A Treatise on Domestic Economy; For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School

where a constant demand for medicine exists in a nursery, the mother may rest assured, that there is something essentially wrong in the treatment of her children. "Much havoc is made among infants, by the abuse of calomel and other medicines, which procure momentary relief, but end by producing incurable disease; and it has often excited my astonishment, to see how recklessly remedies of this kind are had recourse to, on the most trifling occasions, by mothers and nurses, who would be horrified, if they knew the nature of the power they are wielding, and the extent of injury they are inflicting." Instead, then, of depending on medicine, for the preservation of the health and life of an infant, the following precautions and preventives should be adopted. Take particular care of the _food_ of an infant. If it is nourished by the mother, her own diet should be simple, nourishing, and temperate. If the child be brought up by hand, the milk of a new-milch cow, mixed with one third water, and sweetened a little with _white_ sugar, should be the only food given, until the teeth come. This is more suitable, than any preparations of flour or arrow-root, the nourishment of which is too highly concentrated. Never give a child _bread_, _cake_, or _meat_, before the teeth appear. If the food appear to distress the child, after eating, first ascertain if the milk be really from a new-milch cow, as it may otherwise be too old. Learn, also, whether the cow lives on proper food. Cows that are fed on _still-slops_, as is often the case in cities, furnish milk which is very unhealthful. Be sure and keep a good supply of pure and fresh air, in the nursery. On this point, Dr. Bell remarks, respecting rooms constructed without fireplaces, and without doors or windows to let in pure air, from without, "The sufferings of children of feeble constitutions, are increased, beyond measure, by such lodgings as these. _An action, brought by the Commonwealth_, ought to lie against those persons, who build houses for sale or rent, in which