William Cadogan
An Essay upon Nursing and the Management of Children, from their Birth to Three Years of Age By a Physician
In a Letter to one of the Governors of the Foundling Hospital
Published by Order of the General Committee for
transacting the Affairs of said Hospital.
The Third Edition
London:
Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick Lane.
MDCCXLIX.
[Price 6 d.]
Note from the Webmaster: The original, sometimes erratic, spelling and
punctuation have been retained, with the exception that the character "s" has
been substituted for the late middle English "f" where appropriate to make the
essay easier to read.
Sir,
It is with great Pleasure I see at last the Preservation of Children become the
Care of Men of Sense: It is certainly a Matter that well deserves their
Attention, and, I doubt not, the Publick will soon find the good and great
Effects of it. The Foundling Hospital may be of more Use to the World, than was
perhaps at first imagin'd by the Promoters of it; it will be a Means not only of
preventing the Murder of many, but of saving more, by introducing a more
reasonable and more natural Method of Nursing. In my Opinion, this Business has
been too long fatally left to the Management of Women, who cannot be supposed to
have proper Knowledge to fit them for such a Task, notwithstanding they look
upon it to be their own Province. What I mean, is a Philosophic Knowledge of
Nature, to be acquired only by learned Observation and Experience, and which
therefore the Unlearned must be incapable of. They may presume upon the Examples
and transmitted Customs of their Great Grand-mothers, who were taught by the
Physicians of their unenlighten'd Days; when Physicians, as appears by late
Discoveries, were mistaken in many things; being led away by hypothetical
Reasonings to entertain very wild Conceits, in which they were greatly
bewilder'd themselves, and misled others to believe, I know not what strange
unaccountable Powers in certain Herbs, Roots, and Drugs; and also in some
superstitious Practices and Ceremonies; for all which Notions, there being no
real Foundation in Nature, they ought to be looked upon as the Effects of
Ignorance, or the Artifices of designing Quacks; who found their Account, by
pretending to great Knowledge in these occult Qualities, and imposing upon the
Credulous. The Art of Physick has been much improv'd within this last Century;
by observing and following Nature more closely, many useful Discoveries have
been made, which help us to account for Things in a natural Way, that before
seem'd mysterious and magical; and which have consequently made the Practice of
it more conformable to Reason and good Sense. This being the Case, there is
great room to fear, that those Nurses who yet retain many of these traditional
Prejudices, are capitally mistaken in their management of Children in general,
and fancying that Nature has left a great deal to their Skill and Contrivance,
often do much harm, where they intend to do good. Of this I shall endeavor to
convince them, by shewing, how I think Children may be cloath'd, fed, and
managed with much less Trouble to their Nurses, and infinitely greater Ease and
Comfort to the little ones.
The Foundlings under the Care of the Hospital, I presume, will be bred in a very
plain, simple Manner: They will therefore infallibly have the more Health,
Beauty, Strength, and Spirits; I might add Understanding too, as all the
Faculties of the Mind are well known to depend upon the Organs of the Body; so
that when these are in good Order, the thinking Part is most alert and active;
the contrary, when they are disturbed and diseased. When these Advantages appear
in Favour of Children so brought up, as I am confident in time they will, it may
serve to convince most Nurses, Aunts, Grand-mothers, &c. how much they have
hitherto been in the wrong, what Mischief is done to Children, and what
Multitudes are destroyed or spoiled, as well by cramming them with Cakes,
Sweetmeats, &c. till they foul their Blood, choak their Vessels, pall the
Appetite, and ruin every Faculty of their Bodies; as by cockering and indulging
them, to the utter Perversion of their naturally good Temper, till they become
quite froward and indocile.
When a Man takes upon him to contradict received Opinions and Prejudices
sanctified by Time, it is expected he should bring valid Proof of what he
advances. The Truth of what I say, that the Treatment of Children in general is
wrong, unreasonable and unnatural, will in great measure appear, if we but
consider what a puny valetudinary Race most of our People of Condition are;
chiefly owing to bad Nursing, and bad Habits contracted early. But let any one,
who would be fully convinced of this Matter, look over the Bills of Mortality;
there he may observe, that almost half of the Number of those, that fill up that
black List, die under five Years of Age: So that Half the People that come into
the World, go out of it again before they become of the least Use to it, or
themselves. To me, this seems to deserve serious Consideration; and yet I cannot
find, that any one Man of Sense, and publick Spirit, has ever attended to it at
all; notwithstanding the Maxim in every one's Mouth, that a Multitude of
Inhabitants is the greatest Strength and best Support of a Commonwealth. The
Misconduct, to which I must impute a great Part of the Calamity, is too common
and obvious to engage the Idle and Speculative, who are to be caught only by
very refined Researches; and the busy Part of Mankind, where their immediate
Interest is not concerned, will always overlook what they see daily: It may be
thought a natural Evil, and so is submitted to without Examination. But this is
by no means the Case; and where it is entirely owing to Mismanagement, and
possibly may admit of a Remedy, it is ridiculous to charge it upon Nature, and
suppose, that Infants are more subject to Disease and Death than grown Persons;
on the contrary, they bear Pain and Disease much better, Fevers especially, (as
is plain in the Case of the Small-Pox, generally most favourable to Children)
and for the same Reason that a Twig is less hurt by a Storm than an Oak. In all
the other Productions of Nature we see the greatest Vigor and Luxuriancy of
Health, the nearer they are to the Egg or the Bud: They are indeed then most
sensible of Injury, and it is Injury only that destroys them. When was there a
Lamb, a Bird, or a Tree that died because it was young? These are under the
immediate Nursing of unerring Nature, and they thrive accordingly. Ought it not
therefore to be the Care of every Nurse and every Parent, not only to protect
their Nurselings from Injury, but to be well assured that their own officious
Services be not the greatest the helpless Creatures can suffer?
In the lower Class of Mankind, especially in the Country, Disease and Mortality
are not so frequent, either among the Adult, or their Children. Health and
Posterity are the Portion of the Poor, I mean the laborious: The Want of
Superfluity confines them more within the Limits of Nature: Hence they enjoy
Blessings they feel not, and are ignorant of their Cause. The Mother who has
only a few Rags to cover her Child loosely, and little more than her own Breast
to feed it, sees it healthy and strong, and very soon able to shift for itself;
while the puny Insect, the Heir and Hope of a rich Family lies languishing under
a Load of Finery, that overpowers his Limbs, abhorring and rejecting the
Dainties he is crammed with, till he dies a Victim to the mistaken Care and
Tenderness of his fond Mother. In the Course of my Practice I have had frequent
occasion to be fully satisfied of this, and have often heard a Mother anxiously
say the Child has not been well ever since it has done puking and crying. These
Complaints, tho' not attended to, point very plainly to their Cause. Is it not
very evident, that when a Child rids its Stomach several times in a Day, that it
has been over-loaded? when it cries, from the Incumbrance and Confinement of its
Cloaths, that it is hurt by them? While the natural Strength lasts (as every
Child is born with more Health and Strength than is generally imagined) it cries
at, or rejects the superfluous Load, and thrives apace: that is, grows very fat,
bloted, and distended beyond measure; like a House-Lamb. But in Time, the same
oppressive Cause continuing, the natural Powers are overcome, being no longer
able to throw off the unequal Weight; the Child, now not ...
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