Breastfeeding - Was a life line in the past and still is!

In his famous textbook “The diseases of children and their remedies, Nils Rosen von Rosenstein has 28 chapters, all relating in a practical way to the most common ailments in children and how to deal with them. Typically, Chapter 1 with 14 pages, one of the longest, is “On nurse”, i e on breast-feeding, indicating its importance. Just like WHO now recommends (1), he states that when the child is half a year old “we may begin to give unboiled (sic?) milk in which we have mixed a little rye-biscuite…previously soaked in warm water”. And “… in general we indulge a child by sucking till it has gotten all its 16 milk teeth (… i e to about 2 years). In this however, we cannot fix any certain time as a weak child should suck longer than a robust one “. And “…leave off by degrees, beginning with the night meals. When it is to be weaned entirely, a smear of worm-wood may be applied on the nipples”.This last advice has only recently been discarded! Much of what he wrote on breast-feeding refers to what the wet-nurs...