We begin, then, with a typical baby, born of civilized parents, and living
in the midst of the best civilization to be had. Savage or even partially
civilized life could never furnish the type we desire. It is true, as we
have seen, that natural laws, so deeply planted that they have become
instincts, have given to many wild nations a dietary meeting their
absolute needs; but only civilization can find the key to these modes, and
make past experience pay tribute to present knowledge. We do not want an
Indian baby, bound and swathed like a little mummy, hanging from the pole
of a wigwam, placidly sucking a fish's tail, or a bone of boiled dog; nor
an Esquimaux baby, with its strip of blubber; nor the Hottentot, with its
rope of jerked beef; nor the South-sea Islander, with its half-cocoanut.
Nor will we admit the average Irish baby, among the laboring classes in
both city and country, brought to the table at three months old to swallow
its portion of coffee or tea; nor the small German, whom at six months I
have seen swallowing its little mug of lager as philosophically as its
serious-faced father. That these babies have fevers and rashes, and a host
of diseases peculiar to that age, is a matter of course; and equally a
matter of course that the round-eyed mother wonders where it got its
dreadful disposition, but scorns the thought that lager or coffee can be
irritants, or that the baby stomach requires but one food, and that one
the universal food of all young animal life,--milk.

Take, then, our typical baby, lying fresh and sweet in the well aired and
lighted room we suppose to be his birthright. The bones are still soft,
the tender flesh and skin with little or no power of resistance. Muscles,
nerves, all the wonderful tissues, are in process of formation; and in the
strange growth and development of this most helpless yet most precious of
all God's creations, there are certain elements which must be
had,--phosphates to harden the delicate bones; nitrogen for flesh, which