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and hence the neceffity of condiments when ufing fuch weak and unwholefome food.

I had an attack in my ftomach in the middle of my lecture. By means of a cordial fimulus I repelled it, and went on very well with my lecture.—At other times I have prevented fuch an effect, by anticipating the remedy.This doctrine puts much in our power: but we should not therefore play tricks with it. On the contrary, we have great reafon, fays he, to be thankful for the command it gives us over our health; and that alfo, by the use of means not inclegant, naufecus, and clumfy; but quite the contrary.

One gentleman excepted, fays Dr. SHEEBEARE, and I never faw a gentleman or lady who wholly abftained from animal food look like other people; nothing is fo cafy to distinguish as a vegetable man, by his phyfiognomy, the fittest appellation by which they can be diftinguished; he neither looks, talks, or moves like other people; his face conveys a declaration of his whole body being out of order, by the lifeless infipidity which is in it, as his converfation does of his mind being difturbed, his whole time being taken up in recounting to the world his manner of living, his feelings, his weak ftomach, his disturbed fleep, his watchings, how he fences out the cold air, what shoes and waistcoats he has on, and every other ridiculous particularity of his whole life; if he pretends to have fpirits, it is no more than a certain equability of a lifeless inanimate ftate, like that of the dormouse amongst animals, or the yew-tree in winter amongst vegetables; the warmth of the one, and the green of the other, juft fhew they are alive, with this difference however, that the fummer will wake the two latter into actual life and motion; whereas, to the man of vegetables, the fummer never comes, that comes to all; and the very power of vegetation and recovery from fleep, which is bestowed on the plant and dor moufe, are forbidden him by the regimen he pursues.

SECT.

SECT. X.

PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS.

IN page 140, when treating of temperaments, we remarked that the muscular fibres of the body, at different periods of life, poffeffed different degrees of excitability. This will lead us to confider the aliment proper for the different ftages of life.

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Nature not only points out the food fit for infancy, but also kindly prepares it. When the babe, foon after it is born in this cold world, is applied to its mother's bofom, its sense of perceiving warmth is firft agreeably affected; next its fenfe of Smell is delighted with the

Any one may observe this, when very young infants are about to fuck; for at thofe early periods of life, the perfume of the milk affects the organ of fmell, much more powerfully, than after the repeated habits of fmelling has inured it to odours of common ftrength, and the lacrymal fack empties itself into the noftrils, and an increase of tears is poured into the eyes. And in our adult years, the stronger fmeils, though they are at the fame time agreeable to us, as of volatile fpirits, continue to produce an increafed fecretion of tears. Dr. DARWIN.

A calf difcovers its mother by its fenfe of fmell, and each pig has its peculiar teat to which it always goes. What is very remarkable, when a lamb dies, to make the ewe take to another lamb, it must be covered for a few days with the fleece of the dead one.

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odour of the milk; then its tafle is gratified by the flavour of it; afterwards the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the poffeffion of their objects, and by the fubfequent digestion of the aliment; and laftly, the fenfe of touch is delighted by the foftness and fmoothness of the milky fountain, which the innocent embraces with its hands, preffes with its lips, and watches with its eyes. Satisfied, it smiles at the enjoyment of fuch a variety of pleasures. It feels an animal attraction, which is love; a fenfation, when the object is prefent, a defire, when it is abfent; which conftitutes the pureft fource of human felicity, the cordial drop in the otherwife vapid cup of life, and which overpays the fond mother for all her folicitudes and care.

It appears from the annual registers of the dead, that almost one half of the children born in Great Britain of great families die in their infancy. To many, indeed, this may appear a natural evil; but on due examination, it will be found to be one of our own creating. Were the deaths of infants a natural evil, other animals would be as liable to die young as man, but this we find is by no means the case.

A mother who abandons the fruit of her womb, as foon as it is born, to the fole care of a hireling, hardly

deferves

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deferves that tender appellation. Nothing can be fo pofterous than a mother who thinks it below her to take care of her own child. If we fearch nature throughout, we cannot find a parallel to this. Every other animal is the nurse of its own offspring, and they thrive accordingly. Were the brutes to bring up their young by proxy, they would fhare the fame fate with thofe of the human species*.

CONNUBIAL FAIR! whom no fond transport warms

to lull your infant in maternal arms;

who, blefs'd in vain with tumid bofom, hear

his tender wailing with unfeeling ear;

the foothing kiss and milky rill deny

to the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye!→→
Ah! what avails the cradle's damask roof,
the eider bolfter, and embroider'd woof!-
Oft hears the gilded coach, unpity'd plains,
and many a tear the taffel'd cushion stains!
No voice so sweet attunes his cares to reft,
fo foft no pillow, as his mother's breast!—

Dr. DARWIN.

A child, foon after the birth, fhews an inclination to fuck; and there is no reason why it should not be gratified. It is true, the mother's milk does not always come immediately after the birth; but this is the way to'

*This general rule admits of but few exceptions.

bring it befides, the first milk that the child can fqueeze out of the breast answers the purpose of cleanfing, better than all the drugs in the apothecary's fhop, and at the fame time prevents inflammations of the breaft, fevers, and other dangerous difeafes, from the fuppreffion of this natural fecretion. It is ftrange how people came to think that the first thing given to a child fhould be drugs. This is beginning with medicine by times, and no wonder that they generally end with it. It fometimes happens, indeed, that a child does not difcharge the meconium fo foon as might be wifhed; this has induced phyficians, in such cases, to give fomething of an opening nature to cleanse the firft paffages. Mid

* Dr. ARMSTRONG, Phyfician to the British Lying-in Hospital, in this particular, feconds the advice given to mothers by the benevolent Dr. BuCHAN. An infant, fays he, although for fome time it has no great need for food; yet doubtlefs ought to be laid to the breaft, as foon as the mother may, by fleep, or otherwife, be fufficiently refreshed to undergo the little fatigue that an attempt to fuckle may occafion. This method, however unusual with fome, is moft agreeable to nature. By means of putting the child early to the breaft, efpecially the first time of fuckling, the nipple will be formed, and the milk gradually brought on. Hence much pain, and its confequences, will be prevented, as well as the frequency of fore nipples, which, in a first lying-in, have been wont to occafion no fmall inconvenience. To teach the child how to fuck, a little milk and water, fweetened with white fugar, may be given it at the end of a tea-fpoon, which the innocent will clafp in its mouth; or a finger wetted with it may be frequently put between its gums.

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