There is no nourishment for an infant equal to the milk of a normal mother. BUT, almost any kind of artificial food is better than the milk of a woman with tuberculosis, acute febrile disease, nephritis, local sepsis of the breast (unless there is an adequate supply from the sound breast), chronic intestinal putrefaction, marked anaemia, etc.

Even sudden emotions, such as fright, grief, anger etc., are liable to render the milk toxic, and lactation should be suspended for several hours.

A wet nurse is theoretically the best substitute for an incompetent mother but should not be employed unless the physician can mutually guarantee nurse and nursling against tuberculous, syphilitic and other infections, nor unless the wet nurse is conscientious. The ethics of sacrificing the interests of the nurse's child should also be weighed.

Aside from infections, the principal dangers to be apprehended from a wet nurse are inadequacy of the milk supply, especially if she continues to nurse her own baby; indiscretions in diet to which there is special predisposition on account of the sudden transition to surroundings of relative luxury; indiscretions in drink, including the use of beer as a galactagogue; irregularity in feeding, either from carelessness or the pernicious use of the breast to quiet crying; the use of opiates or sexual manipulations to quiet the child.

Preparations for the baby's diet should begin early in pregnancy. The mother should be well nourished and kept free from auto-intoxications of all kinds; the nipples should be kept scrupulously clean and, if necessary, everted; moral suasion to induce the mother to nurse the child may be necessary.

The secretion of milk is usually well established within two or three days after labor. Even before the secretion is established, the child should be put to the breast regularly, to stimulate uterine contractions, to stimulate the secretion of milk, for the sake of the laxative action of the colostrum, and to establish proper habits in mother and child.

Before the flow of milk is established, the child should not be given teas or syrups of any kind, but boiled water should be given occasionally.

Every nurse and mother should be taught that the breast is not a plaything with which to amuse the child, a hypnotic, a source of liquid with which to quench thirst but that it is solely a source of nourishment.

The mother who nurses her child every time it cries is doing her best to make it a life-long dyspeptic.

It is even more important that the infant should have its meals regularly than that the adult should.

The minimum period between nursings should be two hours.

Up to about the middle of the second month, the interval between feedings should be 2 - 2 1/2 hours; to the sixth month 3 hours; to the ninth month 3 1/2 hours; thereafter 4 hours; in each case with a double interval at night.

Weaning should occur at about the tenth or twelfth month, anticipating or delaying so as to avoid a change of diet during hot weather. As early as the seventh month, the baby may be allowed to suck a bone, a piece of steak or of good salt pork, once a day, taking care that it does not swallow or choke upon it. Weaning should begin with the substitution of artificial feeding once a day and should occupy two months altogether. If trouble ensues, full breast feeding should be resumed for a week or two before making a second attempt - providing there is no emergency.

The various cow's milk preparations, to be described in cases of compulsory artificial feeding, may be used during weaning. After the babv is fully weaned, arrowroot, farina and other soft cereals, part of a soft boiled egg, beef juice, light soups, crackers and dry bread may be gradually added.

For the second year, five meals should be given daily, leaving twelve hours for uninterrupted sleep.

For the normal breast-fed infant, the close of milk is a stomach-ful. The organ being relatively small and strong walled, if too much is taken, the baby pukes, that is to say, it spills out the excess, the process being entirely different from vomiting.

Unless there is hare-lip, cleft palate, tongue-tie, etc., 15 - 20 minutes suffice for a nursing. The infant should no more be allowed to spend an unreasonable time in nursing and playing with the breast, than an older child should be allowed to dawdle at the table and play with its food.

Artificial feeding, well carried out, is superior to nursing by an unhealthy mother or an unreliable wet nurse.

Modified cow's milk is, on the whole, considering expense, availability and the possibilities of hygienic control, the most convenient and the best substitute for maternal milk.

By weighing infants, before and after nursing, and by analyzing maternal milk, the following theoretic, average basis for artificial feeding has been established: (Holt, Rotch and others agreeing closely.

The amounts are left in ounces as the figures, multiplied by two are then readily converted into tablespoonfuls.

The use of one cow's milk is like putting all one's eggs into one basket. There are fewer things to watch but those that remain must be watched all the more carefully. Mixed milk is more likely to conform to average standards and, while a greater number of chances of accidental infection are present, the infection, if present, will be more dilute and less virulent.

Percentage modification of milk should not be made a fetich. It is rational to approach as nearly as possible to the proportions of human milk, but human milk varies considerably without harm to the child and the differences in the exact nature of the proteins, size and consistence of curds after the action of rennet ferment, and differences in antitoxic and analogous substances, are of more importance than differences in percentage composition.