696 PROCEEDIIVGS OF SECTION I. 



proteid, carboliydrate, fat, mineral salts, and water in its food, but 

 owing to the undeveloped state of its organs of assimilation an infant 

 cannot avail itself of any wide dietary range. Milks, therefore, are 

 practically the only class of foodstuffs which Nature has designed to 

 that end. No artificial food can ever really replace the mother's milk. 



If the mother's milk is the ideal food supplying the infant with 

 proteid, fat, and carbohydrates in proportions adapted to its needs, 

 the only logical substitute is a food which will do the same. The 

 carbohydrates are the ingredients in the dietary of infants least likely 

 to be repi-esented in too small amount. There is, on the contrary, a 

 much greater danger of supplying them in excess, or of making them 

 a substitute for fat. 



There is an immense number of patent infants' foods on the 

 market, each of which claims to be " the best food for infants," or " a 

 perfect substitute for mother's milk." 



The majority of such foods are foimd to be deficient in fat and 

 too rich in carbohydrate. Some of these foods may be of some service 

 in supplementing the diet of infants who are unable to digest much 

 cow's milk, but they are not to be recommended as the " perfect " or 

 '■ ideal " foods the elaborate wording of the labels would have us 

 believe. 



All these patent and proprietary infant foods sliould contain on 

 each packet or bottle a printed statement showing the full analysis 

 (certified by a competent analyst) of their contents. 



Legislation on this matter, as well as legal control of the many 

 useless and often dangerous quack infant-nostrums now on the market 

 is urgently needed, if the food factor be recogiiised as havinsr an 

 important bearing on infant mortality. 



Administeative. 



With regard to administrative measures in the problem of infant 

 mortality, the methods hitherto adopted by local authorities have 

 been chiefly educational. 



Leaflets containing instructions in infant feeding and circulars on 

 the prevention of infantile diarrhoea have been widely distributed by 

 many health and local authorities, and, in addition, women health 

 visitors have been appointed to give personal instruction to mothers 

 on these subjects. These educational methods are to be commended, 

 but it is doubtful whether they have had a distinctly appreciable effect 

 in preventing tlie wastage of infant life. Mothers should certainly be 

 taught how to feed their infants and what to avoid, but, as artificial 

 feeding of infants is a matter of some technical difficulty demanding 

 care and most scrupulous cleanliness, many mothers in our poorer 

 districts with their wretched housing accommodation miist often fail 

 to successfully carry out the suggestions recommended in the usual 

 nuinicipal leaflet. 



Something more is required than mere advice. 



Milk to be used for infant feeding has to be diluted and other- 

 wise modified, and it is best that such modification should be carried 

 out under medical or other expert supervision. 



The establishment of municipal infants' milk depots have made 

 this supervision possible. At such deputs the milk is modified to suit 



