A practical cook and text book for general use

We are ushered into this world without any will or desire of our own ; the most helpless of all animate life, yet destined to the highest possibilities for good or evil. Infants, like clay in the hands of the artist, are to be moulded as we will ; to be clothed, fed and cared for as our judgment dictates, be it wise or foolish. One of the first stumbling blocks to the infant life is a dose of artificial food and irregular feeding. This induces internal disturbance and volcanic rumblings are heard and the flame leaps forth, heralded by pain and agony. Soothing syrups with foundation of opium and whisky are then in order, and the infant is "soothed" into an unnatural sleep, while the lesson to mother and nurse is only to apply a similar remedy for future pain, instead of learning how to avoid the cause. Before the teeth develop the babe is given a taste of nearly everything, tea and coffee included, and later, not only three or five times a day, but at home and abroad the everlasting "something to eat" is an ever present demand, and the supply never fails whether it be given by mother or nurse or is taken from the pail of "goodies" made especially for the little ones to refresh themselves with whenever they please. There seems no limit to the rubber-like capacity of the juvenile stomach, which will close upon anything that tastes good, one important compensation observed among young children being a nervous restlessness requiring increasing care on the part of those having charge of them. Thus continues the process of feeding all through the earliest years, with, various additions and irregularities, the stomach seldom at rest and frequently illness the result. Before the child is five years of age it has become accustomed to rich food, meats with objectionable hot and spiced dressings, and iff it survives, what is its physical condition, what its resistance ance to disease or temptation ? This is about the average treatment children receive who are well supplied withi milk in the natural way, by mothers in fairly -healthful conditions. The mother who is diseased cannot furnish wholesome nourishment for the babe, and if she eats and', drinks improperly, takes medicine and stimulants, her milk becomes laden with impurities and disease germs.. If she be nervous and mentally disturbed by grief, anger or fear, and nurses her babe during or soon after such, disturbance, the babe may become violently ill or die because of milk poisoned by excess of emotion. The same conditions that affect the human mother also disturb the cow and affect her milk, which is already, according to the consensus of wisdom, in a diseased condition, or if healthful, becomes at once upon exposure alive with bacteria, even with the most scrupulous care. Science instructs us to " sterilize " the milk and kill thegerms. Experience proves that this process is not always, effectual, and physicians in extensive hospital and private practice have proven that the ordinary process of sterilization renders cow's milk unfit for nourishment. Human milk and cow's milk differ widely in composition, the former containing more fat and sugar and less albumen than cow's milk, which when reduced with water and sweetened does not render it a perfect food for infants. A vegetarian scientist. Dr. Lahman of Dresden, Ger- many, has invented a product from almonds, nuts, etc., which he calls vegetable or plant milk ; this is a very near approach to human milk, but like other preparations of food for infants requires the addition of cow's milk. Dr. F. Hornef of Falkenstein, Germany, says of this milk: " If it be diluted with five parts water, we obtain a preparation which gives the same percentage of albumen, . sugar and salt as in human milk, but nearly double the quantity of fat." •