202 The 'Book of the Goat. 



" contains substances in the nature of ferments of a vary- 

 ing solubility according to the class of animal. These 

 ferments, necessary to digestion, are destroyed by sterili- 

 sation. Thus it is that vigorous children with a well- 

 formed digestive canal, and which is well furnished with 

 digestive ferments and assimilators, are able at a push 

 to thrive on sterilised milk, but, on the other hand, 

 children that are delicate have need of the ferments con- 

 tained in raw milk and are quite incapable of digesting 

 milk rendered inert by sterilisation." 



In a paper read before the members of the British 

 Goat Society in 1880 on " Goats' Milk as a Food for 

 Infants and Invalids," Dr. Robert J. Lee, at that time 

 one of the physicians to the Children's Hospital, Great 

 Ormond Street, said : " I am quite certain that if a hun- 

 dred children were fed on goats' milk, and compared with 

 an equal number of corresponding ages (all circumstances 

 being similar) who were fecLon any other milk, except that 

 of their mothers, the goats' milk children would, in com- 

 parison at least with those fed on cows' milk, have an 

 advantage. This opinion has been formed partly from my 

 own observation, for the children that I have seen fed on 

 goats' milk have thriven in the most satisfactory way, even 

 when they had not thriven on cows' milk ; partly also from 

 the experience of those who have kept goats and brought 

 up large and healthy families upon the milk. 



" I will give one instance among many that have come 

 under my notice of the value of goats' milk as a food for. 

 young children. It was that of an infant three months 

 old, whose mother was obliged to wean it, with the not 

 unfrequent result of serious illness to the child. After 

 trying the usual plans of feeding children under these 

 circumstances, I advised that goats' milk should be tried 

 before resorting to a wet-nurse. Some fresh goats' milk 

 was obtained daily from the country, was boiled and 



