as abfceffes, schirrhous, and cancerous tu mours, which are worse than any thing that can poffibly happen to her by fuckling her children; and the following words of the prophet, is a standing inftance how much God himself was displeased with this barbarity among the Jews: The fea-monfters draw out the breaft; they give fuck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the oftrich in the wilderness, which is hardened a gainst her young ones, as tho' they were not hers. Lam. iv. 3. Job xxxix. 16.

III. Infants fhould not be glutted with pap in the first months, which turns to a crude indigeftible chyle; it will fuffice to give it them moderately twice a day; nor fhould they be fet on their feet too early, as fome nurses imprudently are apt to do. Nor fhould children be weaned until they are eighteen months, or two years old, for the longer they fuck the better, as good breaft milk not only prevents many ailments, foftens and cools the gums when inflamed, forwards dentition, and prevents its fatal confequences, but even lays a lafting foundation for a robust and healthy conftitution, and would prevent our having a diminutive generation, of which our age is too productive. After they

are

are weaned, they should be purged now and then with a little rhubarb, or manna, in order to evacuate the fordes of the prima via.

Of the CRUSTA LACTEA, or LACTUMEN. WE now come to the disorders of children, properly speaking, beginning with thofe of the Cutis, which are the first and most common that affect children.

The names of thefe cutaneous diforders are various and confounded, as well among the Latins as the Greeks, for they agree in no refpect; fo that the fame names are employed to express different disorders: this caufes fuch a confufion, that we are at a lofs to know what diforders these names denote, as modern Botanists are with regard to the names of plants in Theophraftus and Diafcorides.

This diforder is called Crufta Lactea, Lactumen, Lactumina, in Latin; ungía in Greek Acor and Favus, and by fome Tinea. But the laft is a different diforder with which the names Keria, Acor and Favus agree

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agree better than with the prefent evil, of which the first three names are more expreffive.

It may be described a whitish or milky cruft, of more or less extent, affecting only fucking children; is fometimes of a grey or blackish colour, feated most commonly on the hairy-fcalp, extended fometimes on the forehead, or other parts of the face; is frequently pendulous, moveable, and tranfuding a thin ferous humour. To render the idea of this diforder the more intelligible, add, that it seldom happens to any but well nourished infants, who fuck much. It first manifefts itself by small tumours, like veficles, interfperfed with fmall infenfible pores, from which flows or tranfudes. a fpiffid humour, much like pomatum, which is dried by degrees, and forms a cruft, daily encreafing, and of different colours, fometimes grey, black, or of a deep yellow. The different quantity of blood, mixt with the humour of this cruft, from scratching the part by the restless infant occafions this diverfity of colours.

It should be now examined what the feat and nature of this evil is. The feat is the febaceous glands, for it rarely appears any where

where but in them. Moreover, if the dif order had been feated in any other part of the skin, it would give room to very large cicatrices, which never appear in this; on the contrary, the fkin is very fmooth, fo that women defire their children should have the Crufta lactea, in order to render them the more beautiful. As for the existence of the sebaceous glands, I shall not pretend to prove a thing fo univerfally allowed; nor fhall I fpeak of their ftructure, but only observe, that they are extremely fmall, and are very numerous in the hairy-fcalp, the eye-brows, eye-lids, &c. They are alfo febaceous glands which fecern the wax of the ears, eyes, &c. This diforder is never observed in .emaciated and ill-nourished children; on the contrary, fuch milk as is very thin and ferous, makes it disappear, whence we may conclude, that the cause of this disorder is owing to a great quantity of oily and rich milk, which is blended with the sebaceous humour, ob-ftructs the glands, and raises the veficulæ, or fmall tumours which give rife to the evil. These elevations happen at the extremities of the excretory ducts of the febaceous glands, which at length being acted upon, emit a

yellow or blackish humour; but as it is benign and balfamic from the mixture of the milk, it does not excoriate or ulcerate the part, as we fee in a lippitude or fpurious gonorrhæa, wherein, though the febaceous glands are obftructed by a vifcid humour in the parts of generation, and diforders of the eyes, yet no excoriation happens. The cruft is more commonly feen on the head and face than elsewhere, both because a great number of febaceous glands is feated in these parts, and moreover, are very much expofed to the cold, and other injuries of the air, whence the matter is the more infpiffated and difposed to settle in them, whilst the sebaceous glands of the reft of the body, are neither fo numerous nor expofed to these inconveniencies, being kept warm by the clothes which cover us, whence the stagnant humours are diffipated. Next to the theory of this dif order, we are to anfwer fome questions relating to it, as,

1. Why the symptoms of the Crufta Lactea have periodical returns; for the patient may find himself well during fifteen days, and as many more the cruft augments; the part becomes more fenfible and plentifully discharges