My mother, knew of such a child. Could not breast feed and could not drink cow's milk, thus goat milk was given to that child. Goat's milk was the milk of choice (and is believed to be where we get the term "Kids" for children, Kid is the name of a baby goat).
It is presently believed that the word "Kid" was restricted to goats in the middle ages. The first recording of the word "Kid" for children is in 1599, but remain rare in print till the 1840s. This may be do to the introduction of Pulp paper. Pulp paper was invented in 1801, but really took off in the 1830s. Thus by the 1840s you start to see what we would call a "Newspaper". Prior to that time period, Newspapers were printed in Linen paper, a much more expensive paper (Dollar bills are still printed in linen paper for example). Linen paper last longer and thus was preferred when the main purpose of newspapers was advertisements. What we call "Headlines" and even "Front page news" did NOT become the norm for newspapers til the US Civil War. Prior to that time period (1860s), when you saw a newspaper for sale, what you saw on the front page was advertisements.
I bring this up for whenever I see something new in print in the 1830-1860 period, I have to remember that it is possible it is new in print for no one prior to that time period would waste costly linen paper to print such an item or word. i.e. the world may have been in use, but not used in print. You see this today when it comes to computers, how much "data" is kept today, that 30 years ago would NEVER have ever been recorded. i..e in the days of manual recording of data, no one would have wasted their time writing it down. You see the same increase in records in the 1300s as linen paper replaced parchment as the main form of "Paper" in Europe. Parchment is thin leather, and thus costly to make, but can last for 1000 years. Due to the cost of Parchment, only important things were written down and kept as records. This does NOT appear to include records of births, deaths, marriages EXCEPT for important persons (kings, dukes etc, but rarely knights or peasants). Bibles were kept in the village church, it was rare to have one in anyone's home and then mostly in homes of the aristocracy.
Linen paper, introduced in the 1300s, permitted less important records to be kept, such as records of births, deaths, marriages and even transfer of property, but not minor issues like what time to show up for work, how long did you work, and if you had a contract to work for someone. Such day to day records had to wait till the introduction of pulp paper in the 1800s. Linen paper permitted people to buy a books to read, mostly just the bible for while linen paper was cheaper then parchment, it was still to expensive for papers intended to be read once and then thrown away.
We are going through the fifth increase in record keeping in history. The first was actual writing but mostly in stone. The second was the switch to papyrus (in Egypt and places that could trade with Egypt around 2200 BC, but it was a common paper throughout the Mediterranean world by the time of the Greek Golden age and the Roman Empire). The third increase was the switch to Parchment around the time of the Golden Age of Greece, mostly due to the high cost of Papyrus given the over harvesting of Papyrus to satisfy the demand for something to write on. Papyrus continued to be used in Europe till the 700s, the Vatican continued to use it till 1022. Parchment permitted local production of writing material so that you did not have to to worry about secure trade lines to have something to write on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchment
In the 1200s came Linen Paper, the FOURTH big increase in record keeping. Linen paper had been known to the Chinese by 100 AD, but they kept it a secret till the Mongol Conquest of the 1200s. From the Mongols the technology arrived in Baghdad in the mid 1200s and into Europe in the 1300s. This was the Fourth increase in record keeping. In 1801 Pulp paper was invented, but a way to produce it commercially was NOT made till 1844. This lead to the massive increase in record keeping and transfer of information that was the hallmark of the Mid 1800s till today. Prior to the 1840s, it was perfectly possible to live well and enjoy life without knowing how to read and write. Most information was spread orally during that time period (Through much of the information was being spread by writings on papers, but then read to the public by readers hired to read such writings). After the 1840s that was no longer the case.
We are now in the fifth massive increase in Record keeping, electronic record keeping. Radio and Television really did NOT increase record keeping, they did help information being spread, but not in record keeping. Computers and modern data bases have increased what records can be kept AND USED. Pulp paper increased the amount of record keeping, but much of those records were NOT usable for it was hard to retrieve. That is rapidly becoming a thing of the past for with modern computers even those old records can be searched for data that someone wants.
Sorry about going off on this tangent, but we are entering an age where information can be at our fingertips, when just decades ago most of the same information was either never recorded OR if recorded hard to retrieve. This includes information on things like Goat's milk and how it relates to human Milk. Many people knew that if a baby could not be breast feed, and could NOT take cow's milk, the best option was goat's milk. While people knew this, it was NOT often written down, and if written down NOT easily found by the people who needed that information.
This increase in access to "Data" is the main thing that separate us from even the people living in the 1980s. We are in the middle of a massive increase in data keeping and data sharing and it will change our society, hopefully for the better.
= new reply since forum marked as read
- Both make sense......
