COUDRAY, (M. DE LEBOURIER DU)
Having practised midwifery in Paris for sixteen years, employed her pen upon the subject. She afterwards settled at Auvergne, where she acquired the highest reputation; and not only gave her advice to the poor gratis, but instructed those of her own profession, and opened a school for the reception of young pupils.
She wrote likewise another treatise, in which she has given farther proofs of her good sense, her humane and benevolent disposition, in advice to those mothers who are willing to become nurses to their own children; the title of her book is, Avis aux Meres qui Nourissent leur Enfans. "It is an error," says this sensible writer, "to imagine that a child which is put out to nurse, will love the parent with the same degree of tenderness, as if she had nursed it herself: and the means taken to wean the child, and make it forget its nurse, is the first lesson that is taught of indifference and ingratitude. The separation of children from their nurses is, to those of susceptible and tender dispositions, a most cruel affliction, and very often of ill consequence. If they are taken away a second time, they express but little uneasiness, having been already taught to disengage their affections. This proceeding makes children affable and unreserved in the world; but they love nobody: while those who are brought up always with the mother, continue their attachment during life."
