Page:Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.djvu/2120

1910 from the pancreas, being converted into a white, creamy fluid called chyle, which is taken up by proper vessels called lacteals, and conveyed to the blood to enrich it and fit it for supplying the various organs of the body with nutriment.

Now, as Nature has ordained that infantile life shall be supported on liquid aliment, and as without digestion the body would perish, some provision was necessary to meet this difficulty, and that provision was found in the nature of the liquid itself, or, in other words, the milk.

The process of making cheese, or fresh curds and whey, is familiar to most persons; but, as it is necessary to the elucidation of our subject, we will briefly repeat it. The internal membrane, or the lining coat of a calf's stomach, having been removed from the organ, is hung up, like a bladder, to dry; when required, a piece is cut off, put in a jug, a little warm water poured upon it, and after a few hours it is fit for use; the liquid so made being called rennet. A little of this rennet, poured into a basin of warm milk, at once coagulates the greater part, and separates a quantity of thin liquor called whey.

This is precisely the action which takes place in the infant's stomach, immediately converting the milk into a soft cheese. It is gastric juice, adhering to the calf's stomach, and drawn out by the water, forming rennet, that makes the curds in the basin. The cheesy substance, being a solid, at once undergoes the process of digestion, is converted into chyle, and goes to form new blood and so to build up the various tissues of the body. This is the simple process of a baby's digestion; milk converted into cheese, cheese into chyle, chyle into blood, and blood into flesh and bone.

The Infant.—We have already described the phenomena produced on the new-born child by the contact of air, which, after a succession of muscular twitchings, becomes endowed with voice, and heralds its advent by a loud but brief succession of cries. But though this is the general rule, it sometimes happens (from causes it is unnecessary here to explain) that the infant does not cry, or give utterance to any audible sound, or if it does, they are exceedingly faint, and indicate that life, as yet, to the new visitor, is neither a boon nor a blessing: the infant being in fact in a state of suspended or imperfect vitality. As soon as this state of things is discovered, the child should be turned on its right side, and the spine rubbed with the fingers of the right hand, sharply and quickly till heat is evoked, and till the loud and sharp cries of the child have thoroughly expanded the lungs and satisfactorily established its life.

Another method that is frequently adopted to bring children, born in this condition of suspended or feeble animation, round, is to take a basin of very hot water (but not hot enough to scald), and another of quite cold water, and, placing them upon the floor, to immerse the child for a moment first in the one and then in the other. If this has