Note 85 — Chapter XXVII

This Method (says the Editor and Annotator of Lyons) is useful, whenever the Mother does not suckle her Child. Art is then obliged to prove a Kind of Substitute to Nature, though always a very imperfect one. But when a Mother, attentive to her own true Interest, as well as her Infant's, and, listening to the Voice of Nature and her Duty, suckles it herself, these Remedies [he adds] seem hurtful, or at least, useless. The Mother should give her Child the Breast as soon as she can. The first Milk, the Colostrum, or Strippings, as it is called in Quadrupeds, which is very serous or watery, will be serviceable as a Purgative; it will forward the Expulsion of the Meconium, prove gradually nourishing, and is better than Biscuits, or Panada, which (he thinks) are dangerous in the first Days after the Birth. E. L. This Syrup of Succory being scarcely ever prepared with us, though sufficiently proper for the Use assigned it here, I have retained the preceding Note, as the Author of it directs these Strippings, for the same Purpose, with an Air of certain Experience; and as this Effect of them seems no Ways repugnant to the physical Wisdom and Oeconomy of Nature, on such important Points. Should it in fact be their very general Operation, it cannot be unknown to any Male or Female Practitioner in Midwifery, and may save poor People a little Expence, which was one Object of our humane Author's Plan. The Oil Of Ricinus, corruptly called Castor Oil (being expressed from the Berries of the Palma Christi) is particularly recommended by some late medical Writers from Jamaica, &c. for this Purpose of expelling the Meconium, to the Quantity of a small Spoonful. These Gentlemen also consider it as the most proper, and almost specific Opener, in the dry Belly-ach of that torrid Climate, which tormenting Disease has the closest Affinity to the Miserere, or Iliac Passion, of any I have seen. The Annotator's Objection to our Author's very thin light Panada, seems to be of little Weight. K.