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Home > Breastfeeding > Jack Newman's Breastfeeding Handouts Interesting QuotesBreastfeeding | Child Care | Media, Advertising | Environment | Medicine | Miscellaneous BreastfeedingDost though not see
my baby at my breast, That sucks
the nurse asleep? One would think his
mother's milk were scarce out of
him. Dear nurse of arts, plenties and joyful births —Shakespeare. Henry V. Act V, Scene 2, 1, 34 On Lammas-eve at night
shall she be fourteen; (Juliet was 3 years
old when she was weaned) An honour! were not
I thine only nurse, I have given suck,
and know Come to my woman's
breasts, Give me the boy; I
am glad you did not nurse him; Such advice (re: breastfeeding
and HIV positivity) reflects the
Western prejudice that artificial
milks are innocent until proven guilty,
whereas breastmilk is guilty until
proven innocent. A working woman who
looked like a Kirghiz, her head bent,
was feeding Karl-Yankel. He was a
chubby little fellow of five months
old, in knitted bootees and with
a white tuft on his head... "The fuss he's
making!" said the Kirghiz woman.
"Not everyone would be willing
to give him suck"...The Kirghiz
woman,pulling gently, drew her nipple
from Karl-Yankel's mouth. The child
started growling and in despair jerked
back his head with its white tuft.
The woman uncovered her other breast
and presented it to the little boy.
He looked at the nipple with dull
little eyes, and something gleamed
in them. "Here's a child lying and yelling its little guts out enough to make you weep, and you, you great fat thing, sit like a boulder in a forest and can't ease him with the breast." "You ease him
with the breast," retorted Pesya-Mindl,
not raising her eyes from the book,
"provided he'll take it from
you, you old twister—the breast,
I mean. For see, he's a big boy now,
as big as a Rooski-boy, and all he
wants is his mother's milk..." The baby started fussing
on the sofa, and without any pause
in the conversation, Sophie opened
her blouse and nursed him, first
on one breast and then on the other. And she (Sarah) said, Who would have said unto Abraham,
that Sarah should have given children suck? But Hannah did not go up; for she said unto her husband, So soon as the child shall be weaned, then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and abide there for ever. And Elkanah her husband said unto her, Do what seemeth good in thy eyes; tarry until though has weaned him; only may the Lord fulfill his word. So the woman remained
behind, and gave her son suck until
she weaned him. From the God of thy
father, who will help thee; and from
the Almighty, who will bless thee,
with blessings of heaven above, with
blessings of the breasts, and of
the womb; Like a shepherd will
he feed his flock: with his arm will
he gather the lambs, and in his bosom
will he carry them, will he lead
gently those that suckle their young. Yet Zion said, The
Eternal hath forsaken me, and the
Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman
forget her sucking child, not to
have mercy on the son of her body?
yea, should these even forget, yet
would I not forget thee. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem,
and be delighted over her, all ye
that love her; be highly glad with
her, all ye that mourn for her. In
order that ye may suck, and be satisfied
with the breast of her consolations;
in order that ye may sip and find
pleasure from the abundance of her
glory. For thus hath said the Lord,
Behold, I will extend to her peace
like a river, and like a rapid stream
the glory of nations, that ye may
suck; upon the arm shall ye be borne,
and upon knees shall ye be dandled. Instead that thou
wast forsaken and hated, without
one to pass through (thee), will
I render thee an excellency of everlasting,
a joy of all generations. And though
shalt suck the milk of nations, and
the breast of kings shalt thou suck: Now when she had weaned
Lo-ruchamah, she conceived, and bore
a son. Give them, O Lord,
what thou wilt give! give them a
miscarrying womb and dried-up breasts. Yea, thou art he that
took me from the womb; thou hast
been my trust when I hung on my mother’s
breasts. Surely I have pacified
and stilled my soul, like the suckling
on its mother’s breast; like
a suckling is in me my soul. Oh that some one would
make thee as my brother that hath
sucked my mother’s breasts! Shall women, then,
eat their own fruit, the babes they
have tenderly nursed? Even wild beasts offer
the breast, they give suck to their
young ones; the daughter of my people
is become cruel, like the ostriches
in the wilderness. The tongue of
the suckling cleaveth to its palate
by reason of thirst: babes ask for
bread, there is not one to break
it for them. And Na’omi took
the child, and laid it in her lap,
and she became a nurse unto it. And it happened, as
He spoke these things, that a certain
woman from the crowd raised her voice
and said to him, "Blessed is
the womb that bore you, and the breasts
which nursed you!" Gentlemen, we are
all cruel, we are all monsters, we
all make people weep, mothers and
nursing babies... ...and in her arms
a baby is crying, and her breasts
must be all dried up, not a drop
of milk in them. And the baby is
crying, crying, reaching out its
bare little arms, its little fists
somehow all blue from the cold. Grigory took the infant,
brought him into the house, sat his
wife down, and put him in her lap
near her breast: "God's orphan
child is everyone's kin, all the
more so for you and me. Our little
dead one sent us this one, who was
born of the devil's son and a righteous
woman. Nurse him and weep no more." All being drinks the
mother-dew "...And I must run to Mitya. As ill-luck would have it, I haven't fed him since tea. He's awake now, and sure to be screaming." And feeling a rush of milk, she hurried to the nursery. This was not a mere guess; her connection with the child was still so close, that she could gauge by the flow of her milk his need of food, and knew for certain he was hungry. "Why didn't you
let me nurse her, when I begged to?"I
begged to nurse her, I wasn't allowed
to and now I'm blamed for it." She pictured a child,
her own—like the baby she had
seen the day before in the arms of
her old nurse’s daughter—at
her own breast, with her husband
standing by and gazing fondly at
her and the child. Thus in the anxious
time, which Pierre would never forget,
after the birth of their first child,
when they tried three different wetnurses
for the delicate baby and Natasha
fell ill with worry, Pierre one day
told her of Rousseau’s views
(with which he was in complete agreement)
of how unnatural and deleterious
it was to have wetnurses at all.
When the next baby was born, in spite
of vigorous opposition from her mother,
the doctors and even from her husband
himself—who were all against
her nursing the baby, which to them
was something unheard of and pernicious—she
insisted on having her own way, and
after that nursed all her children
herself. No one could give her such soothing and sensible consolation as this little three-month-old creature when he lay at her breast and she felt the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his tiny nose. During those two weeks
of restlessness Natasha resorted
to the infant for comfort so often,
and fussed over him so much, that
she overfed him and he fell ill. Regularity of nursing
is most important. The infant should
always be fed exactly at the stated
hour and never at irregular intervals,
as this upsets the baby's routine
and soon leads to stomach trouble.
If the infant wakes up and cries
before the feeding hour he should
be examined to see if he is wet,
and if so, changed and then offered
some plain boiled water. If the infant
is asleep at the feeding hour he
should be awakened. It is remarkable
how these infants learn to wake up
at or shortly before the appointed
time. After a few days' training
they behave like little machines. This disease (rickets) is confined almost exclusively to infants who are artificially fed. ...Just what exists in breast milk that prevents, and what is absent or present in cows' milk which permits or causes the symptoms of rickets to appear, has not been clearly defined. The responsibility for the failure to conserve the maternal milk-supply, while dual, rests with greater weight upon the physician, who, while realizing the value of natural and the dangers and uncertainties of artificial feeding, has failed to become fired with that enthusiasm which the subject demands. —Lowenberg H. A Practical Treatise on Infant Feeding and Allied Topics for Physicians and Students. FA Davis Co. Philadelphia. 1916 We therefore speak of a kidney infarct and a urine infarct; by the latter are indicated the masses of urate passed in the urine which are frequently visible as a brick-red powder, and which appear under the microscope partly as an amorphous and partly as a crystalline precipitate. The phenomenon of the so-called "infarct urine" must be looked upon always as a physiological process, even though it may be absent in some cases. Most infants sleep during the first hours of life and show no signs of hunger. Should they be awakened they usually fall asleep at once. In the majority of cases this condition lasts the whole of the first day. The rule that a child should not be fed during the first 24 hours may therefore be laid down with confidence. During the first and
often also during the second day
of life urine is usually only passed
at rare intervals: one to two, or
three to four times in twenty-four
hours. It also happens not infrequently
during the first day that a child
does not pass any urine at all; this
occurs in actually 34 per cent of
all cases, according to Kotscharowski,
but is not clinically to be regarded
as an alarming symptom. ...bread boyled so
long in thin ale, with clarified
honey, if not, with sugar, until
they shall come together in the likeness
of a mucilage, or glew, or jelly:
then as much thin ale is mingled
with and washed on this jelly, as
is sufficient for it to serve instead
of drink. They who on meare
curiositie (where no urgent necessitie
requireth) try whether their children
may not as birds be nourished without
sucking, offend contrary to this
dutie of breast feeding and reflect
that meanes which God hath ordained
as best; and so oppose their shallow
wits to his unsearchable wisdom. Here the earth covers
Hippostrate’s good nurse; In the very act of
lactation there is, by nature, generated
such an endearment of the suckled
child to the nurse, as that she began
it perhaps only for hire, finds herself
engaged by a growing affection to
supply in some measure the place
of the mother to the orphan or deserted
babe. Where, boundless nature,
can I hold you fast? The child, offered
the mother's breast, No mineral water--very
hard on mothers who need it for biberons.
They can always boil the tap water,
of course. ...the idea of bottle
feeding just to "involve the
father" is one more instance
of preserving the status quo at a
price to the baby. p78 It (bottle feeding) also made a fetish out of cleanliness, and maybe all the washing and scrubbing has further reduced the pleasure we take in our body and in life. Certainly, before
bottle feeding, mothers had no choice
but to let the infant suck pleasurably
from her body, and in the absence
of 'baby foods', this tended to go
on for a considerable time. ...A
great deal of modern drug and sex
behaviour has its roots in the desperate
effort to set things aright--to give
the pleasure principle a belated
chance to assert itself, after denying
it too early. No one who has seen
a baby sinking back satiated from
the breast and falling asleep with
flushed cheeks and a blissful smile
can escape the reflection that this
picture persists as a prototype of
the expression of sexual satisfaction
in later life. Adieu beloved child,
you whom I have nourished with my
milk and whom I would like to penetrate
with all my sentiments. A time will
come when you will be able to judge
the efforts that I make at this time
not to weaken [at the thought of’]
your sweet face. I press you to my
breast. The moment it is born, the cord is cut or clamped, the child is exhibited to its mother, and then it is taken away by a nurse to a babyroom called the nursery, so called presumably because the one thing that is not done in it is the nursing of the baby. We live in the logical denouement of the Machine Age, when not only are things increasingly produced by machine but also human beings are turned out to be as machine-like as we can make them, and who therefore see little wrong in dealing with others in a similarly mechanical manner; an age in which it is considered a mark of progress when whatever was formerly done by human beings is taken out of their hands and done by machine. It is reckoned an advance when a bottle of formula can be made to substitute for the contents of the human breast and the experience of the human infant at it... The benefits to the
mother of immediate breastfeeding
are innumerable, not the least of
which after the weariness of labor
and birth is the emotional gratification,
the feeling of strength, the composure,
and the sense of fulfillment that
comes with the handling and suckling
of the baby. You may feel some
resistance to the idea of such intimacy
with an infant who, at first, seems
like a stranger. To some mothers
it seems better to keep the baby
at arm's length, so to speak, by
feeding plans which are not so close. And hence at our maturer
years, when any object of vision
is presented to us, which by its
waving or spiral lines bears any
similitude to the form of the female
bosom, whether it is found in a landscape
with soft gradations of rising and
descending surface, or in the forms
of some antique vases, or in other
works of the pencil or chisel, we
feel a general glow of delight, which
seems to influence all our senses; The moment she had
laid the child to the breast both
became perfectly calm. The New World's Sons,
from England's breasts we drew Come then, Sorrow!
Sweetest Sorrow, For we were nursed
upon the self-same hill He saw a girl working
about the stove, saw that she carried
a baby on her crooked arm, and that
the baby was nursing, its head up
under the girl’s shirtwaist.
And the girl moved about, poking
the fire, shifting the rusty stove
lids to make a better draft, opening
the oven door; and all the time the
baby sucked, and the mother shifted
it deftly from arm to arm. The baby
didn’t interfere with her work
or with the quick gracefulness of
her movements. ...a baby nursing
at a mother's breast...is an undeniable
affirmation of our rootedness in
nature. Mothers ought to bring
up and nurse their own children; The mothers shall
give suck to their offsprings, for
two complete years. The La Leche League
succeeded by reconstructing the neighbourly
networks which medicine had tried
to discredit. League members began
to trust and rely on one another.
Their confidence in their intuitive
connection with their children grew;
and for both of these reasons, they
found it less necessary to rely on
doctors, except in emergencies. ...nobody wants to
think about breastfeeding, not the
professor and certainly not the girls.
Over coffee they shiver: they themselves
are fastidious, they will bottle
feed, which is anyway more sanitary. In modern consumer
society, the attack on mother-child
eroticism took its total form; breastfeeding
was proscribed and the breasts reserved
for the husband's fetishistic delectation.
At the same time, babies were segregated,
put into cold beds alone and not
picked up if they cried. In the late 19th century,
as the chemical composition of milks
was determined, animal milk was modified
to approach human milk more closely
in gross composition. Milk first
was diluted with water, so that protein
and electrolyte concentrations were
reduced. Babies fed this diluted
formula failed to grow. Experiments
revealed that caloric density of
human and cow's milk were similar.
Subsequently, sugar was added to
the mixture. Some infants fed these
formulas lived. Manipulating the
composition of formulas heralded
the advent of Pediatrics as a specialty. In the near future,
it appears prudent to continue recommending
full breastfeeding for the term infant.
Eventually, formulas may equal breast
milk and studies should continue
to improve formulas and to make more
elegant measurements of outcome. With her weak blood
and wheysour milk she had fed him
and hid from sight of others his
swaddlingbands. As part of Ross Laboratories' ongoing research to ensure our infant formula products provide the very best nutrition, we have increased the level of linolenic acid, an essential fatty acid, in our powdered infant formula products. If mothers do comment
on this colour variation, please
assure them that it is a modification
brought about by an improvement to
the product in our continuing effort
to provide the very best infant nutrition
for their babies. ...the inessential
houses seemed to melt away until
I was aware of the old island here
that flowered once for Dutch sailors'
eyes--a fresh green breast of the
new world. The erotically excited
kiss as well as the inward feeling
of physical well-being, which is
so difficult to describe, of a mother
nursing her child at her breast,
feeds on fare that is both coarse
and infinitely fine and becoming
finer; but all this in the sense
of the primeval evolutionary fact
that in the beginning the whole skin
was the seat of sensual pleasure. A little child born
yesterday A babe is fed with
milk and praise Gin was mother's milk
to her Only seldom was a whimper heard from one of the four children, all of whom, from the six-month-old infant to the six-year-old Amanda, were fed from Lovise's breast. Never again, never in the future that dawned later on, were we so sated. We were suckled and suckled. Always superabundance was flowing into us. Never any question of enough is enough or let's not overdo it. Never were we given a pacifier and told to be reasonable. It was always suckling time. There must be reasons
why we men are so hipped on breasts
as if we'd all been weaned too soon. When she first felt
her son's groping mouth attach itself
to her breast, a wave of sweet vibration
thrilled deep inside and radiated
to all parts of her body; it was
similar to love, but it went beyond
a lover's caress, it brought a great
calm happiness, a great happy calm. Ah, the joy of suckling!
She lovingly watched the fishlike
motions of the toothless mouth and
she imagined that with her milk there
flowed into her little son her deepest
thoughts, concepts, and dreams. ...to seek the breast
of darkness Lady Madonna baby
at your breast Impassioned lover
wrestle as one The days are cold,
the nights are long, They were difficult
to keep clean, and infants surely
must have found them uncomfortable,
but for almost 2000 years, pottery
nursers (complete with pottery nipples)
were used for feeding babies. Mothers
had no choice—glass was unknown
at first, then later only a curiosity. And since Giovanni knew how important it is to rear infants, not with the milk of nurses, but with that of their own mothers, no sooner was Raphael born, to whom with happy augury he gave that name at baptism, than he insisted that this his only child—and he had no more afterwards—should be suckled by his own mother... (page 233) Michelangelo was put
out to nurse by Lodovico in that
village with the wife of a stonecutter:
wherefore the same Michelangelo,
discoursing once with Vasari, said
to him jestingly, "Giorgio,
if I have anything of the good in
my brain, it has come from my being
born in the pure air of your country
of Arezzo, even as I also sucked
in with my nurse’s milk the
chisels and hammer with which I make
my figures." (page 308) SOLNESS: The fright had shaken Aline so dreadfully. The alarm—getting out of the house—the hurry and rush—and the freezing night air into the bargain—. For they had to be carried out just as they were. Both she and the children. HILDE: Couldn’t they stand it? SOLNESS: O yes, they
stood it all right. But it turned
to a fever with Aline. And that affected
her milk. She insisted on feeding
them herself. Because it was her
duty, she said. And both our little
boys, they—[Clenching his hands.]
they—ah! There is comfort in
a mother’s breast, but there
has to be a weaning. The attainment
of independence, the severing of
ties, is, at best, a bleak process
for both sides; but it is necessary,
even though each may grudge it and
hold it against the other. O, thou beautiful
damsel, may the four oceans "You exist, and
you alone!" I cried in my innermost
self. "O Earth! I am your last-born,
I am sucking at your breast and will
not let go. You do not let me live
for more than one minute, but that
minute turns into a breast and I
suck." Tired at last, I came
out of the water, let the night wind
dry me, and set out again with long
easy strides, feeling I had escaped
a great danger and that I had a still
tighter grip on the Great Mother’s
breast. When she went by,
perfumed and heavily plastered with
paint, wearing loud and garish clothes,
in the streets of Alexandria, Beirut,
Constantinople, and saw women giving
the breast to their babies, her own
breasts tingled and swelled, her
nipples stood out, asking for a tiny
childlike mouth as well. Greasy-faced children
popped-the-whip through the crowd,
and babies lunched at their mothers’
breasts. Judge Taylor was the
only person in the courtroom who
laughed. Even the babies were still,
and I suddenly wondered if they had
been smothered at their mothers’
breasts. It is true, a child
just dropped from its dam, may be
supported by her milk for a solar
year, with little other nourishment; I think that I shall
never see, A pair of substantial
mammary glands has the advantage
over the two hemispheres of the most
learned professor's brain, in the
art of compounding a nutritious fluid
for infants. A woman’s life
isn’t worth a plateful of cabbage
if she hasn’t felt life stir
under her heart. Taking a little
one to nurse, watching him grow to
manhood, that’s what love is. Toward women he feels
both a profound reverence and a floating
impatience, and from his random reading
on the subject, he understands that
this impatience stems from a resentment
toward a punishing, withholding,enfeebling
mother, the mother who gives and
then withdraws the breast. WOMAN THREE: I got it pumped into me too, but I mean like literally. My mother?—she used to take me with her when she played. It was hard to get baby-sitters in the daytime then and I was just a baby. She just stuck me in a corner in my little basket thingamajig, and if I got hungry and made a fuss, she’d whip out a boob right there at the table. Never missed a hand. A month old, two months old, and there I was, sucking up all those hearts and diamond tricks along with my mother’s milk, God, I wonder what it tastes like. WOMAN ONE: (reflecting)
Vanilla ice cream—that’s
what I’ve heard, only melted. Bread is for us a
kind of successor to the motherly
breast, and it has been over the
centuries responsible for billions
of sighs of satisfaction. Then, in a further
act of generosity—or was it
a mortification of the flesh, a self-inflicted
punishment for her instinctual revulsion?—Aurora
gave me an even greater gift. ‘Miss
Jaya’s bottle was okay for the
girls,’ she announced. ‘But
as for my son, I will feed-o him
myself.’ I wasn’t arguing;
and clamped myself firmly to her
breast. I was the only child she suckled at her breast. It made a difference: for although I received my share of the sharp end of her tongue,there was something in her attitude towards me that was less destructive than her treatment of my sisters. She suckled me, and
the first ‘Moor’ pictures
were done while I nestled at her
breast: charcoal sketches, watercolours,
pastels and finally a large work
in oils. Aurora and I posed, somewhat
blasphemously, as a godless madonna
and child. He watched Shams al-Din,
ecstatically suckling from his mother’s
breast and smiling, oblivious to
events around him. Shams al-Din began
to cry. She changed him and thrust
her full breast gently into his open
mouth... Shams al-Din at least
was content. He crawled around on
the sand, sat and played with pebbles,
was never bored, and grew in the
wind and sun, feeding abundantly
on his mother’s milk. He noticed Ulfat engrossed
in the child at her breast,... Zahira was feeding
Galal when Muhammad Anwar suddenly
rushed into the room. She thrust
her breasts inside her dress, and
pulled the veil more tightly around
her head and face, full of embarrassment.
From: Mary McCarthy, The Group (most of Chapter 10) Priss Hartshorn Crockett was nursing her baby. That was the big news. ‘I never expected a breast-fed grandson,’ said Priss’s mother, laughing and accepting a martini from her son-in-law, Dr. Sloan Crockett, the budding pediatrician. ... He was in the nursery now, behind the plate-glass window at the end of the corridor—roaring his head off; his feeding time was six o’clock. Priss was drinking an eggnog, to help her lactate; liquids were very important, but she had lost her taste for milk during pregnancy, doing nothing and having to force herself to drink that quart a day that the doctors insisted on if she were not to lose her teeth building the baby’s bones. Now, to tempt her, the nurses flavoured her milk with egg and sugar and vanilla and gave her fruit juices on the hour and ginger ale and Coke—every kind of liquid but alcohol, for if she drank a martini, Stephen would have gin for his dinner. ... ‘No politics today,’ said Mrs. Hartshorn firmly. ‘We’ve declared a moratorium. Priss has to think of her milk.’ Lakey, she went on to Polly, had sent the most exquisite christening robe from Paris, fit for a dauphin—a great surprise, because she had not written for ages; she was doing her doctorate at the Sorbonne. And Pokey Prothero Beauchamp, who had had twins herself the year before, had sent a baby scales, a most thoughtful gift. Everyone had been frightfully kind. Dottie Renfrew Latham had arranged, from way out in Arizona, for Bloomingdale’s to deliver a sterilizer, all complete with bottles and racks, instead of the conventional baby cup or porriger. That would come in handy later on, when Priss’s milk ran out. Mrs. Harshorn glanced at her daughter and lowered her voice. ‘Just fancy little Priss being the first of your set to do it, Polly. She’s so flat there she’s never had to wear a brassière. But Sloan says it’s not the size that counts. I do hope he’s right. The miracle of the loaves and fishes, I call it. All the other babies in the nursery are on bottles. The nurses prefer it that way. I’m inclined to agree with them. Doctors are all theory. Nurses see the facts.’ She swallowed her martini in a single draft, like medicine; this was the style among advanced society women of her age. She wiped her lips and refused a ‘dividend’ from the silver shaker. ‘Which way progress, Polly?’ she demanded, in a slightly louder voice, shaking her white bobbed locks. ‘The bottle was the war-cry of my generation. Linda was bottle-fed. And you can’t imagine the difference. For us, the bottle spelled the end of colic, and the frantic you husband walking the baby all night. We swore by the bottle, we of the avant-grade. My mother-in-law was horripilated. And now, I confess, Polly, I’m horripilated myself.’ ‘Medicine seems to be all cycles,’ continued Mrs. Hartshorn. ‘That’s the bone I pick with Sloan. Like what’s-his-name’s new theory of history. First we nursed our babies; then science told us not to. Now it tells us we were right in the first place. Or were we wrong then but would be right now? Reminds me of relativity, if I understand Mr. Einstein.’ Sloan ignored this excursion. ‘By nursing Stephen,’ he said patiently, ‘Priss can give him her immunities for at least the first year. He won’t be liable to chicken pox or measles or whooping cough. And he will have a certain protection from colds. Of course, in some cases the mother’s milk disagrees with the child. You get a rash or stomach upsets. Then you have to weigh the advantages of breast-feeding against the negative side-effects.’ ‘And psychologically,’ appended Polly, ‘isn’t the breast-fed baby supposed to have a warmer relation with his mother than the bottle-fed baby?’ Sloan frowned. ‘Psychology is still a long way from being a science,’ he declared. ‘Let’s stick to measurable facts. Demonstrable facts. We can demonstrate that the breast-fed infant gets his mother’s immunities. And we know from the scales that Stephen is gaining. An ounce a day, Cousin Louisa.’ This was his name for Mrs. Hartshorn. ‘You can’t argue with the scales.’ The sound of a baby’s crying made itself heard in the silence that followed this speech. ‘That’s Stephen again,’ said Mrs. Hartshorn. ‘I recognize his voice. He yells louder than any other baby in the nursery.’ ‘Shows he’s a healthy young fellow,’ replied Sloan. Time to worry if he didn’t cry for his dinner. Eh, Priss?’ Priss smiled wanly. ‘Sloan says it’s good for his lungs,’ she said, grimacing. ‘Develops them,’ agreed Sloan. ‘Like a bellows.’ He drew air into his chest and released it. Mrs. Hartshorn looked at her watch. ‘Can’t the nurse bring him in now?’ she wondered. ‘It’s quarter of six.’ ‘The schedule, mother!’ cried Priss. ‘The reason babies in your time had colic wasn’t because they were breast-fed, but because they were picked up at all sorts of irregular times and fed whenever they cried. The point is to have a schedule and stick to it absolutely!’ ... In the middle of the general laugh, a nurse tapped at the door. ‘Excuse us, ladies and gentlemen. Feeding time.’ When the room was cleared of guests, she closed the window Mrs. Hartshorn had opened and then brought the baby in on her shoulder. He was wearing a long white nightgown and his face was red and swollen; she placed him next to Priss in the bed. It was exactly six o’clock. ‘Which one is it tonight, dear?’ she demanded. Priss, who had managed to lower one shoulder of her nightgown, indicated her right breast. The nurse swabbed it with cotton and alcohol and laid the baby to suck; as usual, he made a face at the alcohol and pushed the nipple away. The nurse settled it firmly in his mouth again; then she went about the room emptying ashtrays and collecting glasses to take back to the diet kitchen. ‘You had quite a party tonight.’ To Priss, this sounded like a criticism, and she did not reply. Instead, she gritted her teeth. The baby’s mouth always hurt her nipple at the beginning, like a bite. Her breasts were very sensitive, and she hated to have Sloan touch them in love-making; she had hoped that nursing the baby would get her over that. People said that nursing was very satisfying, sensually, to the mother, and she had thought that if she got in the habit with the baby, she would not mind so much with a grown man. Though she had not told Sloan, this was one of her principal reasons for agreeing to breastfeed Stephen: so that she could give Sloan, who was entitled to it, more fun in bed. But so far nursing, like most of sex, was an ordeal she had to steel herself for each time it happened by using all her will-power and thinking about love and self-sacrifice. The nurse was watching her now, to make sure that the baby was drawing at the nipple properly. ‘Relax, Mrs. Crockett,’ she said kindly. ‘Baby can sense it if you’re tense.’ Priss sighed and tried to let go. But naturally the more she concentrated on relaxing, the more tense she got. ‘Bless braces, damn relaxes,’ she joked feebly. ‘You’re tired this evening,’ said the nurse. Priss nodded, feeling grateful that someone knew and disloyal, at the same time, to Sloan, who did not know that it wore her out to have company, especially mixed company that sat there discussing her milk. But as the baby (she wished the nurse would call him ‘Stephen’ not ‘Baby’) commenced to suck rhythmically, making a little noise like a snore, Priss grew somewhat easier. She did not enjoy the sucking, but she liked his fresh, milky smell, which made her think of churns and dairies, and his pale fuzz of hair and his warmth. Soon she was unaware of his sucking, except as a hypnotic rhythm; the nurse put the bell in her hand and tiptoed out. Priss was almost asleep when she came to, with a start; Stephen was asleep himself. His little mouth had ceased to tug, and the noise he was making was a light snore. She joggled him a little, as she had been taught to do, but her nipple slipped out of his mouth. He turned his round soft head away and lay sleeping with his cheek flat on her chest. Priss was terrified; she tried to turn his head and thrust her breast into his mouth. He resisted; his little hands rose and beat feebly at her breast to push it away. She shifted her position and looked at her watch. He had only been nursing seven minutes, and he was supposed to nurse fifteen to get the milk he needed to carry him through till the next feeding, which would be at ten o’clock. She had been cautioned before not to let him fall asleep. She rang the bell, and turned the light on outside her door. No one came; she listened; there was complete silence in the corridor. Not even the sound of a baby crying came from the far end at the nursery. They were all being fed, obviously—all but poor Stephen—and the nurses were all busy, giving them their bottles. She was always fearful of being left alone with Stephen and usually she contrived to keep a nurse with her, making conversation. ... Still no one came; another three minutes had passed. She thought of Sloan, who would be in the Visitors’ Lounge with her mother and Bill Edris, talking and enjoying himself; it was against the hospital rules for the husband to watch the mother nurse, and this was one rule that Sloan did not care to break. Perhaps a passing interne would notic her light. She raised her arm t look at her watch again; two more minutes gone. She felt as though she and Stephen were marooned together in eternity or tied together like prisoners in some gruesome form of punishment. It was useless to remind herself that this frightening bundle was her own child and Sloan’s. Rather, she felt, to her shame, that he was a piece of hospital property that had been dumped on her and abandoned—they would never come to take him away. ... ‘Is he all right? I’m afraid I lost my head.’ ‘Stephen’s just plain mad, isn’t he?’ the girl said, addressing the baby. ‘Does he want to go back to bed?’ She picked up his blanket and wrapped him in it; she patted his back to ‘bubble him’. ‘No, no!’ cried Priss. ‘Give him back, please. He hasn’t finished nursing. I let him go to sleep in the middle.’ ‘Oh, my!’ said the girl. ‘You must have been scared, all right. I’ll stay with you this time till he finishes.’ The baby belched and the girl unwrapped him and laid him, under the covers, on Priss’s breast. ‘Somebody should have come in to bubble him,’ she said. ‘He swallowed a lot of air.’ She gently slid the nipple into his mouth. The baby pushed it away and began to cry again. He was evidently angry. The two girls—Priss was the older—gazed at each other sadly. ‘Does that hapen often?’ said Priss. ‘I don’t know,’ said the girl. ‘Most of our babies are bottle babies. But they do that sometimes with the bottle if the holes in the nipple aren’t big enough; they get mad and push the bottle away.’ ‘Because the milk doesn’t come fast enough,’ said Priss. ‘That’s my trouble. But I wouldn’t mind if he pushed a b-bottle away.’ Her thin little face looked rueful. ‘He’s tired,’ said the student nurse. ‘Did you hear him this afternoon?’ Priss nodded, looking down at the baby. ‘It’s a vicious circle,’ she said gloomily. ‘He wears himself out crying because he’s famished and then he’s too exhausted to nurse.’ The door opened again. ‘You left Mrs. Crockett’s light on,’ the older nurse chided the student. ‘You should remember to snap it off when you come in. What was the trouble here, anyway?’ ‘He won’t nurse,’ said Priss. The three women looked at each other and sighed jointly. ‘Let’s see if you have any milk left,’ siad the older nurse finally, in a practical tone. She moved the baby’s head slightly to one side and squeezed Priss’s breast; a drop of watery liquid appeared. ‘You can try it,’ she conceded. ‘But he’ll have to learn to work for his supper. The harder he works, of course, the more milk you produce. The breast should be well drained.’ She squeezed Priss’s breast again, then clapped ‘Baby’s’ head to the most nipple. While both nurses watched, he sucked for another minute, for two minutes, and stopped. ‘Shall we prime the pump again?’ said Priss with a feeble smile. The older nurse bent down. ‘The breast is empty. No sense in wearing him out for nothing. I’ll take him now and weigh him.’ In a moment the student nurse was back, breathless. ‘Two ounces!’ She reported. ‘Shall I tell your company they can come back?’ Priss was overjoyed; her supper tray appeared while she was waiting for her family to return, and she felt almost hungry. ‘We’ve heard your vital statistic,’ announced Mrs. Hartshorn. ‘Is two ounces a lot?’ asked Allen dubiously. An excellent average feeding, declared Sloan: Priss’s milk was highly concentrated though the volume was not large; that was why the baby was gaining steadily, despite the little fuss he made before meals. ... Priss picked up the last number of Consumer Reports; she was hoping they would have an article on bottled baby foods. She know she was letting herself slip, mentally, in the hospital. She lived on the bulletins the nurses brought her of how many ounces Stephen had taken—they weighed him before and after each feeding. If the nurse forgot to come and tell her, she nearly died, imagining the worst and not having the gumption to ring and ask. The other important event was the regular morning weighing, before his bath, which showed his over-all gain for the day. Nothing but these figures and her own fluid intake interested Priss now; she was always having to ring for the bedpan because of the gallons of water she imbibed. The nurses were awfully co-operative, though they disapproved, she knew (except the student), of her breast-feeding Stephen. They thought Sloan and her obstetrician, Dr. Turner, were barmy. But they too were impressed, nolens volens, by the evidence of the scales. The child was growing. If it had not been for the bulletins, Priss would certainly have lost faith. Sloan and Dr. Turner did not have to hear Stephen crying. The nurses and Priss had to hear it. At eight o’clock that night right on the dot, down in the nursery Stephen started to cry. Sheknew his voice—the whole floor knew it. Sometimes he would whimper and then go back to sleep for a while, but when he began noisily, as he was doing now, he might cry for two solid hours—a scandal. It was against the rules for the nurses to pick him up; they were allowed to change him and give him a drink of water, and that was all. The babies were not supposed to be ‘handled’. And if they gave him a second drink of water, he might not nurse properly when feeding time finally came. Sometimes merely changing him would quiet him for the time being. Often the drink of water would quiet him. But not always. A lot depended, Priss had discovered, on when he got the water; if they gave it to him too soon, he would sleep briefly and wake up again, howling. If he woke up midway between between feedings, the nurse usually let him cry, after changing him, for an hour, and then gave him the water, so that, tired from crying and with a deceptively full stomach, he would often sleep through until the next feeding. That was the best for then he was fresh when he was brought in to nurse and would draw with might and main from the nipple. But if he woke up shortly after a feeding, it was horrible: after an hour’s cry, he would get his water, sleep, wake up and cry again without stopping—his record, so far, was two hours and three-quarters. ... The idea that her child disturbed the other infants greatly troubled Priss, though the nurses tried to reassure her: newborn babies, they said, quickly got accustomed to a familiar noise. Still, Priss could not refrain from framing an apologetic sentence t the maid. ‘Oh, dear, Catherine,’ she said (she had made a point of learning the maids’ names), ‘do you hear him? He’ll wake up the whole hospital.’ ‘Hear him?’ replied Catherine, who was Irish. ‘He’ll wake the dead. When are they going to let him have a bottle for God’s sake?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Priss, closing her eyes in pain. ‘Ah, don’t take it so hard,’ the maid said jauntily, straightening Priss’s covers. ‘He’s exercising his lungs.’ Priss wished everyone would not say that. ‘It’s not my place to ask,’ said Catherine, moving closer to plump Priss’s pillows, ‘but I’ve been wondering. What put it into your head to nurse?’ Priss felt her neck redden. ‘Im-m-munities,’ she stammered. The maid looked at her curiously. ‘You know,’ said Priss. ‘Like vaccination. He can’t get any diseases I’ve had, like mumps or chicken pox or measles.’ ‘Always something new,’ said Catherine, shaking her head. She poured Priss fresh water. ‘They’re always inventing something, aren’t they?’ Priss nodded. ‘Would you like your radio on, now? A little music? You won’t hear him, over the music.’ ‘No, thank you Catherine,’ said Priss. ‘Can I crank you up a bit, Mrs. Crockett?’ ‘No, thank you, ‘ Priss repeated. The maid hesitated. ‘Good night, then, and cheer up. Look on the bright side. They used to say it developed the bust.’ Priss could not help treasuring this last remark; she saved it to tell her mother tomorrow, in the brogue, if she could without stuttering. At the same time she had to admit that she had been secretly hoping that Stephen would be a bust-developer and she had made Dr. Turner laugh when she asked him anxiously whether she wouldn’t need a nursing brassière. Her mood lightened; outside, silence reigned—Stephen must have had his drink of water while she and the made were talking. This calm was broken by the head floor nurse, Miss Swenson, who was going off duty. She came in and closed the door. ‘I want to tell you, Mrs. Crockett, that I’m going to speak to Dr. Turner in the morning. To recommend that Stephen be given a supplementary bottle.’ The nurse’s casual tone did not fool Priss. A supplementary bottle—the phrase sounded horrid, as if Miss Swenson had said, ‘I’m going to recommend a dose of strychnine.’ The very word bottle made Priss bristle, no matter what adjectives were attached. She braced herself against her pillows and prepared to give battle. Miss Swenson went on smoothly, as if she had not noticed the effect of her announcement on Priss. ‘I know this will be a great relief to you, Mrs. Crockett. We all undersatnd what you’ve been going through. You’ve been a wonderful patient, a remarkable patient.’ Even in her shock, Priss recognized that Miss Swenson, whom she had always liked, was speaking with real earnestness. ‘But why?’ she brought out finally. ‘The scales...’ Miss Swenson, who was in her thirties with blond hair in a bun, came to the bedside and took her hand. ‘I know how you feel, my dear. Torn. Most nursing mothers cry when I have to tell them that I recommend a supplementary bottle. Even when the child is failing to gain weight. They want to keep trying. You’re exceptionally brave not to break down.’ ‘You mean this happens often?’ asked Priss. ‘Not very often. But we have one or two younger doctors who like to have the mothers nurse as long as they’re able. Not all the mothers agree, of course. There’s still a prejudice against breast-feeding, especially—and this will surprise you—among ward patients. They feel that a bottle baby is socially superior.’ ‘How interesting!’ Priss exclaimed. ‘And we see that same attitude with our Jewish private patients. Even when they have plenty of milk, and the doctor encourages it, they don’t want to nurse; they have the idea it’s lower East Side.’ ‘How interesting,’ Priss repeated thoughtfully. ‘Oh, being a nurse one sees a great deal. And the class differences are quite extraordinary. ... ‘Do higher-income women have a lower milk supply?’ She did not like to use the words upper class. Miss Swenson avoided answering this blunt question; probably she was afraid of depressing Priss with the thought that her case was statistically pretty hopeless. She looked at her watch. ‘I want to explain the supplementary bottle to you, Mrs. Crockett.’ To Priss’s surprise, she found that this phrase no longer sounded like a death knell. ‘But if he’s gaining the right amount...?’ she protested, nevertheless. He’s an unusually hungry baby,’ said Miss Swenson. ‘Your milk is quite adequate from a nutritional point of view, but it doesn’t give him enough volume. What I suggest, Mrs. Crockett, is this. After his six o’clock evening feeding, starting tomorrow, we’ll give him a small amount of formula in a bottle. Your milk supply is at its lowest then, I’ve noticed. At ten he gets enough volume from you to hold him. On a full stomach he’ll sleep through till two; so will you, poor girl. In fact, with the supplementary bottle we mayeven be able to train him, before you leave the hospital, to sleep right through till six in the morning, so that you’ll have an unbroken night. We like to do that anyway for our mothers, before they go home; once the baby has the habit of the two o’clock feeding, it’s hard for the mother to break it herself. A baby works like a little clock, and we like to have it set right before the mother takes over.’ Priss nodded. How wonderful, she thought, of the hospital to plan ahead for the mothers. None of this would have been possible a few years before. ‘If he’s still fretful, even with one supplementary bottle,’ Miss Swenson went on, ‘we may have to give him more. Some babies take a supplementary bottle after each time at the breast. But in Stephen’s case I don’t think this will be necessary. You may even find that your flow of milk increases, once Stephen is more comfortable. etc etc From: Mary McCarthy, The Group (most of Chapter 14) ‘Have you got a watch?’ Norine asked, yawning. Priss told her the time. ‘Are you nursing?’ she asked, stealing an envious look at Norine’s massive breasts. ‘My milk ran out,’ said Norine. ‘So did mine¡’ cried Priss. ‘As soon as I left the hospital. How long did you nurse?’ ‘Four weeks. Then Freddy slept with the girl we had looking after Ichabod, and my milk went on strike.’ Priss gulped; the story she had been about to relate, of how her mil had run out as soon as they gave Stephen a supplementary bottle was hastily vetoed on her lips.
James arrives home in the middle of that day to find Mrs. Luvovitz in the kitchen feeding his baby with a dropper. ... James plunked his wife onto the chair and put the screeching baby into her arms. "Now feed her." But the mother just blubbered and babbled. "Speak English, for Christ’s sake." "Ma bi’der. Biwajeaal." He slapped her. "If she doesn’t eat, you don’t eat. Understood?" Materia nodded. He unbuttoned her blouse. James allowed Mrs. Luvovitz over that evening when Materia hadn’t produced a drop and the baby was fit to be tied. The women went upstairs. The howling the mother put up, as Mrs. Luvovitz did the necessary. ... In a few days the pump was primed and the baby was sucking. But the mother cried through every feeding. One evening in the fourth week of Kathleen’s life, James snatched his child from the breast in horror. "You’ve hurt her, Jesus Christ, you’ve cut her lip!"—for the baby’s smile was bright with blood. Materia just sat there, mute as usual, her dress open, her nipples cracked and bleeding, oozing milk. James took one look
and realized that the child would
have to be weaned before it was poisoned. Frances looks a litle starveling and she’s bald as a post. Materia figures it’s because she conceived too soon after Mercedes, the goodness in her womb hadn’t yet been replenished. And her milk isn’t as bountiful. All the more reason to love this one too. ... The two little ones
seem fine, Mercedes breastfeeding
a dolly and cooing to Frances. "She was a good
woman. Her name was Mahmoud. Many
years ago, when your jitdy was a
baby, the Turks came to his village
in the Old Country. They were looking
for Christian babies to kill. The
Mahmoud woman took your jitdy and
put him among her own children. When
the Turks came to the door and said,
‘Are there any Christian babies
here?’ she said ‘No! All
these children are my own.’
And to convince them, she put your
jitdy to her own breast and suckled
him. ...The corners of Lily’s mouth run with clear saliva, she is incapable of closing her mouth or of taking the next breath. Frances touches Lily’s fist, unlocking her throat. The air pours scraping in, and corrosive sobs begin. "Come here, Lily." Frances opens her
nightgown and guides Lily’s
mouth to drink. ‘Wvery,’
replied his parent, wilth a sigh.
‘She’s got hold o’
some inwention for grown-up people
being born again, Sammy; the new
birth, I thinks they calls it. I
should wery much like to see that
system in haction, Sammy. I should
wery much like to see your mother-in-law
born again. Wouldn’t I put her
out to nurse!’ A day came—of almost terrified delight and wonder—when the poor widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast... How she laughed and wept over it—how love, and hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby nestled there. How his mother nursed
him, and dressed him and lived upon
him... It was her life which the
baby drank in from her bosom. The parting between Rebecca and the little Rawdon did not cause either party much pain. She had not, to say the truth, seen much of the young gentleman since his birth. After the amiable fashion of French mothers, she had placed him out to nurse in a village in the neighbourhood of Paris... He preferred his nurse’s caresses to his mamma’s and when finally he quitted that jolly nurse and almost parent, he cried loudly for hours. It is a fact that
even the poor gardener’s wife,
who had nursed madame’s child,
was never paid after the first six
months for that supply of the milk
of human kindness. ...her grief at weaning
the child was a sight that would
have unmanned a Herod. It is most distressing,
for instance, for a man sitting on
his beach-front verandah with his
family to have a woman with a large
family appear, sit calmly upon the
edge of the boardwalk and expose
her person to feed her baby. ...When she nurses her baby she often reads a book, sometimes smokes a cigarette, so as not to slink into the sludge of animal function. And she’s aware of the nursing shrinking her uterus and flattening her stomach, not just providing the baby—Noelle—with precious maternal antibodies. "Good thing you weren’t going to drink that yourself," the girl from the library said to Kath. "It’s a no-no if you’re nursing." "I guzzled beer
all the time when I was nursing,"
the woman on the stool said. "I
think it was recommended. You piss
most of it away anyhow." O would my young,
ye saw my breast, Sleep and rest, sleep
and rest, Who fed me from her
gentle breast Untaught, yet wise!
mid all thy brief alarms Struggling in thy
fathers hands: Child CareAt birth the baby
should sleep almost 23 hours out
of 24. If I hadn't had my
children, I wouldn't have written
more and better, I would have written
less and worse. It is well that a
growing infant should cry a little
every day. ...The baby should be
made to cry every day by slapping
him on the buttocks. The selection of the
nurse-maid is a matter of considerable
importance. ...Women who are of about
middle age, at which time the attractive
qualities of policemen and grocery-boys
have faded into a dim recollection..very
often make capable attendants. When the baby is just
born, and during the first few days
of life, it is very little more intelligent
than a vegetable. If these parts are
not kept thoroughly clean, secretions
may form to such an extent as to
act as foreign bodies, drawing the
child's attention to the parts and
in this way frequently lead to masturbation. Badly managed and
spoiled infants often cry vigorously
when left alone, and when attention
is given to them and they are taken
up or talked to, the crying ceases.
Community traditions of midwifery and mutual aid were discredited as women were urged to trust their doctors rather than their neighbours or themselves. Medically prescribed childbirth became an alienating surgical procedure and child rearing a rigid clockwork routine devoid of sensual pleasure. ...People came to accept the idea that relevant knowledge about children and childbirth was vested in professional experts who stood outside the network of family and community relationships. By becoming merely
the agents of the latest theory,
mothers gave up the last vestige
of their traditional authority and
independence. A young baby is sufficient
unto himself. He derives all necessary
stimulation from his own activities
and his own immediate surroundings.
Playing with a young baby is never
necessary and it is often harmful...A
little play in the middle of the
afternoon, say for 10 or 15 minutes,
with a baby of four months or over
may be permitted...The best practice
is to have a physician trained in
the care of children to look after
the baby from birth, to whom all
matters of this sort may be referred. When the baby is crying,
whether it is during the day or night,
rocking, walking the floor, shaking
or otherwise agitating the baby must
be rigorously avoided. Few people
realize the importance of vigorous,
lusty crying in a healthy infant.
It is as essential to the infant
as exercise is to the adult. It is,
in fact, the infant's daily exercise.
All young babies should have a crying
period during each day...The infant
who cries regularly between 5 and
6, or 8 and 10 o'clock in the evening
is doing what is called "reflex
crying". It is not to be assumed
under such conditions that he is
suffering either discomfort or pain,
but it is to be taken for granted
that such crying is good for the
baby and is as important as food. The environment of
the child must be guided by the physician.
He must give advice concerning the
details of early training in obedience,
habit formation, temper tantrums
etc. How often do we see the young
infant stop crying at two weeks of
age when it is picked up by either
parent. Herein lies the potential
juvenile court case. Unless the parents
are guided by the physician, even
at this early stage, the infant soon
learns to put one over on its parents. Media, AdvertisingThe first issue of
20/20 was unquestionably one of the
worst turkeys ever seen on American
network, and yet it was curiously
prophetic, and critics like Tom Shales
who saw in it an omen of the future
of the TV news-magazine program were
not wrong. There was the voyeuristic
interest in the confession of sins.
There was the fixation on celebrity.
There was the almost total absence
of any serious news... There was
the phony sentimentality, the mock
humanism. Above all, there was the
belief that reality must always take
a back seat to entertainment, so
that the audience must not be overtaxed,
so that they will come back for more
of the same Twinkie. ...the American imagination
demands the real thing and, to attain
it, must fabricate the absolute fake; Obviously advertising
works. EnvironmentThe environmental
impact of the Great Flood of '93
will be tremendous and long-lasting,
say scientists, and will illustrate
how a century of levee-building and
dam-constructing has taken a natural
river system and turned it into something
artificial, and perhaps even more
dangerous. The recognition of
oneself as part of nature, and reliance
on natural things, are disappearing
for hundreds of millions of people
who do not know that anything is
being lost. The hidden intention
is to go to the limit, to see how
far can we ride the tiger. The more
we know about the responsiveness
of nature, the more somehow you can
test the limits. MedicineAs a man who had seen
something of life, and neither a
fool nor an invalid, he had no faith
in medicine... "There speaks a Protestant," Mr Visconti said. "Any Catholic knows that a legend which is believed has the same value and effect as the truth. Look at the cult of the saints." "But the Americans may be Protestants". "Then we produce
medical evidence. That is the modern
form of the legend..." ...his students...wouldn't
believe their grandmothers had wrinkles
if they couldn't measure them with
a micrometer MiscellaneousAnd thou shalt take
no bribe; for a bribe blindeth the
clear-sighted and perverteth the
words of the righteous. ...though she was
interested in everything that did
not concern her, (she) had a habit
of never listening to what interested
her; It is fortunate for
the future of the human race that
young women are transferring their
allegiance from crochet and embroidery-needles
to golf... Look sweet, speak
fair, become disloyalty; When power is scarce,
a little of it is tempting. It (William Randolph
Hearst's castle) is like making love
in a confessional with a prostitute
dressed in a prelate's liturgical
robes reciting Beaudelaire while
ten electronic organs reproduce the
Well Tempered Clavier played by Scriabin. Stick to your desk Would the world ever
have been made if its maker had been
afraid of making trouble? Making
life means making trouble. His face wore that
everlastingly peevish and woebegone
look which has been so sourly imprinted
on all the faces of the Jewish race
without exception. There is nothing harder
in the whole world than frankness,
and there is nothing easier than
flattery. If there is only one hundredth
part of a note of falsehood in your
frankness, at once a discord is created,
followed immediately by a row. If,
on the other hand, everything to
the last note is false in flattery,
it is still pleasant, and is listened
to not without satisfaction; with
a coarse sort of satisfaction, maybe,
but with satisfaction still. And
however coarse the flattery may be,
half of it at least always seems
to be true. ...so many different
sorts of business men have recently
become enthusiastic adherents of
the common cause, and so dreadfully
have they distorted in their own
interests everything they touched
that they've absolutely discredited
the whole thing. Well, don't you think
that one little crime could be expiated
and wiped out by thousands of good
deeds? For one life you will save
thousands of lives from corruption
and decay. One death in exchange
for a hundred lives-why, its a simple
sum in arithmetic! If you can measure
that of which you speak, and can
express it by a number, you know
something of your subject; but if
you cannot measure it, your knowledge
is meagre and unsatisfactory. He was...one of those men who select their opinions like their clothes, according to the prevailing fashion. "You see", said Berg to his comrade, whom he called his friend only because he knew that everyone has friends. "...In these
days", pursued Vera—speaking
of "these days" as people
of limited intelligence are fond
of doing, imagining that they have
discovered and appraised the peculiarities
of "these days" and that
human nature changes with the times—... Do not expect that
you will make any lasting or very
strong impression on the world through
intellectual power without the use
of an equal amount of conscience
and heart. The great enemy of
the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate,
contrived and dishonest—but
the myth, persistent, persuasive
and unrealistic. People who value their
privileges above their principles
soon lose both. Some people reach
the top of the ladder only to find
it was leaning against the wrong
wall. We must be the changes
we wish to see in the world. ...we may be pretty
certain that persons whom all the
world treats ill, deserve entirely
the treatment they get. The world
is a looking-glass, and gives back
to every man the reflection of his
own face. Always to be right,
always to trample forward, and never
to doubt, are not these the great
qualities with which dullness takes
the lead in the world?
Compiled by Jack Newman, MD, FRCPCThis handout may be copied and distributed without further permission, on the condition that it is not used in any context in which the WHO code on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes is violated |