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43. If a child be suffering severely from “wind,” is there any objection to the addition of a small quantity either of gin or of peppermint to his food to disperse it?

It is a murderous practice to add either gin or peppermint of the shops (which is oil of peppermint dissolved in spirits) to his food. Many children have, by such a practice, been made puny and delicate, and have gradually dropped into an untimely grave. An infant who is kept, for the first three or four months, entirely to the breast—more especially if the mother be careful in her own diet—seldom suffers from “wind;” those, on the contrary, who have much or improper food, suffer severely. For the first three or four months never, if you can possibly avoid it, give artificial food to an infant who is sucking. There is nothing, in the generality of cases, that agrees, for the first few months, like the mother’s milk alone.

Care in feeding, then, is the grand preventive of “wind;” but if, notwithstanding all your precautions, the child be troubled with flatulence, the remedies recommended under the head of Flatulence will generally answer the purpose.