History
In the Egyptian, Greek and Roman empires, women usually fed only their own children. However, breastfeeding began to be seen as something too common to be done by royalty, and wet nurses were employed to breastfeed the children of the royal families. This was extended over the ages, particularly in western Europe, where noble women often made use of wet nurses. But lower class women breastfeed their infants and used a wet nurse only if they were unable to feed their own infant. Attempts were made in 15th century Europe to use cow or goat milk, but these attempts were not successful. In the 18th century, flour or cereal mixed with broth were introduced as substitutes for breastfeeding, but this did not have a favorable outcome either. True commercial infant formulas appeared on the market in the mid 19th century but their use did not become widespread until after World War II.
Read more about this topic: Breastfeeding
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)