Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1859-04-26

FEEDING lNFANfs.-The following article
interesting to mothers is copied from the Nat
chez Courier: ..
Great mortality prevails among children from
injudicious feeding. Some persons attempt tC
support them upon articles Of food which con.
tam little else than starch or gum, neither o
which are capable of themselves of sustaining
animal life. Others confne them principally
TO the milk of the COW, the excess of casein in
which they are unable to digest; and to these
other articles are added which are either indi-
gesuble or innutritious. Hence the large
amount OF sickness and mortality arising from
disordered stOmachs and bowels, and which are
generally attributed to teething, to WORMS, and
to any and every other cause but the true one.
errors in diet, producing indigestion.
In the last July number of the American
Journal Of the Medical Sciences. there is a
clever articles on Natural and Artificial Lac
tation, by DIR. Cumming, a brief abstract of
the concluding portion Of which | am tempted
to publish for the information Of young and
doubling mothers. He says, and sufficiently
proves by philosophical and chemical argu-
ment, that nothing but milk can with proprie-
ty be used as the food of infants; and even this
Is apt to fail, and to give rise to fatal malades
unless 1T be made to correspond very closely,
IN It's constituents elements, with human milk
Cow milk differs from human milk in some
important particulars, rs has been accurately
asccrtained by chemical ANALYSIS. Ii contains
nearly three times as much casein as human
mix, but somewhat less than twice rs much
butter; while human milk contains nearly one
third more sugar, and little more water than
cows milk. Merely diluting cows milk by
adding water, with the addition of sugar. there
lore, as Is commonly done, will not fit il for
easy digestion by the infant stomach There
will, in this case, always be an excess of casein.
and q deficiency of butter. But the propor-
tons are materially changed by permitting the
cows milk to rest undistur bed until tho lighter
particles rise toward the surface; and nearly
the same results are obtained by using only the
milk last taken from the COW
Ut. Cumming proposes, therefore to have
cows milk al rest for four or FIVE hours, and
then to remove the upper third part for use; or
to take only the latter half as furnished by the
cow. He then advises US to add, for q child not
more than ten days old. two and half parts of
water, and one-fourth part of sugar. This com
blnatlon gives almost the exact proportions of
human milk at that early period of lactation.
The exact proportions given are: milk 1000;
water, 2,643; sugar, 243. The sugar and water
are decreased as the child grows older, until at
i've months the proportions are: milk 900:
water, 1000; sugar, I04; and at eighteen
months the proportions are: milk, 900; water.
800; sugar. 63 The child should take this food
at temperature of 100 to lO4 degrees. and by
suction. An eight-ounce vial. with a uuiil
rolled in a long stripof Swiss muslin for a SION
per, Is the best arrangement for cleanliness
and convenience. Tubes having narrow pas-
ssgcs cannot be readily cleansed.
A child ten days old will take about thirty
two ounces daily, in eight meals of four ounces
each; and the meals should increase in auap-
thy and diminish in number, the child
grows older, 50 that mt three months seven
meals of eight ounces each, may be taken.
The9il should be given at regular intervals.
except that the child should be early accus-
toned to pass six or eight hours at night with
out feeding, This regularity of feeding, with
proper intervals, is in accordance with physi-
illogical law Of digestion applicable to all per
sons, namely, that the stomach should have
time fully to digest its food before other food
Is taken into it.