^ 
 
ON 
 
 ^I'lo 
 
 ALCOHOLIC DRINKS 
 
 AS 
 
 AN ARTICLE OF DIET 
 
 FOR 
 
 NUESINa MiOTHEIRS 
 
 5^»<c 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES EDMUNDS, M.D. 
 
 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE PUBLICATION DEPOT, 
 337, STRAND, W.C. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY. 
 
 /' I e 7 s-1 
 
LOAN STACK 
 
 LONDON : 
 BAERETT, SONS AND CO., PEINTEES, 
 GEE AT TO WEE STEEET, E.G. 
 
B351 
 
 ON 
 
 ALCOHOLIC DEINKS 
 
 AS 
 
 Ai^ AETICLE OF DIET EOH NUESING MOTHEES. 
 
 By James Edmunds, M.D., 
 Late Senior Physician to the British Lying-in Hospital. 
 
 The nursing mother is peculiarly placed, in that she has to provide 
 a supply of nutriment for the child which is dependent upon her, as 
 well as for the ordinary requirements of her own system. The nutri- 
 tion of the child is to be provided for upon the same principles and 
 by the same fmjd-elements as is the nutrition of the mother, the only 
 difference being that the young child is possessed of less perfect mas- 
 ticatory and digestive powers, and therefore requires food to be pre- 
 sented to it in a state more simple, uniform and readily assimilable 
 than the adult, who is furnished with strong teeth, and possessed of a 
 fully-grown stomach. The mastication, digestion, and primary assi- 
 milation of the sucking infant's food is thrown upon the mother's 
 organs ; but the tissues of the child are nourished precisely as are 
 the tissues of the mother, and a nursing mother requires simply to 
 digest a larger supply of wholesome and appropriate food. As a 
 matter of course mothers with imperfect teeth or weak stomachs can- 
 not perform the digestion of extra food for the infant so well as those 
 mothers who have an abundance of reserve-power in their digestive 
 apparatus, and with such patients the question arises, how are they 
 to make up for the deficiency which they soon experience in the 
 supply of milk ? Such mothers appeal to their medical advisers to 
 prascribe some stimulant which will enable them to overcome the 
 difficulty which they experience, and often are greatly dissatisfied if 
 informed that there is no drug in the materia medica which will 
 make up for structural weakness in the organs which masticate, 
 digest, or assimilate the food. The proper course for such women to 
 adopt is a simple and rational one. They should assist their diges- 
 
 268 
 
4 DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 
 
 tive apparatus as mucli as possible by securing an abundance of 
 suitable and nutritious food, prepared in the best way and as is most 
 digestible, while they should lessen the demands of their own system 
 by the avoidance of bodily fatigue and mental excitement. These 
 me^ns, aided by that philosophical hygiene which is at all times 
 essential to the preservation of pure and perfect health, will enable 
 them to supply a maximum quantity of pure and wholesome milk ; 
 and further calls by the child require proper artificial food. Unfor- 
 tunately such advice fails to satisfy many anxious mothers who refuse 
 to admit or believe that they are less robust or less capable than 
 other ladies of their acquaintance, and such mothers fall easy victims 
 to circulars vaunting the nourishing properties of " Hoare's Stout," 
 " Tanqueray's Gin," or Gilbey's " strengthening Port," circulars which 
 are always backed up by the example and advice of lady friends, 
 who themselves have acquired the habit of using these liquors, and 
 who view as a reproach to themselves the practice of any other lady 
 who may not keep them in countenance as the perfection of all moral 
 and physical propriety. Unfortunately the pressure of such lady 
 friends is often so persistent as to paralyse the influence of a conscien- 
 tious and thoughtful medical adviser, while the appetites and beliefs 
 of such friends often throw them into active antagonism to any medi- 
 cal adviser who may not endorse the habits in which, as they believe, 
 and no doubt conscientiously, duty to their child requires them to 
 indulge. The only course that a medical practitioner, whose family 
 is dependent upon his practice, can safely take with veteran mothers 
 on this question, is to let them have their own way without reiterated 
 admonition. When once they have acquired the habit of depending 
 upon large quantities of beer for nursing their children, they liecome 
 perfectly infatuated, and are practically incapable of passing through 
 the probationary fortnight which takes place before the digestive 
 apparatus can work under its natural, but to them strange, condi- 
 tions, while the temporary longing for beer, and the sudden lessening 
 of the quantity of milk afforded by their strained and impoverished 
 systems, are at once set down as clear proofs that their medical 
 adviser is a crochetty and dangerous person, who must be superseded 
 at the first convenient opportunity. Facts and arguments have no 
 more influence on such mothers than they have upon opium-eaters, 
 drunkards, or inverate consumers of tobacco ; while the extreme 
 propriety of conduct which these ladies manifest, and the encourage- 
 ment they receive from other medical men, make the convictions 
 based upon their own personal sensations incontrovertible, and their 
 positon practically unassailable. I think I might fairly say that 
 among the comfortable middle classes of society the views at present 
 held on this question are so dcj)lorable that a large proportion 
 of children are never sober from the first moment of their exis- 
 tence until they have been weaned ; while often after a few years 
 the use of alcohol is again introduced to the children as a " medical 
 comfort," as a part of their regular diet, or as an invariable accom- 
 
DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 5 
 
 paniment of all their juvenile visitation and company-keeping. 
 Under such circumstances it is not surprising that Temperance re- 
 formers appeal in vain on this question, and that their facts and 
 arguments are viewed with plausible indifference, or insidious oppo- 
 sition, by persons whose appetites and instincts have been undergoing 
 debasement and perversion from the very dawn of their lives. My 
 own deliberate conviction is that nothing but harm comes to nursing 
 mothers, and to the infants who are dependent upon them, by the 
 ordinary use of alcoholic beverages of any kind, and in the follow- 
 ing remarks I propose to give, very shortly and practically, the 
 results of a somewhat extended experience in reference to this ques- 
 tion, and the reasons which I trust will justify to the minds of common- 
 sense readers this expression of my own very strong convictions. 
 
 I fully believe that in most cases the use of alcoholic liquor does 
 increase the quantity of milk secreted by the nursing mother. But 
 what is the nature of the milk thus increased in quantity, and how 
 is that increase brought about ? These questions require considera- 
 tion in regard to the constitution of the mother, and in regard to the 
 health of the child. The supply of milk may be increased in the 
 following ways : — 
 
 Firstly. By the transformation in the mother's system of some 
 substance into milk which requires no digestion. For instance, if 
 by any magic water — which will soak through the stomach as it will 
 soak through a sponge, without any tax on the masticating, digesting, 
 or assimilating organs — could be transformed into blood or milk it 
 is clear that any quantity of milk could be supplied by the mother 
 in whose system such a transformation took place. But that would 
 be virtually equivalent to water being poured into a tube at one end 
 and coming out as blood or milk at the other — a feat which, so far 
 as I know, medical men have hitherto discovered no means of 
 accomplishing. 
 
 Secondly. By such use of any stimulant to the mother's digestive 
 organs as would temporaril}'- cause them to digest a larger quantity 
 of food than they would naturally do. If in this w^ay a larger supply 
 of food be forced into the mother's system, a larger supply of milk 
 w^ould be provided for the infant ; and in that case the only draw- 
 hack is that the mother's digestive apparatus would be strained and 
 injured in order to produce this result. Such injury might not be 
 felt at the time, but it certainly would be incurred, and it would 
 manifest itself in the long run, whether or not it were ever credited 
 to the real cause, i.e. the use of alcoholic beverages as an unnatural 
 goad to the digestive organs. 
 
 Thirdly. A greater supply of milk might be produced at the 
 expense of the mother's blood and constitution, although without 
 involving either of the two foregoing suppositions, just as a horse 
 in good condition may be worked down by an amount of labour 
 more than equivalent to the food it can digest, or — if the amount of 
 its food be stinted — more than equivalent to the force yielded by the 
 
Q DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 
 
 food which it constimes. In short, the results would be precisely 
 equivalent to those which are exemplified every day in the London 
 cowhouses, where, by stimulating but comparatively in-nutritious 
 foods, such as the refuse of breweries and distilleries, healthy cows 
 are made for a few months to produce an inordinate quantity of 
 milk. The cows gradually waste away, lose their health, and are 
 only saved from dying of consumption by the knife of the butcher, 
 after a brief reversal of the treatment. 
 
 Fourthly. The quantity of milk may be increased at the expense 
 of its quality by mere dilution, and this will readily take place if the 
 mother be induced to drink an inordinate quantity of watery fluid. 
 In this way the London cows are made to produce ready-made milk- 
 and-water which needs no further dilution. 
 
 Fifthly. There are many s.ubstances which, when taken into the 
 human system, are treated by the system as foreign and poisonous 
 agents, and are immediately eliminated by the excreting organs. 
 Thus diaphoretics, which increase perspiration, do so by virtue of a 
 poisonous element which is most readily eliminated by the skin ; and 
 no sooner do medicines of this kind get into the blood than the skin 
 immediately sets to work to get rid of them. The skin discharges 
 /hem in a large quantity of aqueous perspiration derived from the 
 blood, and many such medicinal substances may be recognised in the 
 perspiration which they evoke. For instance, sulphur may be 
 recognised bv its odour ; alcohol, which acts as a diaphoretic under 
 certain conditions, and is commonly used as such to cure a cold, also 
 may be recognised by its odour in the perspiration when it is 
 thus eliminated. A more palpable illustration may be cited in the 
 action of snuff, which when brought into contact with the lining 
 membrane ®f the nose is at once washed away by a profuse secretion. 
 Snuff, pepper, and other irritating substances, in like manner, when 
 put against the mucous membrane of the eye, provoke a profuse 
 secretion of tears, wh; ch washes them away and gets rid of them. 
 Other substances, again, called diuretics, enormously increase the 
 action of the kidneys. Some of these substances will act either as 
 purgatives, or as diuretics, or as diaphoretics, according to the 
 conditions to which the patient is subjected while the medicine is in 
 process of elimination. Thus if a patient having taken a diapho- 
 retic, go to bed immediately, and be placed under such circumstances 
 as to facilitate the action of the skin, a profuse perspiration will 
 follow ; whereas, if the patient had gone out into a cold atmosphere, 
 the medicine might have been got rid of, not by the skin but by the 
 kidneys, and would have acted as a diuretic. A seidlitz powder, if 
 taken upon an empty stomach, will act as a purgative ; whereas, if 
 taken with a full meal, it will act not as a purgative, but as a 
 diuretic. Many medicines which ordinarily act as purgatives will, 
 when taken by a nursing mother, act as lactagogues (milk drivers) ; 
 i.e. they will be eliminated by the breasts instead of by the bowels, 
 and will pass off by the intestines of the child instead of by the- 
 
DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 7 
 
 intestines of the mother ; and the child, its system being a mnch 
 more sensitive index than that of the mother, will often suffer 
 greatly from drugs, or from crude or improper food, although the 
 more callous system of the mother may not have shown that any 
 impropriety of diet had been committed. 
 
 Alcohol, the essential principle of all intoxicating liquors, will, 
 under different circumstances, act either as a purgative or as a 
 diuretic or as a diaphoretic, or will be got rid of almost entirely by 
 the lungs, or will act as a lactagogue, according to the circumstances 
 and conditions of the alcoholised subject. The bilious diarrhoea 
 which follows a debauch in hot weather, when the lungs are less 
 able to eliminate the alcohol — the frequent urination required by 
 habitual soakers — the sweating caused by a full dose of hot spirit- 
 and-water on going to bed — the stinking odour of secondhand beer, 
 wine, or spirit, which pervades the breath and perspiration of the 
 drinker, and the profuse discharge of milk which comes from the 
 breasts of a beery nurse — are all phenomena of precisely the same 
 order, and which actually reciprocate with each other according to 
 the exigencies and conditions of the system and circumstances by 
 which the drinker is surrounded. It is a matter of common obser- 
 vation that a glass of spirit taken at bedtime by a nursing mother, 
 not merely increases the flow of milk during the night, but causes 
 the child to sleep heavily ; in fact, the spirit under these circum- 
 stances acts, not as a purgative, nor as a diuretic, nor as a diaphoretic, 
 nor does much of it pass off by the lungs, but it acts as a lactagogue, 
 because the breasts are then in a state of great activity, and form the 
 readiest channel through which the mother's system can eliminate 
 the alcohol, and for that elimination the breasts have to discharge a 
 profuser quantity of milk ; but the increased quantity of milk is 
 produced by a mere addition of alcohol and water, or it is produced 
 by impoverishing and straining the system of the mother. In either 
 case the poisonous influence of the alcohol is manifested in narcoti- 
 sing the child, and it cannot need much reflection to show that 
 children ought not to have alcohol filtered into them as receptacles 
 for matters which the mother's system finds it necessary to eliminate, 
 and that probably nothing could be worse than to have the very 
 fabric of the child's tissues laid down from alcoholised blood . 
 
 Probably few persons would be found to believe in the proposition 
 that stout could be transformed into milk in the mother's system, if 
 that proposition were stated in explicit terms, as by substituting the 
 term stout for water in our first supposition. But in order to under- 
 stand how it is that an increased quantity of milk is often produced 
 by the use of alcoholic liquor, some deliberate discussion of this point 
 is really necessary. There is a large proportion of medical opinion 
 in England at this day which supports the hypothesis that alcohol 
 serves as food in the body, and, as it soaks into the body without 
 taxing the digestive apparatus, it would need no more effort fo^: 
 digestion or assimilation than it needs for mastication. That opinion 
 
8 
 
 DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 
 
 rests not merely upon the beliefs and likings of a large mass of our 
 population medical and non-medical — "practical experience" as it is 
 called — but it rests also upon a shadow of scientific fact, as we have 
 never yet succeeded in reproducing from the excretions all the 
 alcohol which may have been taken into the body. Every one is 
 aware that a person who has swallowed a small quantity of beer, 
 wine, spirit, or pure alcohol, gives out a corresponding alcoholic 
 odour for some hours afterwards, and therefore it is clear that some 
 of the alcohol, being extruded in the same state as it was ingested, 
 cannot have served as food, inasmuch as food never leaves the body 
 undecomposed. I have always thought that the burden of proving 
 the hypothesis that alcohol is decomposed in the body rests with 
 those who propound it, as we may-fairly begin by assuming that 
 what we know to take place with a large proportion of the alcohol, 
 also takes place with the remainder. In February, 1867, at Man- 
 chester, I delivered a lecture to the Church of England Diocesan 
 Temperance Eeformation Society, upon the properties of alcohol as 
 a medicine, and in reference to the action of alcohol in the system. 
 I condense the following sentences from a report of that lecture 
 which appeared in the Alliance News of March 2nd, 1867 : — 
 
 " Alcohol in the blood diminishes the osmosis or permeation of its fluids 
 through the membranous tissues of the body, and thus the extra-vascular 
 circulation or soakage of the fluid parts of the blood is interfered with. 
 The alcohol also blunts the chemical affinities by virtue of which the tissues 
 of the body and the fluids of the blood react upon each other. These two 
 efiects obstruct the onward passage of the blood through its capillaries, and 
 the blood accumulating behind distends the arteries and stirs up the heart 
 to force on the current. Thus we get what is called * the stimulating 
 action of alcohol,' i.e., a fuller pulse and a more laborious action of the 
 heart — the real fact being that more heart-labour is required to keep the 
 circulation going, just as when respiration is interfered with the breathing 
 becomes more laborious." 
 
 " I can see nothing in the action of alcohol in the human body in any 
 case or at any time but that of a paralyser, and I see in that view the key 
 by which we can explain all the contradictory phenomena, and all the con- 
 tradictory benefits which have been ascribed to the influence of alcohol. 
 . . . . Life assurance tables show that the total abstainers live longer 
 than even the moderate and respectable drinkers do, and, all round, the 
 facts come out to show that the sensations of comfort which are experienced 
 when alcohol is taken are but modifications of the comfort with which the 
 man lies in the gutter when drunk. If we look to the influence of alcohol 
 in the various kinds of sickness, the same simple key will unravel all the 
 
 mysteries By giving alcohol as a ' stimulus ' in exhausting 
 
 diseases, I believe we always do what we should do by giving a dose of 
 opium, or brandy- and- water, to comfort a half-suffocated patient (i.e. 
 increase his danger). If that be so we reduce alcohol not only from the 
 position of a food medicine, but we reduce it from the position of a goad, 
 and we say that the suppositious stimulating or goading influence of alcohol 
 is a mere delusion, that in fact alcohol always lessens the power of the 
 
DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. » 
 
 patients, and always damages their chances of recovery when ifc is a question 
 of their getting through exhausting diseases. There are some cases in 
 which alcohol is invaluable, e.g., as a narcotic in staving off certain kinds of 
 convulsions, or in lessening the sensibility of the body under a painful 
 operation. But these are cases which happen but rarely, and which do not 
 come within the scope of that class of ailments for which we now see 
 brandy and wine indiscriminately prescribed and relied upon. In the case 
 of a child cutting its teeth there is a nervous irritation which throws the 
 whole body out of gear, and the respiratory muscles become locked as it 
 were by the violence of the spasm, and the patient may be killed by momen- 
 tary suffocation through the very energy with which certain parts of the 
 body act, just as a machine may become * locked,' and in order to put it 
 right you have to turn the steam down or turn it off for a moment. Under 
 these circumstances alcohol is useful as a paralyser, a blunter of those 
 extreme sensibilities which evoke the convulsive action by which a patient 
 may be killed. But I think alcohol should be restricted to such cases as 
 
 are usually treated by opium or chloroform I think that these 
 
 arguments not only will come home to clergymen and other leaders of 
 opinion, but also should influence even the mere rationalist, who is not swayed 
 ty religious expediency, and ready to give up even that meat which might make 
 his weaker brother to offend. We conclude by simply affirming these proposi- 
 tions : — That alcohol never sustains the forces of the body as a food or a 
 food medicine; that alcohol never acts as a goad to the body; that it has no 
 stimulating properties whatever in the sense of increased action either in 
 rate or quantity ; that alcohol always acts as a narcotic, and is always a 
 paralyser of sensation and a lessener of action." 
 
 It will be found by those who refer to that lecture that I had been 
 led to view alcohol, not as a food, not even as a true stimulant, but 
 as always a narcotic and paralyser, and to aver that its true use in 
 medicine was not that of afood or stimulant, but that of a narcotic. 
 I still hold to that view, and I am pleased to find that a view which 
 I believe to be the only sound one as a scientific basis for the use of 
 alcohol, has since been very fully adopted by other medical men. 
 The Medical Times and Gazette of December 18th, 1869, contains a 
 very interesting lecture, entitled, " Physiological Research upon 
 Alcohols," by Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson, whose attention I 
 called to the views which I had arrived at, and I now quote the con- 
 cluding paragraphs of that very able lecture, as being one of the 
 most recent and authoritative expressions of professional opinion 
 upon this point : — * 
 
 " I have dwelt on these points from their immediate relation to practice. 
 The evidence of the physicians is not less conflicting than the evidence of 
 the physiologists. What shall we believe ? Dr. Todd and his followers 
 cure fever with alcohol. Dr. Gairdner, of Glasgow, treats fever with and 
 without alcohol, and finds that he cures without better by far than with it. 
 
 * Dr. Richardson's Lecture will be found entire in the Medical Tenu 
 perance Journal for ^pril, 1870. 
 
10 DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 
 
 I will contest on neither side, because I know that as yet physicians have 
 never prescribed alcoholic fluids with any precision at all, either in regard 
 to quality or quantity, the common alcoholic drinks being anything ; but I 
 am prepared to contest, if under scientific administration alcohol he found 
 to cure fever, that the medicine acts by lowering temperatui*e and checking 
 waste, not by sustaining as food sustains the body. 
 
 *' The alcohols are strictly anseesthetics, and, indeed, the first published 
 case of surgical operation under ansesthetic sleep was performed in 1839, by 
 Dr. Collier, on a negro, who was rendered insensible by breathing the fumes 
 of alcohol. 
 
 " Speaking honestly, I cannot, by the argument yet presented to me, 
 admit the alcohols through any gate that might distinguish them as apart 
 from other chemical bodies. I can no more accept them as foods than I 
 can chloroform, or ether, or methylal. That they produce a temporary 
 excitement is true, but as their general action is quickly to reduce animal 
 heat, I cannot see how they can supply animal force. I see clearly how 
 they reduce animal power, and can show a reason for using them in order 
 to stop physical pain, or to stupefy mental pain ; but that they give 
 strength — i.e. that they supply material for construction of fine tissue, or 
 throw force into tissues supplied by other material — must be an error as 
 solemn as it is widespread. 
 
 " The true character of the alcohols is that they are agreeable temporary 
 shrouds. The savage, with the mansions of his soul unfurnished, buries 
 iiis restless energy under their shadow. The civilised man, overburdened 
 with mental labour, or engrossing care, seeks the same shade ; but it is a 
 shade after all in which, in exact proportion as he seeks it, the seeker 
 retires from perfect natural life. To resort for force to alcohol is, to my 
 mind, equivalent to the act of searching for the sun in subterranean gloom 
 until all is night. 
 
 " As yet alcohol, the most commonly summoned of accredited remedies, 
 has never been properly tested to meet human, diseases. I mean by this 
 that it has never been tested as alcohol of a given chemical composition, of 
 a given purity, and in given measures. Wines, beers, and spirits, are anythings 
 — compounds of alcohols, and compounds of alcohols with ethers and other 
 foreign substances. It is time, therefore, now for the learned to be precise 
 respecting alcohol, and for the learned to learn the positive meaning of one 
 of their most potent instruments for good or for evil, whereupon I think 
 they will place the alcohol series in the position I have placed it, even 
 though their prejudices in regard to it are, as mine are by moderate habit, 
 but confessed inconsistency, in its favour." 
 
 If this view be adopted, it follows that alcohol never yields up 
 force in the body as a food on the one hand, and that it never acts as 
 a stimulant by exciting force on the other. All the observations 
 which I have been able to make impress me with the conviction that, 
 at any rate, the drug-action of alcohol is that of a narcotic, and not 
 that of a stimulant ; but in case it should hereafter be proved that 
 alcohol does undergo oxidation in the body so as to yield up force, 
 and thereby serve to some extent as food, the total abstainer's plat- 
 form would still remain unshaken. We should then inquire, firstly, 
 Is alcohol a good food ? Every medical man would reply that alco 
 
WET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 
 
 11 
 
 hol, if a food, is certainly at the same time the cause of most of 
 those degenerations of blood and tissue which constitute the diseases 
 of the present day — a charge which cannot be brought against any 
 other substance that ranks as a food ; and there is no doubt that the 
 physical injury resulting from the use of alcohol as a food would far 
 outweigh the benefits which its possible yielding up of force might 
 give. We should ask, secondly. Is alcohol a cheap food ? The reply 
 would be that you could get as much food in a penny-worth of oat- 
 meal, beef suet, or sugar, as you would in a shilling's-worth of alco- 
 hol. We should ask, thirdly, Is alcohol a safe food ? The reply 
 would be that, while gluttony and other abuses of true foods are 
 practically very trifling evils, and evils, moreover, which seem to have 
 a natural tendency to cure themselves, the drunkenness and other 
 evils which arise out of the drinking usages of society are admitted 
 on all hands to be the greatest curse with which society is at present 
 afflicted, and to be evils moreover which have a tendency to per- 
 petuate and aggravate themselves, instead of curing themselves. 
 Therefore, if alcohol were a food, it would be an injurious food, a 
 dear food, and a dangerous food. What applies to alcohol as a food 
 for hard-working men, applies to it quite as much for nursing mothers 
 w^hose strength may be overtaxed. But those who wish to follow this 
 discussion out may refer to a five-column report of my lecture, 
 already referred to, in the Alliance News, and they must not leave 
 unstudied the recent lecture of Dr. Eichardson. 
 
 As to the effects of beer-drinking upon nursing mothers I have 
 observed the following facts. The mothers frequently make flesh, 
 and even become corpulent ; often, however, at the same time they 
 get pale, and wherever they are not constitutionally robust in fibre 
 they become inactive, short-breathed, coarse-complexioned, nervous 
 and irritable, and suff"er from the weakness of the heart and a long 
 train of symptoms which are more or less severe according to the 
 constitution of the mother and the quantity of alcohol she imbibes. 
 The young mother prematurely loses the bloom and beauty of youth. 
 Often it is quite startling to meet some lady, who during an interval 
 of two years has been transformed from a sprightly and charming 
 young woman into an uninteresting^and coarse-looking matron. She 
 has nursed her first infant for twelve months. With a pure and 
 rational diet, she would simply have acquired a more dignified and 
 womanly bearing, with a robuster gentleness of manner ; but a Liberal 
 supply of "nourishing" stout— a glass of port at luncheon, and a 
 little gin-and-water at bedtime — one after the other, were adopted, 
 and imbibed regularly, in order to supply her infant with "milk." 
 The presence of a nerveless apathy, or unintelligent irritability, after- 
 wards proved that a liberal supply of " stimulants " was required to 
 support her strength, and, although she ceased nursing, her own sen- 
 sations convinced her of the necessity of continuing them. The out- 
 ward and visible change is but an exponent of the degenerations and 
 diseases which are takmg root within. If there be a predisposition 
 
12 
 
 DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 
 
 to insanity or consumption, these diseases are developed very rapidly, 
 or they are brought on where proper management might altogether 
 have tided over those periods of life at which the predisposition is 
 prone to become provoked into actual disease. 
 
 Infants nursed by mothers who drink much beer also become fatter 
 that usual, and to an untrained eye sometimes appear as " magnifi- 
 cent children." Bat the fatness of such children is not a recommen- 
 dation to the more knowing observer ; they are extremely prone to 
 die of inflammation of the chest (bronchitis) after a few days' illness 
 from an ordinary cold. They die very much more frequently than 
 other children of convulsions and diarrhoea while cutting their teeth, 
 and they are very liable to die of scrofulous inflammation of the 
 membranes of the brain, commonly called " water on the brain," 
 while their childhood often presents a painful contrast — in the way of 
 crooked legs and stunted or ill-shapen figure — to the " magnificent " 
 and promising appearance of their infancy. 
 
 Those ladies who adopt the general views I have thus expressed in 
 relation to the nursing of their children, will want to know what is 
 the " proper artificial food " with which to supplement their milk 
 when it is deficient in quantity. With some patients the milk will 
 fall off in quantity at the end of two or three months. With others, 
 although the quantity may not fall off, the child seems unsatisfied ; 
 and there is a third class with whom a profusion of milk is supplied 
 and the child thrives exceedingly, but the mother gets flabby, weak, 
 nervous, pale and exhausted. In the last case, the mother is simply 
 goaded on by susceptibility of her nervous system, or by inordi- 
 nate activity of the breasts to yield an amount of milk which her 
 digestive powers are not equal to providing for. The treatment of 
 such cases should be simply repressive. The mother should sepa- 
 rate herself somewhat more from the child, and make a rule of only 
 nursing it from five to eight times in the twenty -four hours, while 
 the neck of the mother should be kept cool in regard to dress, and 
 cold sponging may be practised carefully night and morning. Her 
 attention should be diverted by outdoor exercise on foot, and addi- 
 tionally in a carriage if necessary. When the mother's milk, though 
 apparently not deficient in quantity, proves unsatisfying to the child, 
 great attention should be paid to varying the diet of the mother, 
 while such staple foods should be taken as are most easily and tho- 
 roughly assimilated into milk. The unsatisfying quality of the milk 
 •will generally be remedied by taking a more varied diet, together 
 with three or four half-pints of milk in the course of the day, accom- 
 panied with farinaceous matter, as in the shape of well-made milk 
 gruel ; and in case these measures fail, the only alternative is to sup- 
 plement the mother's milk by obtaining a wet-nurse to suckle the 
 <5hild three or four times a day alternately with the mother, or by 
 feeding the child with proper artificial food. The same measures 
 may be resorted to where the milk, though satisfying in character, 
 is deficient in quantity ; and in preparing artificial food for the child 
 
DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. ^^ 
 
 it must always be remembered that the food requires to be adapted 
 to the stage of development which is manifested by a young infant's 
 digestive organs. The infant's digestive apparatus is in fact designed 
 to digest milk, and to digest nothing else, but when the teeth are 
 cut, farinaceous matter of a more or less solid character should be 
 gradually mixed with the milk. Almost all the illnesses of infants 
 under twelve months of age are caused by some gross impropriety of 
 diet or otherwise on the part of the mother, for which the child 
 suffers through the medium of the milk, or they are caused by feed- 
 ing the child with improper artificial food. Thick sop and many 
 other articles often given as food are as indigestible to an infant of 
 three months old as cabbages would be to a lion, or beefsteaks to a 
 horse ; and until the child has cut its teeth, it should have nothing 
 but food resembling the mother's milk as closely as possible. Of 
 course milk is an article which varies immensely in large towns, ac- 
 cording to the management of the cows who yield it, and according 
 to the manipulations of the persons who sell it ; but by proper atten- 
 tion and careful watching there is never anything like as much diffi- 
 culty in obtaining pure milk as there is in obtaining pure beer. 
 Assume that we start with unadulterated milk of fair quality — that 
 milk contains twice as much cheese, twice as much butter, and about 
 as much sugar as is contained in human milk. By adding a little 
 sugar so as to double the proportion of sugar also, and then an equal 
 quantity of boiling water, the three main ingredients will be reduced 
 to their proper proportions, and most infants will thrive perfectly 
 upon nice fresh sweetened milk, diluted with boiling water. If the 
 milk be very rich, or if the milk pass undigested through the bowels, 
 it should be diluted still more, or until the stools cease to contain 
 milk. If a dishonest tradesman has already supplied the water, it is 
 obvious the milk need not be further diluted. There are many 
 groundless fears as to the extent and character of the adulterations to 
 which milk is subjected — chalk, horses' brains, and various other 
 materials have been brought by sensational scribblers before the vivid 
 imaginations of mothers. I think I may say, without hesitation, 
 the chalk is never, under any circumstances, used to adulterate 
 milk ; and certainly if any stupid adulterator were to put chalk into 
 milk, it would be discovered by the first person who looked for it, 
 inasmuch as the chalk would be deposited at the bottom of the vessel 
 in the course of a few minutes. I have witnessed the process of 
 adulterating milk over and over again at the places in London where 
 milk from the country is wholesaled to the retailers. The materials 
 consist of an ordinary tap of running water, a jug of burnt sugar, a 
 dish of salt, and a clean stick. The men hold their half-filled cans 
 of milk under the tap for a time proportioned to the length of their 
 consciences, and the softness of their customers, but always until the 
 " milk " presents an ominous blueness to the eye, and acquires an 
 insipid watery taste. They then stir burnt sugar into it, drop by 
 drop until a rich creamy hue appears, and finally the flavour is 
 
14 
 
 DIET FOR NURSINa MOTHERS. 
 
 brought up "by a little salt. This is really the process by which milk 
 is adulterated in our great towns, and shameful and disgusting though 
 it is, yet it is not so bad as people imagine, being limited to mere 
 cheating by dilution of the milk, and not extending to the use of 
 deleterious or nasty ingredients. 
 
 The proper way to feed an infant of three months old, whose 
 mother is only able to partially support it, is as follows : — When the 
 child wakes in the morning it should not go to the mother, but 
 should be taken away by the nurse, and immediately fed from the 
 bottle, sucking its milk through a suitable teat. Alter the mother 
 has breakfasted the child may go to the breast, and during the day 
 it should be alternately fed from the bottle, and nursed by the 
 mother. At six o'clock the baby should invariably be placed in its 
 crib, by the side of the mother's bed, and fed just before going to 
 sleep, and the habit of going to bed at six o'clock should be strictly 
 and invariably enforced. If once the child be allowed to come down 
 to the family circle after dark, the habit of going to sleep will be 
 broken, ami the child will continuously cry to come down. In the 
 course of the evening the mother may nurse the child once, and at 
 ten or eleven o'clock, when the mother goes to bed, the child should 
 be again fed from the bottle, and the mother should have a basin of 
 well-made milk-gruel ; and by her bedside should be placed, at the 
 last moment, as much gruel as she is likely to drink with relish 
 during the night. Whenever the child is reslless it should be taken 
 out of its crib, gently, by the mother, and nursed, say two or three 
 times during the night, and put back again into its crib, the child 
 never being allowed to sleep with the mother. When the night is 
 fairly over, and the child awakens, it should be fetched by the nurse, 
 and have its first morning meal from the bottle. This plan of feed- 
 ing should be persisted in continuously until the child has cut its 
 teeth ; and it is only when every means have been taken to ensure 
 the sweetness, freshness, and niceness, not only of the milk and 
 water, but of the bottle and of the teat, and the child still fails to 
 get on, that, in rare cases, I advise the admixture of a little farina- 
 ceous matter in the way of food containing one part milk and two 
 parts of properly sweetened barley-water. As the milk teeth come 
 through, other farinaceous matter may be gradually blended with 
 the milk, and there is nothing better than to begin at about eight 
 months with a teaspoonful of baked flour, well boiled in a pint of 
 milk and water, or in the water, to be afterwards cooled with milk. 
 Oftentimes a little salt, as well as sugar, will materially help iU 
 digestion. The child will do well on that food— the quantity being 
 duly increased— until it has cut almost all its milk teeth, when it 
 may eat bread and butter, rice and egg puddings, and occasionally 
 eat a boiled egg once a day. I believe that it is a great mistake to 
 give red flesh meat to children in their early years, unless there ba 
 some very special reason for it, and then that it should only be 
 temporarily used ; bat nice potatoes, flavoured with fresh gravy 
 
DIET FOR NURSING MOTHERS. 
 
 15 
 
 from a joint, may be given at dinner, as tlie child becomes able to 
 feed itself. 
 
 The British Medical Journal of June 4th, 1870, contains an ar'ri^cle- 
 headed " Doctors and Water- drinkers," which is probably the most 
 important article upon this subject in relation to the medical 
 profession which has ever appeared in the medical journals of this 
 country. The article is of considerable length, and is written ably, 
 dispassionately, and honestly. This journal speaks in the name of 
 an association that numbers 4,000 members of the medical profession 
 of this country, and the article must be regarded as an exponent, 
 according to its editor's lights, of the position of our medical men in 
 regard to the question of total abstinence. It contains the following 
 remark : — " Probably almost every member of the medical profession 
 in the three kingdoms himself uses dietetic stimulants, in bold 
 defiance of gout and tissue degeneration, and honestly believes 
 himself on the whole the gainer from them." I do not know how 
 a worse compliment could have been paid to the profession, and this 
 sentence will probably be quoted in support of the complaints made 
 by Temperance reformers to the effect that in this country the 
 greatest enemies to the Temperance reformation are the medical 
 men, and that they, by their personal example and their indiscriminate 
 prescription of " dietetic stimulants," are responsible for much of the 
 present drunkenness, and for most of the relapses which occur to 
 those who have been reclaimed. Certainly the proportion of medical 
 men who are free from the influence of " dietetic stimulants " upon 
 their own stomachs, and therefore in a position to judge for their 
 patients upon this question without bias, is very small, but I am 
 able to state that it is not so small as is represented by the British 
 Medical Journal. My experience in my own person, after very 
 careful testing of my health, working-power, and capacity for en- 
 during mental strain, has convinced me that I am the gainer in 
 every way by abstaining, and I have been a total abstainer for some 
 years, and an abstainer practically for many years previously. I 
 may also add that my partner in life has arrived at the same con- 
 victions and the same practice ; and that by adopting the principles 
 to which I have already given expression, she has preserved her 
 health, and satisfactorily nursed five children for twelve months 
 each. Indeed, we have great cause to be thankful for the health of 
 ourselves, and for the health and promise of our children ; and we 
 ascribe these largely to abstinence from alcoholic beverages. I could 
 cite large numbers of families in my own practice who have been 
 under my observation for years, where the mother and children have 
 derived similar benefits from total or practical abstinence, and no 
 language would be too strong to express my convictions on this point 
 in a general way. 
 
STANDARD TEMPeRANCE TRACTS. 
 
 One Peni^y each; 6s, per 100. 
 Abstinence from Evil. By Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 Action of Alcohol on the Mind, The. By Dr. B. W. Richardson, 
 
 F.R.S. 
 
 Addresses. By the Abstaining Mayors at Guildhall. 
 
 Alcoholzc? Drinks as an Article of Diet for Nursing Mothers. 
 
 By James Edmvnds, M.D. 
 
 Alcoholic Drinks not Necessaries of Life. By Alfred Carpenter, 
 
 M.D., &c. 
 
 Between the Living" and the Dead. By Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D. 
 
 Church Ruins. By Rev. Alex. Macleod. 
 
 Claims of Total Abstinence on the Educated Classes, The. 
 
 By the Rev. Canon Faerar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 Doctors and Brandy. By Rev. B. Wilberforce, m.a. 
 
 Does the Bible support Total Abstinence ? By Rev. R. Valpy 
 
 French, D.C.L. 
 
 Effects of Alcohol upon Women. By Dr. Kate Mitchell,t.C.P.T.l.m. 
 
 Example, and its Power over the Young*. By Miss Ellen Webb. 
 
 Female Intemperance. By Dr. Norman Kerb. 
 
 Giant with the Three Heads, The. By Rev. W. M. Taylor, D.d. 
 
 Gilgal ; or, Rolling away the Reproach. By Rev. R. Maguire, d.d. 
 
 Habits and Health. By John Gill, M.D. 
 
 Heredity of Drunkenness. By Dr. Norman Kerr. 
 
 Hospital Nursing without Alcoholic Drinks. By Two Lady 
 
 NCRSES. 
 
 Intemper'ance and its Remedy. By Norman S. Kerr, m.d., F.L.S. 
 Is Alcohol a Necessity ? By B. W. Richardson, M.D., LL.D. 
 Is Total Abstinence Safe ? By Rev. H. S. Paterson, m.d. 
 Moderate Drinking*. The Opinions of Sir Henry Thompson, F.R.C.S. ; 
 Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S.; Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S., &c. 
 
 National Sin, The. By Rev. B. Wilberforce, M.A. 
 
 New House and its Battlements, The. By Rev. Joseph Cook, 
 
 Boston, U.S.A. 
 
 Personal Advantages of Total Abstinence. By Rev. Valpy 
 
 French, 
 
 Results of Researches on Alcohol. By B. W. Richardson, M.D. 
 Stimulants and Narcotics. By James Muir Howie, m.d. 
 Stimulants and Strength. By Rev. H. S. Paterson, M.d. 
 Strong Drink and its Results. By Rev. D. S. Govett. 
 Stumbling-Block Removed, A. An Essay on Scripture Wines. By 
 L. M. M. 
 
 Temperance in Relation to the Young. By Miss Ricketts. 
 
 Temperance in the School. Opinions of the Bishop of Exeter ; Rev. 
 Canon Hopkins; Rev. Dr. Vat,py French; Rev. G. W. Olver, &c. 
 
 Thou Shalt not Hide Thyself. By John Clifford, M.A., LL.B. 
 Total Abstinence in its Proper Place. By Samuel Bowly. 
 To the Rescue : an Appeal. By Rev. H. S. Paterson, M.D. 
 Under the Shadow of the Cross. By the Rev. J. R. Wood. 
 Verdict of Science. By N. S. Davis, M.D. 
 
 Vital Statistics of Total Abstinence. By Rev. D. Burns, D.D. 
 Vow of the Nazarite, The. Bj the Rev. Canon Farrar, d.d., F.R.S. 
 Vow of the Rechabite, The. By the Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 What shall Medical Men Say about Alcoholic Beverages? 
 
 By J. James Ridge, M.D., &c. 
 
 "What is my Duty ? By the Rev. j. Lewis Pearse. 
 
 "Woman's Responsibilities. By Marie Hilton. With Introduction by 
 Kev. Canon B. Wilbebforce. 
 
 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE PUBLICATION DEPOT, 
 337, Strand, London, W.C.