(4). The Surroundings. — Among the lower classes the home sur-
roundings are sometimes so unhygienic that this condition militates
materially against the well-being of these little waifs. True, one finds
not infrequently, infants enjoying a remarkable measure of robustness
because of, or in spite of, the filth and squalor by which they are daily
surrounded, yet such cases are comparatively rare among the bottle-
fed, who more frequently than others show constitutional taints.
Another adverse condition, the direct opposite of the foregoing, is not
infrequently seen in the homes of the well-to-do. This is the excessive
measure of attention and parental solicitude which always makes puny
and sickly infants ; such infants are unwittingly robbed of that meas-
ure of natural immunity to disease which is the reward of '* roughing
it," even in infant life.
INFANT FEliDING. 145

All these difficulties and a number of others less common, but
equally important, enter into the problem of the treatment of hand-fed
infants. To ignore them is to fail in their management. To treat
these difficulties, rather than the infant, is quite generally the only
avenue of success.
DISCUSSION.
