tuberculosis and rickets, with all the evil results that flow from these diseases; and there is some reason to believe that the development of their teeth is injuriously affected.  The degenerate character of the artificially-fed is well indicated by the fact that of 40,000 children who were brought for treatment to the Children’s Hospital in Munich, 86 per cent. had been brought up by hand, and the few who had been suckled had usually only had the breast for a short time.  The evil influence persists even up to adult life.  In some parts of France where the wet-nurse industry flourishes so greatly that nearly all the children are brought up by hand, it has been found that the percentage of rejected conscripts is nearly double that for France generally.  Corresponding results have been found by Friedjung in a large German athletic association.  Among 155 members, 65 per cent. were found on inquiry to have been breast-fed as infants (for an average of six months); but among the best athletes the percentage of breast-fed rose to 72 per cent. (for an average period of nine or ten months), while for the group of 56 who stood lowest in athletic power the percentage of breast-fed fell to 57 (for an average of only three months).

The advantages for an infant of being suckled by its mother are greater than can be accounted for by the mere fact of being suckled rather than hand-fed.  This has been shown by Vitrey (De la Mortalite Infantile, These de Lyon, 1907), who found from the statistics of the Hotel-Dieu at Lyons, that infants suckled by their mothers have a mortality of only 12 per cent., but if suckled by strangers, the mortality rises to 33 per cent.  It may be added that, while suckling is essential to the complete well-being of the child, it is highly desirable for the sake of the mother’s health also. (Some important statistics are summarized in a paper on “Infantile Mortality” in British Medical Journal, Nov. 2, 1907), while the various aspects of suckling have been thoroughly discussed by Bollinger, “Ueber Saeuglings-Sterblichkeit und die Erbliche functionelle Atrophie der menschlichen Milchdruese” (Correspondenzblatt Deutschen Gesellschaft Anthropologie, Oct., 1899).

It appears that in Sweden, in the middle of the eighteenth century, it was a punishable offense for a woman to give her baby the bottle when she was able to suckle it.  In recent years Prof.  Anton von Menger, of Vienna, has argued (in his Burgerliche Recht und die Besitzlosen Klassen) that the future generation has the right to make this claim, and he proposes that every mother shall be legally bound to suckle her child unless her inability to do so has been certified by a physician.  E.A.  Schroeder (Das Recht in der Geschlechtlichen Ordnung, 1893, p. 346) also argued that a mother should be legally bound to suckle her infant for at least nine months, unless solid grounds could be shown to the contrary,