He had a private conversation with the father, during which he
declared that the baby would die if the Baroness continued to nurse
him, because she was firstly too highly strung, and secondly had
nothing with which to feed him. He took the trouble to make a
quantitative analysis of the milk, and proved (by equations) that the
child was bound to starve unless there was a change in the method of
his feeding.
What was to be done? On no account could the baby be allowed to die.
Bottle or foster mother? The latter was out of the question. Let us
try the bottle! The doctor, however, prescribed a foster mother.
The best Dutch cow, which had received the gold medal for the district,
was isolated and fed with hay; with dry hay of the finest quality. The
doctor analysed the milk, everything was all right. How simple the system
was! How strange that they had not thought of it before! After all, one
need not engage a foster mother a tyrant before whom one had to cringe,
a loafer one had to fatten; not to mention the fact that she might have
an infectious disease.
But the baby continued to lose flesh and to scream. It screamed night
and day. There was no doubt it suffered from colic. A new cow was
procured and a fresh analysis made.
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