'Goat suckling a child in 1958, El Mojon, Teguise, Lanzarote.”
'Goat suckling a child in 1958, El Mojon, Teguise, Lanzarote.” '' Goat suckling a child in 1958, El Mojon, Teguise, Lanzarote.” This photo was taken in 1958, in a small town in the Canary Islands. The original caption read: “Goat suckling a child in 1958, El Mojon, Teguise, Lanzarote.” Throughout history, goats have been used as wet nurses when the mother could not produce milk or hiring a human wet nurse was too expensive. In the 16th century, many mothers rejected wet nurses for fear of infecting their newborn with syphilis. Pierre Brouzet, who was a physician to King Louis the XV, remarked that “some peasants who have no other nurses but ewes, and these peasants were as strong and vigorous as others.” In the 1976 book, “American Folk Medicine: A Symposium,” author Wayland D. Hand discusses the phenomenon in more detail: “Because milk does not keep well once it is separated from the animal and because the act of suckling was believed to aid digestion in in...