ioo8 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



than by boiling, and generally pasteurization is sufficient to make the milk 

 clean and wholesome. If milk is to be pasteurized, the easiest way is to 

 mix the milk, water, and sugar for the entire day's feedings previous to 

 heating the milk, fill the bottles which have been sterilized by being 

 boiled, stopper with clean absorbent cotton, and set on a rack in a boiler 

 or deep kettle with sufficient water to come to the level of the milk in the 

 bottles. The water should be kept at a temperature of 145°- 155° F. for 

 forty-five minutes. A dairy thermometer may be used for regulating the 

 temperature. At the end of this time the bottles should be removed, 

 cooled quickly, and put away in a cold place until ready for use. 



It is a much discussed question as to the effects which cooking has upon 

 milk, but the consensus of opinion is that milk thus treated loses some of 

 its desirable properties. While this may not be of great importance 

 when milk is only a part of the dietary, as with older children and grown 

 persons, it is of considerable importance to the baby living entirely on 

 milk. When sterilized milk must be fed, it is believed to give better 

 results if a teaspoonful of strained and diluted orange juice is given between 

 feedings several times a day. The freshness of the orange juice is believed 

 to counteract in part the hanii done by sterilization. An effort should 

 be made to procure milk produced under such clean conditions as to make 

 sterilization or pasteurization unnecessary. 



patent foods 



Little has been said so far concerning the use of the various patent 

 foods on the market, save that they cannot compete successfully with 

 carefully made milk mixtures in substitute or artificial feeding. 



The baby should have its carbohydrate in a soluble form like sugar, 

 for it has little power to digest starch until about the sixth month or later. 

 Some of the patent foods contain as their chief food-stuff unchanged 

 starch, and as this is not available to the baby the child may actually 

 suffer from tissue hunger although the stomach and intestine are full. 

 To give best results, the baby's food should contain fat in a finely 

 divided, easily digested form. Many of the patent foods contain little 

 or no fat. Perhaps the strongest case against the patent foods is their 

 lack of the food-stuff known as mineral matter or salts, which is so essential 

 to healthy growth and development. Many cases of malnutrition result 

 directly from the use of such of these foods as are deficient in fat and 

 mineral matter. A common ailment among babies thus fed is rickets, an 

 ailment that is serious and may be lasting in its effects. 



When a patent food is made with milk, its bad effects are minimized 

 and it may serve a useful purpose. As has already been pointed out, 



