Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/106

 nature, so will grief, anger, fear or joy. Nor do I think it possible, as some have done, to form a correct estimate of the relative virtues of milk, by chemical analysis. There is often some occult quality, utterly inappreciable by tests, but such as is capable, nevertheless, of exercising an important influence on the constitutional properties of the milk. The idiosyncrasy of the mother may affect the mammary secretion; and diseases, we know, exercise a direct influence, in proportion to their intensity, on the fluid secreted, and the effects are not slow to show themselves on the health of the child. Even a slight derangement of the digestive organs of the mother is apt to become transmissible by the milk, and the stools of the infant, from being of a natural appearance, suddenly assume a green or darkish tinge. Nor can they often be made to resume their pristine state, until the restoration of the maternal health shall have effected a corresponding change in the mammary secretion, and the fluid elaborated acquired its usual salubrity. In some instances, violent convulsive affections of the infant will follow any sudden deviation in the health of the mother. And even where there is no sudden or marked declension of her health, yet any cause, (whether in high or low life) tending to enervate the body, is sufficient to deteriorate the quality of the milk. Every one can understand how a participation in the pleasures of fashionable life must, in various ways, affect the infantile beverage; and among the poor it is not uncommon to see cases of convulsions or intestinal derangements in children, arising from the impoverished aliment of the mother. For the last nineteen