period, they asked him if he had any pain." Now it was two minutes after this interrogation, that the operation. commenced, and during all the time of this, his visage offered not the last spasm or contraction. All this time the eyes of Jarry seemed to search for the spatula. It was quite evident to the assistants, that the patient did not experience pain, as he did not make the least plaint, whilst previously he cried out on the least motion of the affected limb. Aphorisms on the Hygiene and Nursing of Infants. The child should be subjected to hygienic regulation from its cradle, in order to sustain its constitution if it is good, in order to ameliorate it if bad. We must combat, in early infancy, the scrofulous, gouty, and syphilitic dispositions inherited from the parents. A man with impure blood should never think of perpetuating his race. A woman who becomes enciente, should renounce those habits, pleasures and fatigues, which may exercise an evil influence upon the health of the foetus, if she wishes to give birth to a healthy child. Bloodletting has a good effect upon gestation, but it should not be used unless plethora, local or general, is present. Denial of the unreasonable caprices of a pregnant woman cannot have any influence upon the health of the infant. A woman can and ought to nurse her child, if she is in good health, and if her parents or immediate relations are not scrofulous, consumptive, or cancerous. There are women of good constitution unable, nevertheless, to nurse, for their milk is small in quantity, badly elaborated, and dries up from the slightest causes. A woman in whom the mammary secretion is very active previous to her accouchement, is almost always a good nurse. A mother who nurses can commence six or eight hours after the birth of the child. A woman who nurses should not suckle the child oftener than every two hours. An infant that takes the breast at regular intervals, sucks with more avidity than others, and drains the breast of all the milk it contains-and it is the part last obtained which is the best, as it contains more cream than the first parts of the flow. Between eleven o'clock at night and six or seven in the morning, a good nurse need only suckle the child once. It is dangerous to take for a hired nurse a primiparous woman; she is necessarily inexperienced. A good nurse is from twenty to thirty-five years of age, with brown hair, the gums bright red, the form inclined to embonpoint the breasts well formed, firm, and marbled with bluish veins. A nurse should not have any mark, recent or ancient, of scrofula or syphilis. The milk yellowish in the first month after birth and bluish white afterwards, is an alkaline emulsion formed of water and solid principles dissolved or suspended. The butter is only suspended in the liquid; the other principles are dissolved. The milk should be abundant to be profitable. The first part of the milk drawn from the breasts is serious, the second part is thicker, and it is the last part of the draught which is the richest and the most charged with cream. The milk (examined by the microscope) should be filled with globules, numerous, tolerably large, and well formed --for small globules, resembling dust, are a sign of its bad elaboration, and of its insufficiency. Too few, or too many globules, are equally injurious. The milk varies in its composition according to the idiosyncrasy, temperament, constitution, the time elapsed since the accouchement, the time since the last repast, the regimen of the nurse, the action of the genital organs, etc., etc.; but the differences are not so great as to modify the precept: "If the infant thrives then the milk is good." The milk is altered in composition by the febrile state, and by acute and chronic diseases. Fever diminishes the quantity of milk, reduces the number of its globules, and concentrates its solids in a smaller proportion of water. The effect is the same, in different degrees, in all acute affections and in some chronic ones. Pus is sometimes mixed with the milk in cases of abscess of the breast. The influence of diseases upon the composition of the milk is not special and specific, for they all have the same effect, which is the same as that of fever. The milk of a healthy nurse, which is too rich or too highly charged with solid elements, is indigestible, and causes diarrhoea. Milk altered, reduced and impoverished by fever or by disease, also causes diarrhoea. Milk altered in its composition by fever or disease does not always exercise an injurious influence upon the health of the child. Whatever may be the cause of alteration in the composition of the milk, the result is always the same for the infant-the accidents which arise have always for their seat the digestive canals, and diarrhoea is always the consequence. Milk which does not present any alteration appreciable to chemical analysis, may yet be altered in its intimate elaboration in such a manner as to make it an injurious aliment. Spasms, or instantaneous convulsions, result ordinarily from changes caused in the secretion of milk by mental affections, too lively emotions and impressions, agreeable or painful, experienced by the nurse. Mental impressions dry up, suddenly, the secretion of milk, or modify seriously the proportion of its solid elements. The happiness which a woman feels in fulfilling her duties of nurse, is the cause of the internal sensation at the moment she is going to nurse the child, known as the draught. The premature return of menstruation in a nurse modifies slightly the chemical composition of the milk, and injures its elaboration; but if the infant does not appear to suffer, which often happens, the nurse may be retained. A nurse should abstain from sexual intercourse if she experiences great excitement. A nurse should likewise abstain through fear of preg nancy, which modifies the milk in quantity and quality, so as to render it injurious to the child. A change of nurses has no injurious effects when necessary to replace a poor one by a better. The nurse should be changed as often as may be necessary. Suckling, by mother or nurse, may give place to artificial feeding. Feeding by the nursing-bottle is far inferior to suckling, although when well carried on it sometimes yields highly satisfactory results. Artificial foods should be administered during the earliest periods of life, by means of the nursing bottle, filled with tepid milk diluted with barley water or oat-meal gruel; afterwards with milk alone. An infant needs nothing more than milk during the first months of life. At the age of six months it may commence to take light soups. Greasy articles of food should not be given until after the first year. The time of weaning should be fixed between the twelfth and twentieth month. One of the periods of repose in the progress of dentition should be chosen for weaning-that which comes after the appearance of the first twelve or of the first sixteen teeth. Weaning should be commenced by keeping the child from the breast during the night. After some weeks' separation from the mother at night, the child should be denied the breast in the day-time also, and it thus arrives at an independent existence. Infants and children should be carried into the sunlight and open air in all kinds of weather. Clothes which fit the body without constriction are preferable in all weathers to loose ones, which expose different portions of the skin to the cold. Infants should be washed in tepid water every day, and as they become habituated to it, in water nearly cold. Morning Sickness; Its Significance as a Symptom. We take from the British Medical Journal, of 24th March, the following extract from a communication by Dr. Inman, of Liverpool, on Morning Sickness; Its Significance as a Symptom: 1. Why are pregnant women sick? 2. Why does the sickness occur in the morning? 3. Why does it occur during the early months more frequently than the latter? 4. Why does not morning sickness attend a distended bladder, bowels distended by flatus, ovarian dropsy, or fibrous or other tumors of the uterus, as often as it attends pregnancy? 5. Does morning sickness attend any other complaint? if so, what have these in common with pregnancy? 6. What is the proximate cause? is it to be sought in the stomach itself, the brain, the uterus, or all combined? In answering these questions, we light upon an interesting series of facts. All pregnant women do not have the symptom in question; many escape it entirely; others have it at one time and not at another; some of those who escape it have flatulence and other signs of dyspepsia; others, simple faintness. If we dive still deeper, we find it common among town-bred women, and rare among the healthiest of the rural population. We find, as I have had repeated opportunities for observing, that a lady who suffers from it in a town is comfortable the day after she resides in the coun |