TY - JOUR
AU - Ventura,, Gal
AB - Abstract This article highlights the development and design of the modern French feeding bottle, created during the nineteenth century, an era in which modern consumerism coincided with the medicalisation of childhood. Three main reasons elucidate this transition: growing concern for children, the failure to abolish wet-nursing, and the rise of the commodity society. Based on hundreds of feeding bottles, advertisements, pharmaceutical catalogues and manuals composed by physicians and midwives, this article analyses the complex relationship between the object, the users, the manufacturers and the socio-medical environment. By examining the feeding bottle from historical, material and visual perspectives, while unfolding the scientific, technological and economic factors that contributes to its design, this article highlights the vast changes that took place in the medical attitude towards childhood, hygiene and bodily functions, as a direct result of consumer demand. bottle-feeding, maternity, nineteenth-century France, childhood, medicalisation At the Champs-Elysées fair I saw candies and toys, books and feeding-bottles, bodysuits and pictures; but among this varied display I sought, in vain, that which I wish for the most for little French children, those of the present and future: the maternal breast! (Charles Dolivet, Exposition universelle, 1873)1 In the centre of an advertisement published in Paris in 1887, a golden-haired baby draws a feeding-bottle out of the insulated container maintaining its temperature; the child on the left holds the nipple from his old bottle, seeking to replace it with the new one, while a third infant observes them as he holds a measuring cup full of milk (Figure 1). Despite the children’s angelic appearances, which undoubtedly appealed to nineteenth-century viewers in an age of growing concern for children, the actual protagonist of this poster is Dr Rougeot’s tubeless feeding-bottle, adorned with a thermometer and marked with numbers measuring its contents.2 The caption claims that this bottle is ‘the only one that makes artificial feeding comparable to maternal breast-feeding’, noting that this innovation was awarded five gold medals at exhibitions across Europe: in Paris, London, Venice, and Antwerp. These accolades, demonstrated through the visual rivalry between Dr Rougeot’s tubeless bottle and the rejected long tube of one of his competitors, testify to the magnitude of the French bottle-feeding industry in the last decades of the nineteenth century, as indicated by Charles Dolivet’s account cited above. Yet, his lament over the loss of the maternal breast raises several questions, related to the intricate relationship between nature and culture, society and medicine, and between physicians and consumer products. Fig. 1 View largeDownload slide Advertisement for a new Feeding Bottle designed by Dr Rougeot, 1887, lithograph, 32 × 26 cm. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, Paris. Fig. 1 View largeDownload slide Advertisement for a new Feeding Bottle designed by Dr Rougeot, 1887, lithograph, 32 × 26 cm. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, Paris. Until the First World War three major infant feeding patterns co-existed: maternal breast-feeding, wet-nursing and ‘artificial feeding’: nourishment based on animal milk.3 The first two were the most generally accepted, since before Louis Pasteur’s discoveries, untreated animal milk was known to be dangerous.4 Consequently, most babies were nourished by breast milk, whether given to them by their mother, or, in her absence, by a wet-nurse.5 As wet-nursing was common in France until the First World War among middle and upper classes—in spite of the physicians’ stubborn opposition to it—from the mid-eighteenth century, the demand for maternal breast-feeding intensified as part of a wide-ranging ideology.6 The absolute necessity for breast-feeding was stressed in numerous books composed by philosophers, physicians and midwives, all of whom insisted that mothers should nurse their children themselves, regardless of their social status.7 This approach was strengthened over the course of the nineteenth century. After a short upsurge in the demand for women’s liberation, many thinkers once again championed Napoleon’s conservative approach, claiming that motherhood constitutes women’s exclusive role. In that vein, the renowned Parisian physician Alfred Donné stated that maternal nursing must be encouraged, ‘since the best wet-nurse is, undoubtedly, the mother itself’.8 The division of gender roles within the middle and upper classes clearly contributed to this attitude, as the work/home divide created a chasm between the public sphere, governed mostly by men, and the private sphere reserved for women.9 These patriarchal outlooks intensified during the Third Republic as a consequence of the growing concern for the diminishing size of France’s population following the Franco-Prussian War. Since the Commune of 1870 clearly demonstrated the results of the collapse of boundaries between the male political sphere and the female domestic sphere, many believed that, in order to reestablish social order, they must impose a return to family values and gender hierarchy.10 Thus, during the last quarter of the century, a period of political and economic instability in France, the inherent link between femininity, maternity and domesticity was underscored, while stressing childbearing and nurturing the nation’s future generation as the primary roles of France’s female citizens.11 In 1902, the French Academy of Medicine declared that ‘nursing from the baby’s mother, or else from another woman, must be preferred over every other nursing method’.12 A similar approach was taken that same year by the feminist writer Marie Béquet de Vienne, who called upon mothers to embrace breast-feeding in order to preserve the child’s life. While repeating claims made in the 1870s by several French feminist societies that regarded maternity as the fulfilment of an essential feminine-civic duty, she declared forcefully: ‘the child that we nurse, is harder to entomb’.13 Since Rougeot’s advertisement seems to acknowledge the supremacy of breast-feeding by comparing his bottle to the maternal breast—as he himself declared in a manual he composed for mothers14—one should ask who was his designated clientele? As maternal breast-feeding was venerated by doctors throughout the century, why did he and his colleagues invest so much effort in designing and marketing superior bottles? Were those bottles designed to replace maternal breast-feeding, or to provide a substitute in its absence? Since throughout history, the use of animal milk generally stemmed from the mother’s death at childbirth, the birth of twins or the inability to pay for a wet-nurse, it was more common among the lower classes.15 As Rougeot’s efforts to promote his products must have been financially justified, could they have been designed for lower-income families? Since poor families did not have similar levels of medical oversight as the middle and upper classes, could they be his designated clients? Can we alternatively assume that middle- and upper-class mothers who could follow recommendations to nurse their children preferred paying for artificial feeding? These questions are reinforced by the medical establishment’s changing attitude towards the feeding-bottle. At the end of the eighteenth century, doctors glorified maternal breast-feeding and avidly resisted the use of wet-nurses.16 Since the use of feeding-bottles was then relatively rare, bottles were seldom mentioned in maternal manuals, and even enjoyed a positive status via-à-vis the alternative.17 In the 1880s, however, physicians’ manuals substituted the old rivalry between mothers and wet-nurses with a new dispute between the mother and the feeding-bottle.18 Since in the 1870s, some 35 per cent of babies were sent to ‘dry-nurses’ (nourrice sèche, i.e. bottle-feeding nursemaids),19 the medical establishment conducted statistical studies, which demonstrated that bottle-feeding yielded significantly higher mortality rates that the alternatives.20 Similar results arise from the book The Rights of Children of 1900, in which the author argues that the mortality rate of babies bottle-fed by a remote nurse are three times as high as that of the babies breast-fed by their own mothers.21 Interestingly, while in the 1790s some doctors’ recommended using bottles for babies who were deprived of nursing but rarely produced them, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, they criticized this practice while being actively involved in its manufacturing and marketing.22 Undoubtedly, the new involvement of doctors in the artificial feeding market was a part of a larger tendency of the medicalisation of childhood, which generated ‘a process by which nonmedical problems become defined and treated as medical problems’.23 This approach began in the seventeenth century, when French doctors supervised midwifery, and propagated the belief that a male professional physician was preferable to a female midwife through birth.24 During the next two centuries childcare became a medical matter, administered by male physicians, and the medicalisation of family, motherhood and childhood became a central aspect of everyday life through campaigns by pediatricians.25 Children’s nutrition was one of the main reasons put forward by a medical establishment that encouraged maternal breast-feeding throughout the century. Yet, the question remains—why did they promote products that contradicted their recommendations? It can be presumed that doctors’ involvement in the artificial feeding market, reveals an effort to regain authority that had been undermined by feminist and Marxist thinkers who emphasized the passive female submission to the manipulative, controlling male medical profession.26 Yet, despite the fact that the artificial feeding industry reveals the medical establishment’s growing social control, the case of the feeding-bottle shows a much more complex approach in which the consumer’s growing demand generated medical production, and not vice versa. As doctors understood that bottle-feeding would not be eradicated, they preferred improving the existing unsatisfactory products. Combined with the development of new technologies, consumer demand contributed to the medicalisation of the bottle, which was standardised and commodified through medical manuals, pharmaceutical catalogues and advertising. Unlike physician’s recommendations regarding new-born hygiene, clothing or illness, the gap between words and deeds in the case of artificial feeding stemmed from a combination of practical, economic and technological factors enabling manufacturers to design an improved product according to children’s needs and consumers’ demands. Yet, despite the growing prominence of the bottle industry, only sporadic studies, written mainly in the 1980s and 1990s, dealt with artificial feeding. Valerie Fildes’s books dealt with the history of infant feeding from antiquity to the twentieth century, addressing maternal breast-feeding, wet-nursing, mixed nourishment, and artificial feeding, while integrating texts from various sources that shaped the approach to these issues throughout history.27 Conversely, historian Rima D. Apple focused on the social history of infant feeding in the United States between 1890 and 1950, while Janet Golden, who investigated the social history of wet-nursing and bottle-feeding in America, examined the intersection of medical science, social theory and cultural practices that shaped relations among wet-nurses, physicians and families from the colonial period through to the twentieth century.28 This relative neglect can be perceived as a direct outcome of the ideology of maternal nursing that regained power at the end of the twentieth century, reaching its peak in our days. The current public obsession with health, combined with an ideology of total motherhood, produced a ‘moral crusade’ seeking to promote the health benefits of breast-feeding over formula-feeding.29 It can be presumed that this present-day ‘lactivism’—a portmanteau of ‘lactation’ and ‘activism’—led by the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the La Leche League, influenced both the abundance of research dealing with breast-feeding, as well as the academic disregard for the breast’s main rival—the bottle. In this essay, I wish to partially fill the void by highlighting the various attributes of the French feeding bottle from visual, cultural and historical perspectives, as a central industrial object in the nineteenth century, an era in which modern consumerism coincided with the medicalisation of childhood. Three main reasons elucidate this transition: the rise of the commodity society, growing concern for children, and the failure to abolish wet-nursing. Although the first two factors were also evident in other Western European countries, such as Germany and England, the last component was unique to France. In spite of elaborate national and medical promotions of maternal nursing at the end of the eighteenth century, wet-nursing remained socially acceptable the norm until the First World War.30 Based on numerous feeding-bottles, advertisements, pharmaceutical catalogues and manuals for mothers composed by physicians and midwives throughout the nineteenth century, this essay wishes to examine the socio-cultural norms surrounding the French bottle from a multi-disciplinary approach combining social history, visual culture and design theory. In order to decipher the ‘commodity situation’, that is, the meaning of an object and its socio-cultural setting and use, four main players will be addressed: the object (the bottle), the users (primary users—babies, as well as secondary users—parents or caregivers), the designer (midwives, doctors and manufacturers) and the socio-medical environment.31 Through these four axes, I will demonstrate that the bottle’s design history reveals a shift in focus from the primary users—children—to both the secondary users and the designers, despite the fact that children became, during the second part of the nineteenth century, key players in consumer culture. The growing concern for the satisfaction of the secondary users—the parents—spurred the medical establishment’s involvement in the artificial feeding industry that became prominent only in the last third of the nineteenth century, as a direct result of consumer demand. Late Eighteenth-century ‘Baby Feeders’: From Artificial Feeding to Artificial Nursing Despite their relative scarcity, archaeological finds show that feeding bottles have existed since antiquity.32 Yet, since the need for a feeding-bottle was not known in advance, it was rarely premeditated, but rather found in the household and adapted to this particular need. Lacking a formal manufacturer, it was not a unique feeding-bottle, but rather a ‘baby-feeder’, conceived by the caregivers who used what they found lying around the house when the alternative—maternal milk—was lacking. The demand for special vessels designated for artificial feeding arose in France at the last quarter of the eighteenth century, in a period of growing concern for children’s health. Yet, it did not stem from a new appreciation for artificial feeding, but rather from the negation of the practice of wet-nursing that was largely established in France. From the eighteenth century onward, French physicians, philosophers and moralists, who stressed the absolute necessity of maternal nursing, have consistently opposed wet-nursing, on the basis of both medical, emotional and moral arguments. They claimed that maternal milk is the food best suited for babies, since it also establishes a strong emotional bond between the mother and her child, that could be jeopardised by a mercenary nurse. Several claimed that maternal breast-feeding is required by the laws of nature, since it is the mother’s duty as a manifestation of her humanity and her obligation towards God’s commandment. Numerous writers claimed in addition that the nurse’s milk can transfer the physical and moral traits of the nurse to the baby she feeds, which will thus suffer from defective intelligence, corrupt manners and bad temper. In addition, they warned the parents against culpable neglect, poor hygiene or bad treatment by the nurse, which could endanger their baby’s life.33 One of the most influential philosophers endorsing maternal breast-feeding and rejecting wet-nursing was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued in his book of 1762 Émile: or On Education, that maternal nursing forges an intimate bond between mother and child, and establishes the foundation for social renewal.34 Yet, despite these sweeping recommendations, wet-nursing continued to be customary among the middle and upper classes.35 ‘Unfortunately, wet-nurses are a necessary evil’, wrote Dr Thomas D. Haden in 1827. ‘Without them, the children of the upper classes … would greatly suffer’.36 This tendency continued through the nineteenth century, as indicated by a medical dictionary published in 1879, whose writer argued that ‘France is the only country in which the wet-nursing industry is so organized. Among other nations, maternal breast-feeding predominates even among upper-class women’.37 In light of this information, national efforts were made to regulate the employment of wet-nurses, including medical and psychological examinations, in order to prevent the hiring of unhealthy or morally corrupted women.38 Concurrently, the failure to abolish wet-nursing led to a greater inclination for artificial feeding. This inclination is revealed in a report conducted in 1780 by the Parisian Lieutenant-General of Police Jean Lenoir concerning the dismal condition of the numerous babies sent each year to wet-nurses all over France. ‘The government is engaged in a project to replace woman’s breast milk with goat’s or cow’s milk’, he explained, ‘in order to consolidate the consumption of other products, which, at the very least, will not be vicious, like the milk of the wet-nurses’.39 According to a medical dictionary published in 1790 by the Parisian Medical Society, the use of animal milk affected babies who could not be breast-fed due to death of their mother, or else their own illness, ‘preventing their mothers from fulfilling their first duty … the wish of nature’ as pronounced by ‘the author of Emile’.40 Interestingly, the rejection of wet-nursing in the name of the Rousseaunian worship of nature, led to efforts to promote artificial feeding, according to the principle of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’.41 While wet-nursing was a social norm, although not necessarily ‘natural’, the Parisian Medical Society tried to regulate bottle-feeding, which was considered neither ‘natural’ nor ‘normal’.42 As wet-nursing was regarded as a pathology that endangered babies’ lives, bottles were the medical establishment’s answer to those who could not breast-feed. Nonetheless, this new initiative failed to gain social approval and artificial feeding mainly affected abandoned children, left throughout the 1790s in foundling hospitals under the government’s care.43 Most of the healthy children entrusted to the Foundling Hospital were transferred to rural wet-nurses, where they stayed for several years before being sent back to Paris to complete their education. Sickly infants, on the other hand—mainly babies with congenital syphilis who threatened to infect one another in the process of breast-feeding—had to content themselves with artificial nourishment, as wet-nurses refused to suckle them, for fear of contracting their diseases.44 Elaborating on the four players of Wendy Griswold’s ‘cultural diamond’45—the object, the user, the manufacturer and the socio-cultural environment—one can understand the lack of design effort in the feeding-bottle until the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the bottle’s primary users—abandoned children or orphans—were yet to be considered worthy of specially crafted objects, due to their exceptionally high mortality rate, combined with their financial disadvantage.46 The client was, therefore, not the baby, but the caregiver or the State. In both cases, the identity of the secondary user played an important role in the scarcity of the bottle, since the only populations who could (or would) afford material objects designed for children were the upper classes, who preferred maternal breast-feeding or wet-nursing.47 The fact that the majority of potential bottle users were members of the lower classes, that is ‘users’, rather than ‘consumers’, explains the lack of an array of bottles before the modern era: lacking specially attributed funds, they preferred investing their meagre resources elsewhere. The nature of the users influenced the second component of the cultural diamond as well—the manufacturer: the lack of a proper clientele did not produce specialised manufacturers, but it was rather the caregiver who appropriated existing household objects, such as spoons and cups, as well as direct lactating from an animal udder, in order to feed babies who were unable to breast-feed.48 The nature of the clientele, combined with the reverence for maternal breast-feeding, is clearly manifested through the meagre design efforts surrounding the feeding-bottle in France until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Indeed, Dr M. Thouret, a member of the Parisian Medical Society, claimed that, at the end of the eighteenth century, French doctors from Rouen, Montpellier and Paris recommended using animal milk, due to the high mortality rate among abandoned children sent to rural nurses. Yet, their recommendations did not produce novel feeding devices in France. Instead, they suggested suckling directly from a goat, or else drinking milk from a cup, spoon, medical glass bottle (fiole de médecine) or cow’s horn (alternately made of glass, wood or metal), covered by a piece of cloth to facilitate suckling, as was customary in Russia.49 Alternatively, Thouret proposed using feeding vessels manufactured in neighbouring countries. ‘Only recently did several authors start dealing with this important subject. M. Baldini in Italy, M. Underwood in England and M. Betzky in Russia’.50 Unlike a cup or a spoon, offering ‘artificial feeding’, the vessels designed by those three foreign doctors were initially designed for suckling instead of masticating, thus permitting ‘artificial nursing’. Dr Hugh Smith’s clay Bubby Pot (Figure 2), recommended by several doctors, was created in England in 1777 in order to reduce dependency on the wet-nurse. Resembling a teapot, featuring a long, thin spout covered with cloth, it was meant to transport the liquid directly into the baby’s mouth. Dr Smith claimed that his newly designed pot gained public approbation, since it enabled the baby to suck on the delicate cloth at the end of the spout, ‘like he would suckle on his mother’s nipple’. ‘Through it’, he explained, ‘the milk is constantly strained and the infant is obliged to labor for every drop he receives’.51 Yet, despite the recommendations of medical literature, his feeding vessel featured numerous disadvantages: an inability to control the amount of liquid passing into the baby’s mouth; an opaqueness preventing caregivers from monitoring the amount of liquid left in the bottle; and difficulty cleaning it. Fig. 2 View largeDownload slide Dr Hugh Smith’s Bubby pot, c. 1780, ceramic, manufactured in England, in: The Symons Collection, exhibition Catalogue (London: Royal College of Physicians, 1977), cat. 519. Fig. 2 View largeDownload slide Dr Hugh Smith’s Bubby pot, c. 1780, ceramic, manufactured in England, in: The Symons Collection, exhibition Catalogue (London: Royal College of Physicians, 1977), cat. 519. Those obstacles were partially eliminated in Dr Filippo Baldini’s rounded bottle, designed in 1786 and especially recommended by Thouret on account of a long piece of cloth inserted into the bottle and ‘suckled gradually by the baby without the risk of suffocation’.52 Baldini insisted on designing the bottle in a special golden metal to avoid rusting, while implementing an easy-to-clean glass or crystal vessel inside the bottle, in order to keep the cloth from moving and endangering the baby. Apart from the opaqueness of the outer bottle, preventing caregivers from monitoring the amount of liquid left in the bottle, the main disadvantage of this newly designed feeding-bottle was its high price. ‘The pauper’, suggested Baldini, ‘can replace this vessel with a small bottle containing ten to twelve ounces of milk … in which a thin cloth will be implemented … simulating the nipple. … The baby will suckle it as easy as he suckles from a wet-nurse’. In both cases, Baldini insisted on the recurrent cleansing of the bottle and the cloth in order ‘to avoid inconveniences’.53 Those inconveniences were apparent in the Russian feeding vessel mentioned by Thouret, designed from a cow’s horn and plugged by a piece of cloth to facilitate suckling. Although some of the horns were manufactured from glass, the common use of wood, metal or natural horn suffered from pitiable sanitation, thus endangering the lives of the babies using them.54 Similar disadvantages plagued the bottles designed at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Western Europe, such as a hybrid between a cup and a teapot (see Figure 3, object 10) or the pap boat (Figure 3, objects 11–13). Although it is true that their basic configuration was easy to grasp, they could hold sufficient amounts of liquid appropriate for a baby’s meal and could be stoppered, while additional, softer pseudo-spouts made of cloth improved their appeal to a delicate baby’s mouth, they concealed the amount of liquid consumed by the baby, lacked a good seal and were unhygienic, since they were usually made of clay.55 A third type, the closest in shape to a premeditated feeding-bottle, was a horizontal glass bottle featuring a central hole for pouring liquids into it and a spout used to feed the baby (Figure 4, object 41). Yet, even this glass vessel promoted the unmodulated swallowing of milk instead of gradual sucking, considered by doctors to be essential for healthy digestion.56 Fig. 3 View largeDownload slide Feeding Bottles, in E. Flandrin, ‘L’Exposition de l’élevage de l’enfance’, La Nature, Revue des sciences et de leurs applications aux arts et à l’industrie 18, no. 1, (1890), 325. Fig. 3 View largeDownload slide Feeding Bottles, in E. Flandrin, ‘L’Exposition de l’élevage de l’enfance’, La Nature, Revue des sciences et de leurs applications aux arts et à l’industrie 18, no. 1, (1890), 325. Fig. 4 View largeDownload slide British Feeding Bottle, in Dorvault (directeur), Catalogue Pharmaceutique ou prix courant général de la pharmacie centrale de France (Paris, 1862), 293, no. 41. Fig. 4 View largeDownload slide British Feeding Bottle, in Dorvault (directeur), Catalogue Pharmaceutique ou prix courant général de la pharmacie centrale de France (Paris, 1862), 293, no. 41. The Artificial Breast: The Birth of the Modern Feeding-bottle Those shortcomings produced a change during the 1820s, when three main developments led to the birth of the modern French feeding-bottle: growing concern for children, that proclaimed the birth of the primary user—the baby, the failure to abolish wet-nursing, and the rise of the commodity society. From the end of the eighteenth century, Western parents gradually became child oriented, recognising the uniqueness of children and rearing them according to a permissive mode of child care. The new Rousseauian ideal of children’s innocence, which emphasized their need for care and surveillance, intensified in France throughout the nineteenth century due to the emergence of the education system, changes in family structure and the rise of capitalism, which foregrounded the nation’s future generation.57 Consequently, children increasingly came under the supervision of medicine, education, welfare and the law, paving the way for the twentieth century, known as ‘the century of the child’.58 As a result, from the 1820s onwards physicians and midwives started designing bottles that were intended to help those babies who were deprived of maternal nursing. Understanding that the common practice of wet-nursing, combined with the hazards caused by the existing ‘baby feeders’, which made babies masticate instead of suckling, Dr Jérôme Lasserre developed a novel feeding-bottle that followed his own recommendations (Figure 5). His book: Manual for the Father of the Family, or New Methods of Artificial Feeding, was published in Paris in 1822 and was aimed, in the author’s own words, for children who ‘were deprived of maternal breast-feeding or wet-nursing as a result of some accident’.59 By denouncing the use of wet-nurses, whose ‘physical diseases and moral inadequacy’ jeopardises children’s well-being,60 he described two major methods of artificial feeding: masticating versus suckling. Lasserre stressed the advantage of the latter, which enables the baby to swallow measured doses of food, as in breast-feeding, while producing saliva that contributes to the baby’s digestion.61 However, he also mentioned several disadvantages of bottles, such as a problematic choice of materials (metal or ceramics) that are difficult to clean or track the amount of milk in the bottle, nipples emitting bad odours (such as cow udders) or not fitting the size of the baby’s mouth, as well as ‘complicated, hard to clean and pricy’ bottles, such as Dr Baldini’s.62 In contrast, the good bottle enables the caregiver to regulate the amount of milk given to the baby, while taking into account the baby’s age, development and strength of suction. The best bottle, designed by Lasserre himself, is described at length (6 pages), enumerating its advantages and the correlation between design and healthfulness.63 Enabling a horizontal grip while feeding the baby, the bottle’s wide base allows it to be safely positioned on the table, and its round belly contains an amount of milk sufficient for a six-month-old’s full meal. The upper opening enables the caregiver to refill the bottle, while the bottom opening, stoppered by a tiny ivory or wooden plug, enables the caregiver to let air into the bottle, regulating the amount of milk flowing into the baby’s mouth. The bottle is completely made of thick glass, preventing cracks or the oscillation of liquids. Its shape is conducive to cleaning, while the glass tube inserted into it provides a steady flow of milk and prevents spillage. The soft nipple, which is held by a string onto the bottle’s neck to prevent spillage, is made of a thin sponge covered with a piece of muslin, resembling a human nipple in size and shape, thus simulating a naturally soft texture in the baby’s mouth.64 ‘In order to treat this device properly’, writes Lasserre, ‘we must study and imitate nature’.65 Fig. 5 View largeDownload slide Jérôme Lasserre, Manuel du père de famille, ou Nouvelles méthodes de l’allaitement artificiel (Paris: Prosper Noubel, 1822), pl. 1. Fig. 5 View largeDownload slide Jérôme Lasserre, Manuel du père de famille, ou Nouvelles méthodes de l’allaitement artificiel (Paris: Prosper Noubel, 1822), pl. 1. Indeed, the naturalness of the nipple, which enabled suckling, is underlined in Lasserre’s etymological definition of his new invention as an ‘artificial teat’ (mamelle artificielle) or ‘breast-feeding bottle’ (bouteille à allaitement).66 In designing an innovative bottle in the name of nature, Lasserre followed in the footsteps of Rousseau, who had asserted in Émile that: ‘nature never deceives us; it is we who deceive ourselves’.67 Paradoxically, Rousseau’s idealization of nature serves Lasserre as grounds to introduce artificial feeding as a continuation of nature itself. While stressing the ease of use of his bottle, even during the night, Lasserre focused mainly on the primary user’s—the baby’s—alleged preferences, claiming that all babies would love his bottle as their own mother’s breasts.68 Two years later, a new competitor arose; Parisian midwife Mme Breton, who headed the Maison Royale d’Accouchement clinic between 1813 and 1814, and who managed to successfully sell her innovative bottle and nipple in the early 1820s. Her unique design was inspired by her experience as a midwife, and was instigated, according to her writings, by her desire to help young mothers suffering from acute pain in their breasts and who were, consequently, unable to breast-feed. Following the commercial success of her nipples, manufactured from cow udders soaked in water, in 1824 Breton started designing bottles that enjoyed unexpected success in France and in neighbouring countries (Figure 6).69 Fig. 6 View largeDownload slide Mme. Breton’s Feeding Bottle, Breast Pump and Teats, in: Jacques Pierre Mygrier, MD, Nouvelles démonstrations d’accouchements, (Paris: Bechet, 1822), Pl. LXXX. Fig. 6 View largeDownload slide Mme. Breton’s Feeding Bottle, Breast Pump and Teats, in: Jacques Pierre Mygrier, MD, Nouvelles démonstrations d’accouchements, (Paris: Bechet, 1822), Pl. LXXX. In order to promote her new invention, Breton published a 24-page manual targeting mothers unable to breast-feed, offering free advice on what she termed ‘artificial breast-feeding’ (allaitement artificiel). Testifying to her education and professional expertise, the manual’s opening page, entitled ‘à l’amour maternel’ (‘for motherly love’), contains a sentence borrowed from a medical book published a year earlier: ‘Making a newborn drink from a glass or spoon is like making an adult swallow his food unchewed’.70 By quoting this phrase, Breton clarified her intentions—not only was she not going against the norm of maternal breast-feeding, but she was simultaneously illuminating the educated use of artificial feeding. Furthermore, this quotation reflects her glorifying attitude towards the medical establishment, imbuing her manual with a professional aura. Breton stressed that ‘artificial feeding, when administered by the mother, is the best possible choice after maternal breast-feeding’.71 Indeed, contrary to Lasserre, who aimed his book at fathers, according to the logic that feeding-bottles would solely be used by motherless babies, Breton addressed mothers directly, following the escalation in use of feeding-bottles. Breton, however, also considered maternal breast-feeding as an inspiration for better artificial formulas, imbuing them with an aura of naturalness. After describing the nipple, that should be softened by dipping it in water in order to resemble that of the mother, she lists the types of milk most suitable for the baby (goat or horse milk), while underlining the importance of adjusting the milk’s consistency by mixing in water or rice, depending on the baby’s age, hence making it as similar as possible to the mother’s.72 In terms of the frequency of feeding, Breton specifically asserts that there is no exact way of determining the amount needed by each child; hence, the caregiver has to be attentive to its cues.73 While stressing that a baby forced to drink from her bottle due to its mother’s illness would not even feel the difference, she urged mothers who sensed that their child was still hungry after breast-feeding to give the baby a bottle in order to maintain her strength and avoid feeding the baby by spoon.74 Alongside these recommendations, Breton described her products and lists their prices. These include a regular bottle (7.50 francs) or reinforced bottles (8 francs), as well as colourful ‘designer’ bottles (9–11 francs each) and ivory (9 francs) or wooden (5 francs) nipple cups. In addition, the products could be delivered to the periphery for an additional 75 cents and a replacement cap for the bottle can be purchased for 50 cents. Since in 1831 the annual income of a low level civil servants was 347 francs, while blue-collar workers earned 580 francs a year, the cost of a designed bottle was roughly equivalent to a worker’s weekly salary.75 In her catalogue, Breton’s signature is paramount, stressing the necessary vigilance for counterfeits of her products and the need to alert the authorities of the culprit.76 This later addition, the result of a trial targeting manufacturers marketing similar products, attests to the phenomenal success of Breton’s products throughout France and England.77 In 1827 her bottles were acknowledged by the public following her achievement in winning the bronze medal in the Exposition des produits de l’industrie française, held at the Louvre.78 Her meteoric success caught the attention of the medical establishment, which regarded her efforts ambivalently, as it offered a suitable replacement for the scorned practice of wet-nursing, but instantly threatened maternal nursing due to its popularity. In a book published in 1835, Dr Jules Hatin recommends her products unequivocally, stressing their superiority over competitors as well as the awards she won. However, in light of her high prices, the doctor called on parents lacking funds to use a medical glass bottle (see Figure 4, nos. 33–37), and even drew a diagram explaining how to attach a thin nipple-like fabric to the bottle.79 Yet, Breton’s financial success and growing number of customers produced less favourable critiques. In 1833, a survey conducted by the Académie royale de médecine, focusing on the evolution of the artificial nipple, questioned the validity of Breton’s statements. In his report, Dr Deneux claimed that the use of a cow’s udder as nipples was well known in England and Germany as early as the eighteenth century. Furthermore, he recommended Breton’s competitors for their altruistic efforts to design cheaper, better and more durable products.80 These conclusions gained further validation two years later in an article published in a prestigious medical journal by Dr Lucas-Championnière, who once more claimed that Breton’s bottles lacked any advantage over her competitors’, and in fact emitted bad odours and offered a less than favourable texture, which was revolting to babies. He further added, ‘these bits of breast were exorbitantly priced, by virtue of their being registered as patents. This lady sold for 6 francs what other manufacturers sold for 70 cents’.81 In light of these numerous faults, the doctor recommended using Mr Darbot’s innovative cork nipples, devoid of bad smells and more accurately resembling the mother’s nipple. 82 Although on 13 April 1835 Breton received a letter from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry approving the use of her nipples and deeming them suitable for babies, she soon lost her grip over the market.83 Whether as a result of her high prices or of the medical establishment’s disapproval of her products, other manufacturers took hold of the market in the following years. Yet, the ever-growing competition among feeding-bottle producers in the second half of the nineteenth century, benefiting secondary users with lower prices, was not to the liking of the medical establishment.84 While feeding-bottles were scarcely mentioned in the medical literature in the first third of the century, in the second half of the century doctors began to highlight the bottle’s deficiencies with regards to the primary user—the baby. This approach is apparent in one of the most significant medical books of the period, written by Dr Donné and published in numerous editions from 1842 until 1905. In the chapter entitled ‘Artificial Feeding’, the doctor claims that feeding with a bottle is ‘the very worst method we can employ in Paris and in the cities’, and in case of need, one should hire a wet-nurse.85 Moreover, he stated that, while he recently noticed a large number of feeding-bottles sold in Paris, he could not recommend any of them, hence he would prefer the cheapest one available, such as Mr Charrière’s, which he grudgingly mentioned in a footnote.86 The disadvantages of bottle-feeding were further explicated in 1862 by Dr Eugène Bouchut, who stressed that ‘artificial feeding is always inferior to maternal breast-feeding’, and that babies who were fed cow’s milk would suffer from poor development, inferior health and life-threatening diseases.87 This attitude persisted throughout the 1860s, a decade in which the concern for children’s high mortality rate grew stronger. In 1866, a group of Parisian physicians established the Société Protectrice de l’Enfance, a philanthropic Society for the Protection of Children, that emphasized the indispensability of maternal breast-feeding and the risks involved in its avoidance.88 Following their medical recommendations, in December 1874 the Roussel Law was legislated, designed to protect babies; it obliged parents and wet-nurses to register each child that was nursed outside its home and insisted on medical examinations of both baby and wet-nurse.89 Although the Roussel Law demonstrated a clear preference for maternal breast-feeding, it did not prevent mercenary nursing but subjected it for the first time to national regulation and newly established standards.90 The enforcement of the Roussel Law led to the creation of a comprehensive statistical database that indicated the extent of the use of wet-nurses in France in the final quarter of the nineteenth century. Although statistics indicate a significant rise in the rate of maternal breast-feeding at the beginning of the century, until the 1860s, some 40 per cent of Parisian babies were nourished by rural wet-nurses, while others—some 10 per cent, according to Sussman and Fildes—were fed by in-house wet-nurses residing in their parents’ home.91 In the 1880s the number of wet-nurses decreased to approximately 29 per cent, a rate that remained unchanged until the end of the century. Yet, this decline may not be attributed to the reinstatement of maternal nursing, which stood at only some 30 per cent, but rather to the increased use of the bottle, given by the baby’s mother, or else by a ‘dry-nurse’.92 Based on the premise that every mother wishes to breast-feed, Matthews-Grieco and Corsini believe that this abstention did not stem from the women’s own will, but reflected, rather, their husbands’ volition.93 Yalom raised similar arguments, claiming that, over the course of Western history, women’s breasts belonged to others, and that the significations attributed to them over the course of history did not reflect the women’s own feelings.94 Elisabeth Badinter, on the other hand, asserted that middle- and upper-class women refused to breast-feed under the premise that it is detrimental to their health and beauty, and is improper due to its immodesty.95 Indeed, numerous writers linked this avoidance to women’s desire for outdoors activities and entertainment, which vanquished their maternal duties.96 According to Dr Talbert, in the 1880s, the only population that maintained maternal nursing was the peasantry, since ‘the farmer judges by analogies. … Through her everyday experience with animals, she understands that cow’s milk is the only way to rear a calf’.97 Urban merchants and the working proletariat, on the other hand, refused to breast-feed due to their obligation to work during the day, whereas bourgeois mothers preferred their social entertainment and ‘selfish pleasures’.98 ‘The mother’, he claims, ‘in what is conventionally called the high society, is practically always sociable. … She prefers the ball’s orchestra over her baby’s smiles. … She fears to suffer, to lose her figure, her charms’.99 Even though the benefits of breast-feeding for both mother and child were discussed at length by medical literature throughout the course of Western history, it also embodied many disadvantages, as it necessarily restricted the mother’s range of activity, including leisure time, looking after the house, or spending time with her older children. Since throughout the nineteenth century nearly all doctors recommended breast-feeding on demand, nursing bourgeois women, who were prohibited from exposing their breasts in public, had to abstain from leaving the privacy of their homes during the first six months of their baby’s life.100 Consequently, many of them were opposed to the notion of breast-feeding on a regular basis and to the substantial change of lifestyle brought about as a result, and hence favored hiring a good nurse as a substitute. Yet, since rural nurses had been proven to be hazardous and live-in nurses were exceptionally costly, many parents preferred using feeding-bottles, given to the infants by their own mothers or, alternately, by a ‘dry-nurse’.101 Consequently, women’s economic power as consumers eventually contributed to the development of pseudo-medical devices, such as bottles, artificial nipples or milk pumps,102 which, towards the end of the nineteenth century, enabled them to fulfil their biological functions without giving up their other needs and desires. Thus, while the transition to the bottle does reflect the medicalisation of breast-feeding, French women did not adopt this feeding method due to their submission toward medical establishment, but rather vice versa: their demand generated supply. In his book The Social Life of Things, Arjun Appadurai argues that objects are born from the very yearning for them, and that it is the cultural desire and demand that brings about their realisation, by pushing for new technologies in response to those needs. Suppressing the tyranny of the economic dimension, he argued that the cultural-political act precedes the economic act, and that it is the lust for luxury that drives capitalist commerce, rather than vice versa.103 By implication, it may be stated that the new feeding-bottles that emerged from women’s own needs, led to the rise of novel professional manufacturers from the medical disciplines, aiming to supply the demand for improved feeding-bottles that would appeal to both users—parents and children alike. They, in turn, implemented new technological and material innovations, culminating in a new feeding-bottle design, ensuring lengthier use and added safety for the baby. The physicians’ hesitant, gradual involvement in the bottle-feeding industry, that mainly reflected their objections to wet-nursing, supports this assumption, that since the 1820s until the late 1870s they stressed that their designs were made for babies who were not fortunate enough to be breast-fed. Yet, through the last decades of the nineteenth century, doctors amended their recommendations, and suggested using bottles for nursing babies who were older than four months as a supplement to breast-feeding. Although the percentage of bottle-fed babies is unknown, the rising popularity of ‘dry-nursing’ can be grasped through the growing size of the bottle industry that became prominent in pharmaceutical catalogues, advertising and international exhibitions. Simultaneously, Nestlé’s farine lactée (‘milky flour’), made from ‘good Suisse milk’, mixed with flour and sugar, gained popularity. As the leading baby powder in France, it was highly recommended by doctors, selling in the 1870s approximately 500,000 boxes of milky flour a year all over Europe.104 Due to doctors’ consistent opposition to wet-nursing, combined with their understanding that women who were reluctant to breast-feed needed a surrogate, from 1875—a few months after the Roussel Law was legislated—physicians reduced their hostility towards the bottle. By calling for mixed feeding, for example, combining breast-feeding to newborns with bottle-feeding from the age of four months, they claimed that the bottle was ‘the indispensable auxiliary to maternal breast-feeding’.105 ‘The feeding-bottle, its advantages and disadvantages, is the subject of recurring questions addressed to me every day by the readers,’ wrote Dr Grimm in 1875, echoing women’s demand for information regarding artificial feeding. While asserting that it is the only method of abolishing the wet-nurse industry, he added: ‘it is not, in most cases, the fault of the bottle, but the way it is being used. … the bottle is completely innocent vis-à-vis the accidents that occur’.106 Similar statements appeared in the popular advice column (‘Correspondance du Docteur’) of nearly every copy of the monthly journal La Jeune mère ou l’éducation du premier âge, published from 1875 to 1905. Edited by Dr André-Théodore Brochard, it was sold all over France under the patronage of the Sociétés protectrices de l’enfance de Lyon, which aimed to reduce child mortality rates by ‘teaching mothers the hygiene of childhood, which they nearly all disregard’.107 ‘I thank you a thousand times for the wonderful advices you were kind enough to give me in one of your letters,’ wrote Mrs. C.S. from Brussels to Dr Brochard on 10 November 1881. ‘My little daughter, whom I breastfeed, who refused to use the bottle until recently, used it when I let her be hungry!!! What a consolation for me! I would like to let it be known to all the mothers’. In response, Brochard declared that her letter ‘proves what I keep repeating, that it is quite easy to accustom a baby to drink from a bottle. You only have to want to do it. Every baby, without exception, after his fourth month, must be accustomed to drink once a day cow milk from a bottle’. ‘Unfortunately’, he added, ‘a vast number of midwives and even doctors are horrified by this’. After adding a strict warning against wet-nursing, he concluded: ‘the bottle is, after the age of four months, the true auxiliary of maternal nursing’.108 The inclination towards the bottle escalated through the last two decades of the nineteenth century, as clearly manifested in an 1885 article entitled: ‘Long Live Bottle-Feeding!’, in which Dr Caradec argues that it is ‘a safe substitute method for breast-feeding’.109 Like Rougeot’s advertisement (Figure 1), Caradec acknowledged the supremacy of maternal nursing while declaring that bottle-feeding is the best substitute. The medical endorsement of the bottle corresponded to three main changes that took place at the end of the century: scientific, technological and economic. These, in turn, contributed to the fulfilment of two major needs: hygiene and comfort, for both the baby and the parents. The most important scientific discovery influencing the use of the bottle was Louis Pasteur’s process of Pasteurization, developed in 1864 and meant to eradicate bacteria from liquids. During the 1870s these processes were applied to the pasteurisation of milk, yielding a product with a longer shelf life, which could be safely transported across the country.110 Consequently, although the majority of doctors still favoured maternal breast-feeding, they claimed that feeding from a sterile bottle administered at the child’s home is by far preferable to sending the baby far away to a wet-nurse.111 Pasteur’s discoveries gave rise to an increased awareness of the importance of hygiene, promoting the production of an ever-growing number of sterilising products for bottles and nipples.112 At the 1889 World’s Fair, several pavilions were dedicated to children’s hygiene in order to bolster the public’s trust in artificial feeding. In 1890 the committee of the International Convention of Hygiene and Demography endorsed pasteurised milk for bottle-fed babies, a decision that was repeated in 1902 by the Parisian Academy of Medicine.113 ‘For the first time in 1900, hygiene was given a separate, dedicated space at the World’s Fair in France’, reported Dr André-Justin Martin after visiting the Fair. ‘Hygiene is indeed a synthesis of all the conditions of private life and public life alike, trying to improve welfare and comfort and above all to decrease as much as possible the chances of illness or death’.114 At the same time, several technological innovations contributed to the rise of medicinal bottle manufacture in the last decades of the century. First, after years in which cow udders dominated the market, a new material—rubber—created a stir. Used in Europe since the eighteenth century, this material was adopted by the artificial nipple industry as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, following Lyonnais Dr Martin’s innovation. Yet, until the middle of the century, consumers preferred cows’ udders due to the rubber nipples’ repulsive odour, thickness and black hue. However, the development of vulcanised rubber in 1845 yielded a significant change.115 The possibility of designing thin, supple, soft, durable, heat-tolerant, easy to clean and low-cost nipples was quickly adopted by the medical establishment, making it the leading material in nipple manufacture.116 In addition to scientific and technological innovations, the third factor enabling the takeover of feeding-bottles was economic. Using bottles was significantly cheaper than employing a live-in nurse, while enabling parents to keep their babies at home. Although it was financially equivalent to sending babies to rural nurses, it was considered much safer, as explained in the article ‘Cheap Child Care’ written in 1899 by Dr J. Bertillon, head of Paris’s Statistics Department. He urged parents to avoid paying 20–30 francs a month to a hazardous rural nurse and, instead, spend this amount on innovative scientific feeding-bottles. Knowing his audience, he concluded: ‘the best prescriptions will not be used if they are costly’.117 Indeed, although professional in nature, the rise of the bottle stemmed from the growing power of the masses. ‘No doubt that ingenious ideas are always conceived by the solitary spirit’, wrote Gustave Le Bon in 1895, ‘but the thousands of grains that form the basis of these ideas—isn’t it the soul of the masses that conceives them?’118 The Medical Breast: Hygiene and the Sterilised Body The flourishing of the feeding-bottle market in the last quarter of the nineteenth century changed the demands of the users. While the previous generation of bottles was mainly valued for accessibility—namely, an object that is available and inexpensive—in the competitive capitalist market of the last quarter of the century, with an abundance of new brands, the users’ demands changed significantly and were redefined. ‘Unfortunately, the designers of these objects, striving to innovate, are much less concerned with simplicity’, claimed Dr Alfred Picard after visiting the children’s wing at the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris, ‘yet, the primary purpose that the feeding-bottle must fulfil is the ability to frequently, easily and completely be washed in hot water, all complexity must be eliminated … all these so-called ‘improvements’ must be rejected, as incompatible with the principal goal of the bottle—instantaneous disassembly and easy to clean’.119 The emphasis on comfort and hygiene is manifested in the writings of doctors, who researched contemporary bottles and highlighted their advantages and disadvantages.120 These recommendations, mirroring consumers’ demand for maximum comfort and security, directly influenced the rise and fall of various brands, among them the fall from grace of Breton’s bottles, clearing the stage for star doctors. These doctors adorned their bottles with meaningful names, such as Dr Budin’s Galactophore (‘milk bearer’, Figure 7) or Robert’s Le Nourricier (‘the male nurser’), attesting to the bottle’s efficiency and suggesting the emergence of the male replacement to the wet-nurse industry.121 Fig. 7 View largeDownload slide Dr Budin’s feeding-bottle, in Antonin Bernard Jean Marfan, MD, De l’allaitement artificiel (Paris: G. Steinheil, 1896), 122, fig. vi. Fig. 7 View largeDownload slide Dr Budin’s feeding-bottle, in Antonin Bernard Jean Marfan, MD, De l’allaitement artificiel (Paris: G. Steinheil, 1896), 122, fig. vi. The bottles produced by Edouard Robert, an industrialist who first started marketing his products in 1869 and opened a Paris-based factory in 1880, rapidly became one of the most popular brands of the end of the century.122 His flagship product was the Biberon Robert à soupape, a bottle sporting a long rubber spout attached to a valve (soupape), used to release the air during suction. The bottle’s main advantage in the eyes of the primary users stemmed from its clever design, enabling babies to use it by themselves, as seen in various advertisements (see, for example, Figure 8). As of the mid-1870s, three million Robert bottles were sold every year in Europe. Their low price—only 1 franc—made this bottle a huge success, favoured by members of all socio-economic strata.123 Fig. 8 View largeDownload slide Robert Feeding-bottle, 1882, lithograph, 80 × 62 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, Paris. Fig. 8 View largeDownload slide Robert Feeding-bottle, 1882, lithograph, 80 × 62 cm. Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie, Paris. The bottle’s success was undoubtedly the result of its relentless marketing. Alongside advertisements accentuating the many medals won by the bottle in the 1870s, Robert created a bottle sporting the caption ‘Robert 1873’, referring to the honorary medal the bottle won during that year’s World’s Fair.124 In 1875, he anonymously published a book urging mothers to pay attention to their choice of bottles. Surveying the array of contemporary bottles, Robert highlights their design flaws (spillage of milk) and health hazards (the use of pewter or lead), while strongly recommending using the ‘Biberon Robert’.125 The fourth chapter of the book, illustrated with Robert’s long rubber snout bottle, deals with the materials and design of bottles, addressing the needs of both primary and secondary users. A Robert bottle is made of clear glass, enabling caregivers to clean it and to monitor its contents. It holds 200cc of liquid—enough for a mature baby’s full meal—into which a rubber tube is inserted and attached to a soft rubber nipple. The opening beneath the nipple is closed with a one-way valve, enabling airflow and a steady flow of milk, mimicking breast-feeding and preventing spillage.126 Robert concludes with a drawing of a baby sitting and drinking by himself from a bottle, stressing that ‘M. Robert resolved the severe problem of artificial feeding through his ingenious invention of the supple valve; he thus ranks among the inventors who have most benefitted humanity’.127 Alongside the compliments he gives himself, other doctors are cited, approving of his bottles. Dr Zabe even stresses that Robert’s bottles are better than his own, which persuaded him to buy them for his own children. ‘I, therefore, recommend their use to mothers, and this with every confidence’.128 However, in the late 1890s, after a decade of basking in the warm embrace of the medical establishment, the biberon à long tuyau received harsh reviews from the Academy of Medicine.129 In 1897, Dr Dufour wrote: ‘tolerating it means promoting infanticide’, recommending that parents purchase bottles without a rubber tube.130 Although Robert’s bottles were comfortable and innovative, they lacked a major feature of the modern bottle—hygiene. The complexity involved in cleaning the long rubber tube turned it into a bacteria factory, earning the unflattering nickname the ‘killer bottle’ (biberon tueur). On 1902, the committee of the Parisian Academy of Medicine declared: ‘the bottle with a tube should be legally forbidden’.131 On 6 April 1910, his bottle was outlawed, clearing the stage for its successor—the tubeless glass bottle, which was compatible with rising medical standards (see, for example, Figures 1, 7, 9).132 Fig. 9 View largeDownload slide Dr Variot’s Feeding-bottle, in Gaston Félix Joseph Variot, MD, L’Hygiène infantile, allaitement maternel et artificiel, Sevrage (Paris: Hachette, 1908), 52, fig. 15. Fig. 9 View largeDownload slide Dr Variot’s Feeding-bottle, in Gaston Félix Joseph Variot, MD, L’Hygiène infantile, allaitement maternel et artificiel, Sevrage (Paris: Hachette, 1908), 52, fig. 15. The predominance of technology in the bottle industry, which adopted the values of nature in the production of an artificial product, earned the full support of the medical discourse, which controlled the practice of feeding babies under the auspices of ‘Puericulture’ (the care of newborns).133 In the framework of this new discipline, senior doctors recommended innovative scientific ways of feeding babies, including methodical charts describing the exact amount the baby needs while taking into account its age and weight.134 A major proponent of this change was the founder of the Parisian baby clinic Goutte de lait, Dr Félix Joseph Variot, who repeatedly claimed that ‘maternal breast-feeding is the best life protection for new-borns … a law of nature that must be observed’.135 Yet, despite his opposition to the bottle, which was, according to him, responsible for a high infant mortality rate, he nevertheless advocated improvements in bottle-feeding, as an answer to customer demand.136 While underlining the importance of pasteurising and sterilising the milk given to the baby, Variot enclosed a picture of a glass bottle he himself designed, on which a chart is traced, indicating on the right the baby’s age and on the left the amount of food required (Figure 9). He claimed that this chart will make it easier for mothers to keep track of the necessary quantities for each age, and urged them to feed the baby at frequent intervals and measure its weight after each feeding.137 While in 1842, Dr Donné challenged Rousseau’s ideology of nature by placing breast-feeding under the umbrella of medical discourse, Variot’s charts pronounced the superiority of the ‘scientific’ over the ‘natural’.138 Thus, although Variot still proclaimed his undivided preference for maternal nursing, his newest recommendations challenged it, since the addition of a bottle immediately diminishes the amount of milk produced by the mother and, in many cases, induces the cessation of lactation. In fact, Variot’s multiple activities vis-à-vis the bottle, which included designing, writing, teaching, treating and supervising, reflects the ultimate medicalisation according to Peter Conrad’s definition: conceptual, institutional and interactional.139 By introducing mechanisms of medical administration through recording of data and statistics, Variot contributed to the establishment of what Michel Foucault termed a ‘society of norm’, whose sickness—and health—are governed by the medical establishment.140 Variot’s suggestions made possible the ultimate overpowering of medicine over infants’ feeding. The bottles he designed, and the free distribution of pasteurised milk in the poorer neighborhoods of Paris, clearly demonstrated the advantages of artificial feeding, thus creating suitable alternatives for women who wished to avoid breast-feeding.141 In light of these changes, the complex relationship between the object and the user must be re-examined. In contrast to the baby-feeder, mainly designed by, and for, parents, the first half of the nineteenth century proclaimed the birth of the manufacturer as well as of the primary user—the child. Yet, due to the dramatic alterations to the materiality and design of the bottle, ranging from the quasi-natural to the artificial, we must ask whose interests were considered during the last quarter of the century—those of the caregivers, the babies or the manufacturers? The development of the modern feeding-bottle supposedly improved babies’ health; yet, it transformed sterilisation and hygiene into a way of life, replacing human warmth with mechanical thermometers. Quantifying milk and adding exact measurements to the bottle (see, for example, Figures 1, 7, and 9) redefined ‘normalcy’ in precise mathematical terms. Thus, a new standardisation of hunger and satiety emerged, annulling the dependency on natural differences stemming from gender, socioeconomic status and heredity, while discrediting parental abilities to assess their infants’ well-being. The conversion of the natural into the artificial is apparent in the early 1820s, when the nipples designed by Mme Breton for breast-feeding women created a gap between the breast and the baby’s mouth. This gap was disguised by her new bottle’s design, which, following Rousseau’s glorification of nature, resembled the maternal breast and was even named ‘sein artificiel’ (Figure 5), but in fact allowed a conversion of the natural into the artificial.142 This trend further strengthened the substitution of the cow’s udder with vulcanized rubber nipples, presenting sterilisation for the body, while in fact sterilising the body itself. This inclination is apparent in nineteenth-century medical literature, calling upon women and suggesting, under scientific guise, to reduce their direct bodily contact with the baby, culminating in the recommendation of mixed feeding that gradually eradicated breast-feeding altogether, leading to exclusive artificial feeding. While Breton recommended that parents use bottles according to the baby’s needs, the doctors at the end of the century inscribed charts on their designed bottles, depicting exact serving quantities.143 While Breton suggested surveying the baby’s nappies, noticing the colour and texture of its excrement as an indication of satiation, at the end of the century, human, subjective inspection of bodily functions were replaced by charts and diagrams.144 Instead of relying on the baby’s behaviour (crying, bowel movements, sleep and mood), the new narrative accentuated measurable parameters (weight, height, liquid quantities) to track the baby’s growth and well-being. Instead of focusing on the baby, parents now determined its welfare according to the doctor’s declaration, rather than deciphering it by themselves. This trend, illustrated by the solitude of the infants in Rougeot’s and Robert’s advertisements (Figures 1 and 8), was essentially manifested by the bottle with the long tube, which rendered the secondary user unnecessary, and for the first time enabled the baby to feed without a caregiver. Furthermore, not only did the new bottle reduce the presence of the secondary user in the baby’s life, it concurrently created distance between the baby and its own body, which was not only influenced by social norms and conventions, but rather defined and controlled by them. At the end of the nineteenth century, medical attempts to imitate nature turned into extensive efforts to surpass it, thus subordinating the needs of primary users to those of the manufacturers. This tendency was accomplished in the twentieth century, through the medical establishment’s support of the industry for powdered milk formula, which spread throughout the Western world.145 The new feeding-bottles provided women with an accessible, artificial alternative to nursing, which relieved them economically, emotionally and psychologically. For women who renounced prolonged breast-feeding, the feeding-bottle was not perceived as a medical implement, but rather as an supporting tool, liberating them from continuous nursing. Thus, while the transition to the bottle does reflect the medicalisation of breast-feeding, French mothers did not adopt it due to their submission to the medical establishment, but rather as a result of the adaptation of those recommendations to their own needs. The new bottles, regarded as ‘the indispensable auxiliary to maternal breast-feeding’, became an integral part of the development of a unique gender identity within France’s modern society, helping women breach the confines of the home without giving up their maternal responsibilities.146 Indisputably, late-nineteenth century doctors comprehended these considerations. ‘You may be told … that the bottle kills,’ wrote Dr Brochard in 1880, ‘while in fact, it allows a vast number of weak, delicate or extremely busy young women to nurse their babies without being tired, and without renouncing their occupations’.147 Dr Gal Ventura is a senior lecturer at the Art History Department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her book Crying over Spilt Milk: Maternal Breast-feeding and Its Substitutes in Nineteenth Century French Art was published in The Hebrew University (Magnes Press, 2013). Her latest essays have appeared in Dress and Ideology: Fashioning Identity from Antiquity to the Present (Bloomsbury); Studies in the Maternal; Journal of Social History, Design and Culture and Visual Resources. Footnotes 1 Charles Dolivet, ‘Chronique de l’exposition’, Journal officiel: Programme de l’Exposition universelle et internationale de tout ce qui a rapport à l’enfant, 1873, 4, 2. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are the author’s. 2 For the view that this was an era of concern for children’s welfare, see Priscilla Robertson, ‘Home as a Nest: Middle Class Childhood in Nineteenth-Century Europe’, in Lloyd DeMause, ed., The History of Childhood (New York: Psychohistory Press, 1974), 407–31. 3 The term is mentioned by M. Thouret, MD, ‘Allaitement’, Encyclopédie méthodique de la médecine par une société de médecins, 2 vols (Paris: Panckouche, 1790), II, 7. 4 Sara F. Grieco Matthews and Carlo A. Corsini, Historical Perspectives on Breastfeeding (Florence: Unicef, 1991), 21; Marilyn Yalom, A History of the Breast (New York: Knopf, 1998), 37–48, 69–71, 105–17. 5 Grieco and Corsini, Historical Perspectives, 49; Valerie A. Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986), 271. 6 Carol Duncan, ‘Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in Eighteenth-Century French Art’, in Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard, eds, Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 201–20; Robertson, ‘Home as a Nest’, 407–31; Valerie Fildes, Wet-Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 1–25; Fildes, Breasts, 17–39. 7 See, for example, Marie-Angélique Rebours, Avis aux mères qui veulent nourrir leurs enfants (Paris, 1799); Jean-François Verdier-Heurtin, MD, Discours et essai aphoristiques sur l’allaitement et l’éducation physique des enfants (Lyon: Ballanche, 1804); Alfred Donné, MD, Conseils aux mères sur la manière d’élever les enfants nouveau-nés (Paris: Baillière et fils, 1842). 8 Donné, Conseils aux mères, 14. 9 Michèle Riot Sarcey, ‘La Place des femmes: Un enjeu politique?’, in Isabelle Poutrin, ed., Le XIXe siècle: Science, politique et tradition (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1995), 407; Mark Poster, Critical Theory of the Family (New York: Seabury, 1978), 169–78. 10 Bonnie G. Smith, ‘Gender and the Republic’, in Edward Berenson et al., eds, The French Republic: History, Values, Debates (New York: New York University, 2011), 299–300. 11 James F. McMillan, Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society, 1870–1914 (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1981), 10. 12 ‘L’Allaitement des nourrissons: Séance de l’Académie de Médecine du 15 Janvier’, LJM, 1902, 29 , 92–3. 13 Marie Béquet de Vienne, ‘Appel!’, Bulletin de l’Oeuvre de l’allaitement maternel et des refuges-ouvroirs pour les femmes enceintes, December 1902, 26 (172), n.p.; Anne Cova, ‘French Feminism and Maternity: Theories and Politics, 1890–1918’, in Gisela Bock and Patricia Thane, eds, Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880–1950s (London: Routledge, 2008), 119–25. 14 P. Rougeot, MD, Manuel des mères et des nourrices (Paris, 1886), 2–3. 15 Yalom, A History of the Breast, 70–71; Grieco and Corsini, Historical Perspectives, 21, 31, 52, 49. 16 See, for example: Verdier-Heurtin, Discours, 1–17. 17 See, for example: Nils Rosen de Rosenstein, MD, Traité des maladies des enfants (Paris: Guillaume Cavelier, 1778), 4–5; Antoine Petit, MD, Traité des maladies des femmes enceintes, des femmes en couche, et des enfants nouveaux nés, 2 vols (Paris: Baudoin, 1798), II, 299. 18 George Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk: The Wet-Nursing Business in France, 1715–1914 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), 120–1, 165–6; Fanny Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices à Paris au XIXe siècle (Paris: Payot, 1980), 166–71. 19 Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 166, 245. 20 Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 120–1, 165–6; Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 166–71; Gaston Félix Joseph Variot, MD, L’Hygiène infantile, allaitement maternel et artificiel, sevrage (Paris: Hachette, 1908), 11–35, 40–55; Gaston Félix Joseph Variot, MD, Instructions aux mères pour allaiter et nourrir leurs enfants (Paris: Steinheil, 1914), 2–14; André-Théodore Brochard, MD, ‘Correspondance: Du servage du biberon’, La Jeune mére ou l‘éducation du premier âge (LJM), January 1881, 8, 10–12. 21 Jeanne Leroy-Allais, Les droits de l’enfant (Paris: Montgredien, 1900), 25–6. 22 See, for example: Variot, L’Hygiène infantile, 11–21, 40–55. 23 Peter Conrad, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 4. 24 Edwin R. Van Teijlingen et al., eds, Midwifery and the Medicalization of Childbirth: Comparative Perspectives (New York: Nova Publishers, 2004), 19; Andrea O’Reilly, ed., Encyclopedia of Motherhood (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2010), 500–1. 25 Michel Foucault, ‘The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century’, Foucault Studies, 2014, 18, 118–19. 26 Kevin White, An Introduction to the Sociology of Health and Illness (California: Sage, 2006), 42–43; Rima D. Apple, A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890–1950 (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), 3. 27 Valerie Fildes, Breasts, Bottles and Babies; Fildes, Wet-Nursing. 28 Apple, Mothers and Medicine; Janet Golden, A Social History of Wet Nursing in America: From Breast to Bottle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Several other studies dealt with wet-nursing, while scarcely mentioning bottle-feeding, for example: Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk; Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices. 29 Courtney Jung, Lactivism (New York: Basic Books, 2015), 7–15; Joan B. Wolf, Is Breast Best? (New York: New York University Press, 2011), x–xiii, 45–50, 70–1. 30 Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 229–36; Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 166–71. 31 On the socio-cultural setting, see Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 13. 32 See, for example, Biberon Gallo-Romain in: E. Flandrin, ‘L’Exposition de l’élevage de l’enfance’, La Nature, Revue des sciences et de leurs applications aux arts et à l’industrie, 1890, 18, 325, figs. 1–5. 33 Matthews and Corsini, Historical Perspectives, 22–7, 30–6; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 70–2, 96–7. 34 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Êmile, or On Education, Allan Bloom (trans.), (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 41–8; Duncan, ‘Happy Mothers’, 201–20; Robertson, ‘Home as a Nest’, 407–31. 35 Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 65–168, 171–4; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 229–36; Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 166–71. 36 Cited in Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 190. 37 Cited in Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 7. 38 Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 123–6; Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 56–7, Léon Lallemand, Histoire des enfants abandonnés et délaissés (Paris: A. Picard, 1885), 256–8. 39 M. A. Lenoir, Détail sur quelques établissements de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1780), 60; Thouret, ‘Allaitement’, 26–30. 40 Ibid., 11, 26. 41 On Rousseau’s worship of nature, see Rousseau, Êmile, 54–5. 42 For discussion of ‘normality’, see: Antonio Maturo and Peter Conrad, eds, The Medicalization of Life (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2009), 24. 43 Thouret, ‘Allaitement’, 11, 26. 44 Ibid., 26–7; Observations sur la Résolution du 16 floréal an 6 relative aux enfants nés hors mariage (Paris, 1798), 3–4; Lallemand, Histoire des enfants abandonnés, 258. 45 Wendy Griswold, Cultures and Societies in a Changing World (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994). 46 The mortality rate of abandoned babies is outlined in Lallemand, Histoire des enfants abandonnés, 261; Joan Sherwood, Infection of the Innocents: Wet Nurses, Infants, and Syphilis in France, 1780–1900 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), 7. 47 Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 1–25; Fildes, Breasts, 17–39. 48 Ibid., 268–9; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 144–7. 49 Thouret, ‘Allaitement’, 26–31. 50 Ibid., 12, 26. 51 Hugh Smith, MD, Le Guide des mères ou Manière d’allaiter, d’élever, d’habiller les enfans (Paris: Delalain, 1799), 61–2. 52 On Thouret’s recommendations, see ‘Allaitement’, 31. See also, Filippo Baldini, MD, ‘Biberon pour les enfants qui n’ont point de nourrice à téter’, in Bertrand Arthus, ed., Bibliothèque physico-économique (Paris: Buisson, 1786), 338, figs. 17–18; Filippo Baldini, MD, Manière d’allaiter les enfants à la main, au défaut de nourrices (Paris: Buisson, 1786), 139. 53 Baldini, ‘Biberon’, 339–40. 54 On the manufacture of the Russian horns, see Thouret, ‘Allaitement’, 27–31. On the problems of cleaning the horns, see, Jérôme Lasserre, Manuel du père de famille, ou Nouvelles méthodes de l’allaitement artificiel (Paris: Prosper Noubel, 1822), 13–14; Jean-Charles Chamoüin, MD, Des Soins hygiéniques à donner aux enfants du premier âge (Lyon: Schneider frères, 1881), 36. 55 Michael Underwood, MD, Traité des maladies des enfants, 2 vols (Paris: Gabon, 1823), II, 436; Sigismond Jaccoud, MD, Nouveau dictionnaire de médecine et de chirurgie pratiques 4 (Paris: A. Delahaye, 1866), 782; L. G. Deneux, MD, Mémoire sur les bouts de seins, ou mamelons artificiels et les biberons (Paris: Just-Rouvier, 1833), 49–50. 56 Lasserre, Manuel, 13–14; Jean-Charles Chamoüin, MD, Des Soins hygiéniques à donner aux enfants du premier âge (Lyon: Schneider frères, 1881), 36. 57 Martine Herzog Evans, ‘Féminisme biologique, allaitement et travail: Une nouvelle forme d’autodétermination des femmes’, La Revue des Droits de l’Homme, June 2013, 3, 154–8. 58 Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 121–9, 161–77; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 117–21. 59 Lasserre, Manuel, 9–10. 60 Ibid., 11, 39–40. 61 Ibid., 13–14. 62 Ibid., 18. 63 Ibid., 15–17, pl. 1. 64 Ibid., 18–24. 65 Ibid., 25. 66 Ibid., 21, 25–6. 67 Rousseau, Émile, 203. 68 Lasserre, Manuel, 22. 69 Mme Breton, Avis aux mères qui ne peuvent pas nourrir, ou instruction pratique sur l’allaitement artificiel (Paris, 1826), 1. 70 Ibid., title page. Her (inaccurate) quotation is taken from: Felix S. Ratier, MD, Nouvelle médecine domestique (Paris: Baillière, 1825), 257. 71 Breton, Avis aux mères, title page. 72 Ibid., 7–10. 73 Ibid., 14–15. 74 On the claim that the baby would not be able to differentiate between her bottle and its mother, see Ibid., 12–13; on the suggestion that the bottle could be used to supplement breast-feeding, see Ibid., 15–16. 75 Income data are taken from Christian Morrison and Wayne Snyder, ‘The Income Inequality of France in Historical Perspective’, European Review of Economic History, 2003, 4, 73, table 7. 76 Breton, Avis aux mères, title page. 77 Courrier des tribunaux (Paris, 1830), 1861, 1902, cited in Histoire du Biberon.com, retrieved March 2017. 78 Adolphe Blanqui, ‘Divers arts’, in Histoire de l’Exposition des produits de l’industrie française en 1827 (Paris: Dietz fils, 1827), 329. 79 Jules Hatin, MD, Cours complet d’accouchements et de maladies des femmes et des enfants (Paris: Crochard, 1835), 170, pl. 24, fig. 4. 80 For the letter from the Ministry of Commerce, see Deneux, Mémoire, 20–3, 29–30, 55–62. 81 Just Lucas-Championnière, ‘Considérations pratiques sur les bouts de sein artificiels et les biberons usités de nos jours’, Journal de médecine et de chirurgie pratiques, 1835, 6, 145. 82 Ibid., 146–7; Deneux, Mémoire, 46–8, 58–61. 83 Robert Labeÿ, ‘Christophe Colomb, le caoutchouc et les tétines’, Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie, 1994, 82, 59. 84 Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 245 offers data on the pricing of feeding-bottles. 85 Donné, Conseils aux mères, 135–6. 86 Ibid., 143–4. 87 Eugène Bouchut, MD, Hygiène de la première enfance (Paris: Ballière et Fils, 1862), 222–3. 88 Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 127; Charles Monot, MD, De l’industrie des nourrices et de la mortalité des petits enfants (Paris: Brochard, 1867), 86–9; Charles Monot, MD, De la mortalité excessive des enfants pendant la première année de leur existence (Paris: Baillière et fils, 1872), 23–4, 32–48, 51–63. 89 Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 94. 90 Monot, De l’industrie des nourrices, 86–9. 91 For data on the prevalence of maternal breast-feeding in the early twentieth century, see Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 110, table 2. 92 Ibid., 111–12, 165–8, 171–4; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 229–36; Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 166–71. 93 Grieco and Corsini, Historical Perspectives, 8, 17. 94 Yalom, A History of the Breast, 13–17. 95 Elisabeth Badinter, L’Amour en plus, Histoire de l’amour maternel XVIIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1980), 66–7. 96 See for example: Verdier-Heurtin, Discours, 18–28; Rebours, Avis aux mères, 61, 71, 87, 120; Leroy-Allais, Les droits de l’enfant, 25–6. 97 E. Talbert, MD, ‘L’allaitement maternel obligatoire’, La Jeune mère ou l’éducation du premier âge (LJM), January 1888, 15, 70. 98 Ibid., 69–70. 99 Ibid., 69–70. 100 For recommendations of breast-feeding on-demand, see Fildes, Breasts, 119–22. 101 Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 166–71; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 233–4. 102 See in: Fred Huchard, MD, ‘Causerie du Docteur: Des gerçures du mamelon’, LJM, May 1885, 12, 66. 103 Appadurai, The Social Life of Things, 3–58. 104 Henri Nestlé, Mémoire sur la nutrition des enfants en bas-âge (Vevey: Lœrtsher, 1872), 1–4; Jean-Claude Buffle, Dossier N comme Nestlé (Paris: A. Moreau, 1986), 15. 105 ‘Hygiène infantile: Le biberon’, LJM, April 1882, 9, 60. See also: ‘Causerie du Docteur’, LJM, April 1875, 4, 81–82; André-Théodore Brochard, MD, ‘Cours du Dr Brochard’, LJM, December 1880, 7, 182–7; Chamoüin, Des Soins hygiéniques, 36. 106 Thomas Grimm, MD, ‘Causerie du Docteur’, LJM, May 1875, 7, 81–3, 97–8. 107 LJM, 1873, 1, title page; Le Cosmos, 1873, 32, 573–5. 108 Brochard, ‘Correspondance’, LJM, December 1881, 8, 188–9. 109 M. Caradec, MD, ‘Causerie du docteur: Vive le biberon!’, LJM, March 1885, 8, 33. 110 Norman N. Potter and Joseph H. Hotchkiss, Food Science (New York: Chapman & Hall, 1995), 139–61, 284–6; Louise E. Robbins, Louis Pasteur and the Hidden Worlds of Microbes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 50–1. 111 Fay-Sallois, Les Nourrices, 166–71; Variot, L’Hygiène infantile, 11–35, 40–55; Brochard, ‘Correspondance’, 10–12. 112 On Pasteur and the acknowledgement of the importance of hygiene, see, for example: L’art d’élever les enfants au biberon (Paris: G. Masson, 1877), 17–18; Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences 92 (1881), 1176–7, 1547, 1569; Antonin Bernard Jean Marfan, MD, De l’allaitement artificiel (Paris: G. Steinheil, 1896), 51–90, 119–23. On the rise in the market for sterilising products, see, for example: ‘Stérilisateur’, M. Rainal, Catalogue général (Paris: Lahure, 1905), 305–6, figs. 1783–1784; Edouard Robert, Catalogue des Biberons de Dr Robert (Paris: Bacholet, 1910), figs. 24–26. 113 For the International Convention of Hygiene and Demography’s endorsement, see Congrès international d’hygiène et de démographie à Paris en 1889 (Paris: E. Monnoyer, 1890), 22–3; Catherine Rollet, La politique à l’égard de la petite enfance sous la Troisième République (Paris: Hachette, 1990), 171–4. The Parisian Academy’s endorsement can be found at:‘L’Allaitement des nourrissons’, 92. 114 André-Justin Martin, MD, Rapports du jury international: Hygiène, Ministère du Commerce (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1904), 5. 115 Labeÿ, ‘Christophe Colomb’, 55–60; Mary Ellen Snodgrass, ‘Rubber’, Encyclopedia of Kitchen History (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005), 856–8. 116 C. M. Gardien, MD, Traité complet d’accouchement et des maladies des femmes et des enfants 3 (Paris: Gabon, 1816), 286; Deneux, Mémoire, 36–8, 44–5; Duval, ‘Des mamelons artificiels’, 92–4, 117, 121, 444. 117 J. Bertillon, MD, ‘La Puériculture a bon marché’, L’Enfant, 1899, 8, 171. 118 Gustave Le Bon, Psychologie des foules (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1895), 8. 119 Alfred Picard, ‘Accessoire divers de service médical: Couvertures, biberons’, Exposition universelle internationale de 1889 à Paris (Paris: Ministère du commerce, 1891), 599–600. 120 See, for example: L. Deligny, MD, Le Biberon: Conseils aux mères (Paris: Asselin & Cie, 1882), 35–6; Variot, Instructions, 10–15. 121 See: ‘Le Nourricier Robert, biberons Robert sans tube’, in Edouard Robert, Biberon Robert: Biberons, stérilisateurs, téterelle, tétines, tubes (Paris: Bacholet, 1910), 2. 122 Pierre Julien, ‘Nouveaux documents sur le biberon Robert’, Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie, 1996, 84, 25–38. 123 Labeÿ, ‘Christophe Colomb’, 62. 124 Dolivet, ‘Chronique de l’exposition’, 2; L’art d’élever les enfants, 15. 125 Ibid., 9–11. 126 Ibid., 12–14. 127 Ibid., 15. 128 Ibid., 21. 129 See, for example: Brochard, ‘Cours du Dr Brochard’, 183; Alfred Jousset, MD, Le Biberon, ses indications, ses variétés, son rôle (Lille: Journal des sciences médicales, 1885), 23. 130 Léon Dufour, MD, Le Biberon à travers les âges dans le pays de Caux (Rouen: Emile Deshays, 1897), 10. 131 ‘L’Allaitement des nourrissons’, 92. 132 E. Cadenaule, MD, ‘Hygiène des nourrissons’, L’Enfant, 1913, 22, 184; Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 200–1; Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 165. 133 Paul Strauss, Dépopulation et Puériculture (Paris: E. Fasquelle, 1901). 134 See, for example: Deligny, Le Biberon, 2728, 35–6; Marfan, De l’allaitement artificiel, 124–34. 135 Variot, L’Hygiène infantile, 13, 21. 136 On Variot’s view that bottle-feeding contributed to high infant mortality, see Instructions, 2. 137 Variot, L’Hygiène Infantile, 24–55. 138 On Donné’s ideology, see Conseils aux mères, 10–11. 139 Peter Conrad, ‘Medicalization and Social Control’, Annual Review of Sociology, 1992, 8, 211. 140 Michel Foucault, ‘The Crisis of Medicine or the Crisis of Antimedicine?’, Foucault Studies, 2004, 1, 13. 141 The distribution of free milk is described in Fildes, Wet-Nursing, 275; Sussman, Selling Mothers’ Milk, 166. 142 The term ‘sein artificiel’ is taken from Henry Galante, MD, Applications médico-chirurgicales du caoutchouc vulcanisé dans l’état actuel de la science (Paris: Baillière, 1867), 26, 122, 156, 253, 355. 143 Breton’s recommendations can be found at Avis aux mères, 14–15. 144 For Breton’s suggestions concerning examining the baby’s nappies, see Ibid., 20–1; for the introduction of charts and diagrams, see, for example, Variot, Instructions, 6–7. 145 Lynn Y. Weiner, ‘Reconstructing Motherhood: The La Leche League in Postwar America’, The Journal of American History, March 1994, 80, 1357–63. 146 The quote in this sentence is taken from ‘Hygiène infantile: Le biberon’, LJM, April 1882, 9, 60. 147 Brochard, ‘Cours du Dr Brochard’, 187. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - ‘Long Live the Bottle’: The Rise of the French Bottle-feeding Industry in the Nineteenth Century
JF - Social History of Medicine
DO - 10.1093/shm/hkx060
DA - 2019-05-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/long-live-the-bottle-the-rise-of-the-french-bottle-feeding-industry-in-LbcAuK1Fq6
SP - 329
VL - 32
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -