THE INSUFFICIENT USE OF MILK, 491 



time it was possible, not only to compare births and deaths, but also 

 to determine their proportion to the living. With the exception of 

 the very young and old ages, where the numbers had been too few to 

 make it reliable, the excellence of the Carlisle table was so pronounced 

 that it quickly superseded the Northampton table, and remained in use 

 until within a very recent period. With its adoption, premiums were 

 again lowered, and the business increased largely. It outgrew the 

 experimental stage, and, until then confined to England, began to 

 extend to the Continent of Europe. 



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THE INSUFFICIENT USE OF MILK. 



By DYCE DUCKWOETH, M. D., F. E. C. P. 



I DESIRE to call attention to the insufficient employment of milk as 

 an ordinary article of diet in this country. It may seem hardly 

 possible to maintain that such a complaint is rightly grounded. All 

 classes of persons are supposed to use milk, to some amount, as a mat- 

 ter of course. And although adults are not supposed to take very 

 much, save what they consume with tea and coffee, yet children are 

 commonly credited with the consumption of a good deal, or, at all 

 events, of a sufficiency, of this commodity. 



In this communication I propose to show that this common belief 

 is largely erroneous, and that persons of all classes, and of all ages, io 

 England, consume too little milk. The consequences of this starvation 

 I hold to be serious, and the remedy for it perhaps not far to seek. 

 The subject may be best considered, first, as it affects the communities 

 settled in cities and towns ; and, secondly, in relation to the peasantry 

 and country population generally. 



Is is not too much to say that a fitting supply of milk is at present 

 too seldom secured even by families who can well afford to pay for it. 

 The full value of milk as an article of diet is not yet sufficiently appre- 

 ciated by people who ought to be aware of it. Many adults regard it 

 mainly as food for children, and many believe that they can not digest 

 it, and state that it " curdles on the stomach," and makes them " bil- 

 ious." The ordinary milk-supply to many establishments is just suffi- 

 cient to allow their tea and coffee to be colored with it. A very inade- 

 quate quantity is often given to children, and the quality of it is no 

 better than that yielded by skimmed milk, with, possibly, more or less 

 water added to it. And in such households as I am now referring to, 

 there is often, curiously enough, a stinginess in respect to cream, or 

 what is made to pass for it, which, paltry and niggardly as it is, con- 

 trasts ridiculously, and I will say vulgarly, with the more free ex- 

 penditure not uncommonly assented to on bad sherry and worse claret. 



