vapours [nervousness] and future miscarriages, much beyond any other
remedy whatsoever Her children will be like giants, whereas otherwise
they are but living shadows, and like unripe fruit, and certainly if a
woman is strong enough to bring forth a child, she is beyond all doubt
strong enough to nurse it afterwards."

Many mothers are never so well as when they are nursing, besides,
suckling prevents a lady from becoming pregnant so frequently as she
otherwise would. This, if she be delicate, is an important
consideration, and more especially if she be subject to miscarry. The
effects of miscarriage are far more weakening than those of suckling.

A hireling, let her be ever so well inclined, can never have the
affection and unceasing assiduity of a mother, and, therefore, cannot
perform the duties of suckling with equal advantage to the baby.

The number of children who die under five years of age is
enormous--many of them from the want of the mother's milk. There is a
regular "parental baby-slaughter"--"a massacre of the innocents"--
constantly going on in England, in consequence of infants being thus
deprived of their proper nutriment and just dues! The mortality from
this cause is frightful, chiefly occurring among rich people who are
either too grand, or, from luxury, too delicate to perform such
duties; poor married women, as a rule, nurse their own children, and,
in consequence reap their reward.

If it be ascertained, _past all doubt_, that a mother cannot suckle
her child, then, if the circumstances of the parents will allow--and
they ought to strain a point to accomplish it--a healthy wet-nurse
should be procured, as, of course, the food which nature has supplied