Practical infant feeding ; feeding formulas.

  • Winters, Joseph Edcil, 1848-1922.
Date:
©[1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical infant feeding ; feeding formulas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    A baby was not thriving. A keel-shaped half-ounce dipper replaced ounce dipper of different shape. Amendment was immediate—physical behavior of proteid precluded assimilation. A child of eleven months had always had perfect digestion. Mother prepared food. Obliged to go to town, a nurse of two weeks (hospital trained) was instructed in preparation of food—which she had repeatedly witnessed. That night the child had severe vomiting and diarrhea: Castor oil, water for thirty-six hours, child was well. Barley gruel prepared by mother was-now given. One week later, on a Sunday morning, mother left nurse to prepare gruel. After first bottle there was vomiting. Mother tasted gruel and found it excessively salty. Prepared fresh bottle, which agreed perfectly. Good food is constantly adjudged faulty when fault is in preparation. One unsuitable food after another is often substituted, sometimes with fatal consequences. Faithfulness in preparation would have averted dis- aster. A mother wrote, Sunday night baby had sour stomach, and lime water has been added since. Answer: Instructions mailed to you directed four ounces of lime water in formula. Please make these your literal guide. Further instructions will not be sent if you vary from them—disturbance of digestion or not thriving will be considered proof of this. Two years of uniformly good digestion have intervened. A magnificent boy the eventuality. A mother substituted 8 ounces whole milk from one quart bottle, and top 8 ounces from another, instead of upper 8 ounces from each of two quart bottles. Vomiting, diarrhea, and high fever resulted. Proneness to Intermeddle Unconquerable, Insuperable A nurse whose various charges were in uniform health when modified milk was all she could avail herself of, were uniformly in ///-health when she was allowed to do the modifying. A mother repeatedly attempted to induce a trustworthy nurse (instructed by a competent trained nurse in preparation of food) to deviate from prescribed formula. Her child was well and thriving. Had her orders been executed her child would have been ill. There is an invincible temperamental unfitness which disqualifies un- conditionally for the safe feeding of an infant. Semblance of insurmount- able vomiting in numerous cases has subsided instantly, with a skilled trained nurse in charge—no change in formula. Adequately commensurate concept of disease, superinduced by unfaith- fulness to formulas, dismays and disheartens. Solicitude for a good and great cause inspires renewed endeavor. Inculcate convincingly, until con- viction is instilled, that any modification of a formula may initiate fatal disease. The feeding of an infant is an exact science, founded on infant physi- [14]