homo with their
children, whose lives were thus preserved even at a
time of extreme destitution.

Into the moral question involved in the employ-
ment of wet.nurses, whether the latter are married
or are selected from the " fallen," we are not pre-
pared to enter; bat no medical man is ignorant of
the fact that many mothers are unable, from physi-
cal reasons, to suckle their own children, who,
therefore, run very great danger of sinking from
disease, unless some substitute can be foand for the
breast-milk of which they are deprived. Admitting,
AS we do, that each mother's milk is best suited to
her own child, and that a change in this respect
is often highly disadvantageous, and always hazard-
ous, yet we are not prepared to admit that any
otter plan is equal to wet-nursing—care being, of
course, taken in the selection of the nurse, both on
moral and physical grounds. Nor are we prepared
to admit, with the talented and zealous authoress of
the pamphlets to which we allude, that when human
milk cannot be obtained the milk of the inferior
animals is necessarily injurious. Oa the contrary,
we believe that the milk of cows and goats, making
allowance for the difference in chemical consti-
tuents, and correcting the composition accordingly,
is a very suitable aliment for infants accidentally
deprived of breast-milk, and that the addition of

farioaceons matter, as recommended very strongly
by Mrs. Baines, is of questionable utility. Not that
we adopt the ultra-chemical views advanced by
some authorities, who would reduce all physiology
to the test of the crucible or the weighing scales,
and reject the influenc3 of the nervous system, the
vital power, and the essential constitution or idio-
syncrasy of each individual, bat because we believe
the opinions we advance are in accordance with ex-
perinea as well as• theory, and aro in themselves
reasonable, practical, and philosophical.