Nurses and treaties of paediatrics at Madrid of the eighteenth century

Abstract

Throughout the eighteenth century the debate between mother breastfeeding and mercenary breastfeeding is spread. The figure of the nurse happens to be questioned by the medical science. The physiological discoveries about the female body are fixed in their reproductive function exclusively. So, the illustrated discourse establishes the identity between women and motherhood as a biological fact and as a social construction to redefine the role of the mother, indispensable in the first years of life of children and their mission to breastfeed, raise and educate them. Childcare treaties, so the Spanish authorship as foreign translations pursue teaching mothers everything related to the care and health of the children, to give the state sturdy citizens and help alleviate the demographic deficit. Also, these treaties have the nurse as a nurturing mother antagonist because it can destroy the child with her milk and bad habits.