In the mean time the child was
necessarily fed upon an artificial diet, and as a consequence its
bowels became deranged, and a severe diarrhoea followed. A wet-nurse
was advised for the child as the only means of saving its life, and
change of air for the mother as the most likely expedient (in
connection with the general treatment pointed out above) for obtaining
a good breast of milk. Accordingly, on the 5th October, the patient,
taking with her the infant and a wet-nurse, went a few miles from town.
For three or four days it was a question whether the little one would
live, for so greatly had it been reduced by the looseness of the bowels
that it had not strength to grasp the nipple of its nurse; the milk,
therefore, was obliged to be drawn, and the child fed with it from a
spoon. After the lapse of a few days, however, it could obtain the
breast-milk for itself; and, to make short of the case, on the 25th of
the same month, the mother and child returned home, the former having a
very fair proportion of healthy milk in her bosom, and the child
perfectly recovered and evidently thriving fast upon it.
Where, however, there has been an early deficiency in the supply of
nourishment, it will most frequently happen that, before the sixth or
seventh month, the infant's demands will be greater than the mother can
meet.
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