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CHAP. XXIIII. Of the weaning of children.
MAny are weaned in the eighteenth moneth, some in the twentieth, but all, or the most part, in the second yeare, for then their teeth appeare, * 1.1 by whose presence nature seemeth to require some harder meat than milke or pappe, wherewith children are delighted, and will feed more earnestly thereon. But there is no certaine time of weaning of children. For the teeth of some will appeare sooner, and some later; for they are prepared of nature for no other purpose than to chaw the meat. If children bee weaned before * 1.2 their teeth appeare, and bee fed with meat that is somewhat hard and solid, accor¦ding to the judgement of Avicen, they are incident to many diseases comming through crudity, because the stomacke is yet but weake, and wanteth that preparati∣on of the meates which is made in the mouth by chawing; which men of ripe yeers cannot want without offence: when the childe is two yeeres old, and the teeth ap∣peare, * 1.3 if the childe more vehemently desire harder meates, and doth feed on them with pleasure & good successe, he may be safely weaned, for it cannot be supposed that he hath this appetite of hard meats in vain, by the instinct of nature. Yet he may not be weaned without such an appetite, if all other things be correspondent, that is to say, his teeth and age, for those things that are eaten without an appetite, cannot profit. But if the childe be weake, sickly, or feeble, he ought not to be weaned. And when the meet time of weaning commeth, the nurse must now and then use him to the teat, whereby he may leave it by little and little, and then let the teate be anoin∣ted or rubbed with bitter things, as with Aloes, water of the infusion of Colocynthus, or worme-wood, or with mustard, or soote steeped in water, or such like. Children * 1.4 that are scabby in their heads, and over all their bodies and which void much flegme at their mouth and nostrills, and many excrements downwards, are like to be strong and sound of body; for so they are purged of excrementall humours: contrariwise, those that are cleane and faire of body, gather the matter of many diseases in their bodies, which in processe of time will breake forth and appeare. Certainely by the * 1.5 sodaine falling of such matters into the backe-bone, many become crookebackt.