Clinique Baudelocque, only 74 suckled their children; of the 135
who did not suckle, 35 were prevented by pathological causes or
absence of milk, 100 by the necessities of their work. Even those
who suckled could seldom continue more than seven months on
account of the physiological strain of work (Dluska,
_Contribution à l'Etude de l'Allaitement Maternel_, Thèse de
Paris, 1894). Many statistics have been gathered in the German
countries. Thus Wiedow (_Centralblatt für Gynäkologie_, No. 29,
1895) found that of 525 women at the Freiburg Maternity only half
could suckle thoroughly during the first two weeks; imperfect
nipples were noted in 49 cases, and it was found that the
development of the nipple bore a direct relation to the value of
the breast as a secretory organ. At Munich Escherich and Büller
found that nearly 60 per cent. of women of the lower class were
unable to suckle their children, and at Stuttgart three-quarters
of the child-bearing women were in this condition.

The reasons why children should be suckled at their mothers' breasts are
larger than some may be inclined to believe. In the first place the
psychological reason is one of no mean importance. The breast with its
exquisitely sensitive nipple, vibrating in harmony with the sexual organs,
furnishes the normal mechanism by which maternal love is developed. No
doubt the woman who never suckles her child may love it, but such love is
liable to remain defective on the fundamental and instinctive side. In
some women, indeed, whom we may hesitate to call abnormal, maternal love
fails to awaken at all until brought into action through this mechanism by
the act of suckling.

A more generally recognized and certainly fundamental reason for suckling
the child is that the milk of the mother, provided she is reasonably