DR. JOHN BROWN ON THE EVILS OF WHISKY FOR THE NURSING MOTHER

Abstract

In his delightful volumes of essays, Horae Subsecivae (i.e., "leisure hours"), Dr. John Brown (1810-1882), a Scottish physician, included a touching chapter on "Children and How to Guide Them." His warning below about the evils of whisky for the nursing mother must have made many of them teetotalers. A baby for nine months after it is born, should have almost nothing but its mother's milk. This is God's food, and it is the best and the cheapest too. If the baby be healthy it should be weaned or spained at nine or ten months; and this should be done gradually, giving the baby a little gruel, or new milk, and water and sugar, or thin bread-berry, once a day for some time, so as gradually to wean it. This makes it easier for mother as well as baby. No child should get meat or hard things till it gets teeth to chew them, and no baby should ever get a drop of whisky, or any strong drink, unless by the doctor's orders. Whisky to the soft, tender stomach of an infant is like vitriol to ours; it is a burning poison to its dear little body, as it may be a burning poison and a curse to its never-dying soul. As you vlaue your children's health of body, and the salvation of their souls, never give them a drop of whisky; and let mothers, above all others, beware of drinking when nursing. The whisky passes from their stomachs into their milk, and poisons their own child.