Diet in infancy : the essential introduction to the study of disease in childhood / by A. Dingwall-Fordyce.

  • Fordyce Alexander Dingwall.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diet in infancy : the essential introduction to the study of disease in childhood / by A. Dingwall-Fordyce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    DIET IN INFANCY GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS THE HEALTHY INFANT 1. The natural diet of an infant is its mother’s milk.—Never forget this, never countenance the premature discontinuance of suckling without good cause clearly shown, and never commence artificial feeding in the early months of life without extreme care and continued super- vision. All artificial infant feeding in its initiation must of necessity he experimental. 2. The exact composition of mother s milk is unknown. —The scientific methods at our disposal at the present day demonstrate to us most of the important con- stituents of mother’s milk, but there is ample evidence to show that constituents exist which defy detection. Many cases of scurvy, rickets, and malnutrition occur owing to the fact that there has been a lack or absence in the infant’s diet of some of these constituents which occur in mother’s milk, but which are not as yet accurately defined. 3. The nature of many of the knoion constituents of mother’s milk is peculiar to that milk.—Two very important constituents of mother’s milk are the protein and the fat. The chemical elements of these con- stituents differ both quantitatively and qualitatively from those found in other milks or elsewhere. When these substances are acted on by the digestive juices