THE SOLDIER-POET LUIGI TANSILLO'S POEM ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BREAST-FEEDING

摘要

Luigi Tansillo (1510-1569) was not a physician but a soldier. His didactic pediatric poem La Balia (The Nurse) was discovered in manuscript in 1767, so that its publication had to wait more than two centuries after his death.1Tansillo's poem, translated into English by William Roscoe in 1798, is an impassioned appeal for breast-feeding. This is an example of his plea-written more than 500 years ago-for mothers to nurse their infants.2What fury hostile to the human kindFirst led from Nature's path the female mindTh' ingenuous sense by fashion's law represtAnd to a babe denied its mother's breast?O Crime! with herbs and drugs of essence highThe sacred fountains of the breast to dryTo seek a nurse ye trace the country roundAt length the mercenary aid is found-Some wretch of vulgar birth and conduct frail;Some known offender, flagrant from the jail;In mind an idiot, or depraved of life,A shameless strumpet or impoverished wife.Not half a mother, she, who pride deniesThe streaming beverage to her infant's cries.