Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/220

 and disease invariably appears to right the wrong. Feed the baby only at the dictate of the natural hunger cry, but begin the process at the beginning before a vicious habit of expectation and appetite has a chance to form. With the exception of inherited blood taint, overfeeding the child is the great cause of infantile disease, and it could not occur if the first hunger instinct were permitted to guide the infant from birth. Actual need alone would then be satisfied, and the artificial sense of appetite that might develop could be curbed and directed. At birth the physical connection between the child and its mother must of necessity be severed. One of the mistakes in modern obstetrics is the wide-spread practice of cutting the umbilical cord before the cessation of its natural pulsations. Interchange of oxygen and of nutriment between mother and foetus has taken place through this avenue for the whole period of gestation, and by this means alone has the baby frame been built to the moment of birth. Its final use and its last pulsations insure tissue-nourishment sufficient to carry the child until food for postnatal growth can be furnished from the breast of the mother. Nature thus provides