492 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



its nutritive qualities. Investigation lias demonstrated that milk 

 subjected to lengthy boiling under pressure is in many ways un- 

 suited to the digestion of an infant. Chemical analyses have 

 proved what experience has shown to be the case namely, that 

 milk sterilized by the higher and prolonged temperature is not 

 fit for administration to an infant. Dr. Henry Chapin, of New 

 York, has been making a study of infant feeding and of children 

 in the Post-graduate Hospital of that city, to which he is at- 

 tached, and he says, in an article recently published in the New 

 York Medical Journal, that partial sterilization or Pasteuriza- 

 tion, to the point of killing the germs only, is necessary and de- 

 sirable, as a high and continuous temperature produces unfavor- 

 able changes in the milk; the fat collects in masses, the albu- 

 minoids are changed, the casein is altered, and the digestive 

 action on the casein of sterilized milk is incomplete. Simply 



sufficient heat must be applied to the milk to keep it sweet 

 until the next supply can be procured. Herein lay one of the 

 most frequent sources of trouble in the earlier days of steriliza- 

 tion, caused by lack of exact knowledge in this direction ; and in. 

 addition to this, when sterilized milk was first introduced, manj^ 

 mothers reasoned that, being sterile, it was a perfect food, and 

 consequently used it without any further preparation, with the 

 natural result of indigestion and all its resultant ailments. It is 

 quite true that milk to be a perfect food must first be sterile, but 

 it must also be assimilable ; and to reach this point great care 

 must be given as well to its preparation and administration. 

 Notwithstanding the care exercised by boards of health, it is 

 impossible at any time to be sure of the purity of the milk sup- 

 ply ; hence the need is urgent that it be made safe by Pasteuriza- 

 tion, which is, in reality, simply subjecting the milk to the lower 

 temperature of 150 to 1G0 F., instead of 212 F., as was formerly 

 done, and is called thus in deference to Pasteur, who long ago 

 found that the ordinary germs of fermentation and bacteria 



