CHAP. XXIV. Of the weaning of Children.
MAny are weaned in the eighteenth month, some in the twentieth; but all, or the most part, in the second year: for then their teeth appear, by whose presence nature see∣meth to require some harder meat then milk or pap, wherewith children are delight∣ed, and will feed more earnestly thereon. But there is no certain time of weaning of children. For the teeth of some will appear sooner, and some later; for they are prepared of nature for no other purpose then to chaw the meat. If children be weaned before their teeth appear, and be fed with meat that is somewhat hard and solid, according to the judgment of Avicen, they are incident to many diseases comming through crudity; because the stomach is yet but weak, and wanteth that preparation of the meats which is made in the mouth by chawing; which men of ripe years cannot want without offence: when the child is two years old, and the teeth appear, if the child more vehemently desire harder meats, and doth feed on them with pleasure and good success, 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 weak, 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 tear, whereby he may leave it by little and little, and then let the teat be anointed or rubbed with bitter things, as with Aloes, water of the infusion of Colocynthus, or Worm-wood, o•• with Mustard, or Soot steeped in water, or such like. Children that are scabby in their heads, and over all their bodies, and which void much phlegm at their mouth and nostrils, and many excrements downwards, are like to be strong and sound of body; for so they are purged of ex∣cremental humors: contrariwise, those that are clean and fair of body, gather the matter of many diseases in their bodies, which in process of time will break forth and appear. Certainly, by the sudden falling of such matters into the back-bone, many become crook-backt.