The mixture should not be prepared any faster than it is wanted, and should always be prepared in vessels perfectly clean and sweet, and given as soon as possible after it is prepared, to prevent any degree of fermentation.  It is never so well to heat it by the fire.  If taken from the cow just before it is used, and if the water to be added is warm enough, the temperature will hardly need to be raised any higher.

When it is impracticable, in all cases, to take milk for this purpose immediately from the cow, it should be kept, in winter, where it will not freeze; and in summer, where there will be no tendency to acidity.

Some mothers and nurses are addicted to the practice of passing the food through their own mouths, before they give it to the child—­with a view, no doubt, to see that it is at a proper temperature.  This practice is not only wholly unnecessary, but altogether disgusting, and even ridiculous.  A thermometer would answer every purpose; and save even the trouble of another disgusting practice—­that of blowing it with the breath.

The most proper season for giving the child this preparation, is immediately after it has been nursing.  It is better for both mother and child, that the latter should nurse just as often as though the supply of food was adequate to his wants.  And when his first supply is exhausted, then let him make up his meal from the sucking bottle.  The great advantage of this plan is, that he will not be so likely in this way to be over-fed.  If he is really needy, he will accept the bottle, even if he do not like it quite so well; if he refuse it, let him go without till he is hungry enough to receive it.

In regard to the water used in the preparation, only one thing needs to be said; which is, that it should be pure.  If it is not, it should by all means be boiled.  The sugar used should be of the very best kind; and the quantity not large; since if the preparation be too sweet, it readily becomes acid in the stomach.

There has been, and still is, a controversy going on among medical men, whether sugar is or is not hurtful to the young.  “Who shall decide, when doctors disagree?” has often been asked.  Without undertaking the task myself, I may perhaps be permitted to say, that I cannot see any reason why a substance so pure, and so highly nutritious as sugar—­if given in very small quantity only—­should prove injurious:  though I do not regard the reasoning of Dr. Dewees as very conclusive on the subject, when, in reply to Dr. Cadogan, he has the following language—­“If sugar be improper, why does it so largely enter into the composition of the early food of all animals?  It is in vain that physicians declaim against this article, since it forms between seven and eight per cent of the mother’s milk.”—­Now with me, the fact that milk and almost all other kinds of food are furnished with a measure of this substance, is the strongest reason I am acquainted with for making no additions.  I believe, however, that they may sometimes be made, but not for these reasons.