CHAPTER XIV
CHILDREN IN THE FAST
When the human child is born into the world, it is equipped with but three developed faculties hunger, thirst, and sleep. The infant, if capable of expressed desire, would signify its greatest need as sleep, but its rest is naturally punctuated with hunger periods, and at these times and at no others it should be fed. To awaken a quietly sleeping child for the purpose of administering food is most inadvisable, yet nurse and mother, burdened with professional tradition and advice, in overzealous care rarely permit a two-hour interval to pass without forcing food upon the attention of the baby, asleep or awake. The child will, through habit, take the breast and suckle for longer or shorter time, but its rest has been disturbed, and its small digestive apparatus is never free from labor as long as mother or nurse can stimulate appetite. Disobedience to natural law brings its penalty,
