176 GROWTH-PROMOTING AND CURATIVE: PROPERTIES 



true virtue attributed to the sweetened condensed milk, lay in 

 the fact that the mothers carefully followed the directions on 

 the label for dilution. The directions specify that the condensed 

 milk be diluted with ten to sixteen parts of water. The majority 

 of cases of digestive disorders in bottle-fed babies are un- 

 doubtedly the result of the natural tendency of the mother to 

 feed her child too much milk or too rich milk. When we con- 

 sider that the ratio of concentration in sw r eetened condensed milk 

 is only about 2.5 to 1, it is obvious that a dilution of 10 or 16 to 

 1 is a great relief to the over-taxed digestive organs of infants, 

 previously fed on milk too rich for normal digestion. The im- 

 mediate change of the health and disposition of these babies for 

 the better, as the result of turning from a prolonged siege of 

 too rich food to the very dilute condensed milk, is therefore not 

 surprising. 



The manufacturer of sweetened condensed milk in this 

 country is inclined to load his product excessively with sucrose. 

 He does this largely in an effort to increase the keeping quality 

 and to guard against the development of fermentations in the 

 finished article that ruin the goods for the market. While a 

 certain amount of sucrose is necessary to preserve this milk, yet, 

 if the product is manufactured from a good quality of fresh milk, 

 as it should be, and when the proper sanitary conditions are 

 maintained in all departments of the factory, sixteen pounds of 

 cane sugar per. one hundred pounds of fresh milk is entirely 

 sufficient. He should bear in mind that sweetened condensed 

 milk is used and accepted by the consumer as a substitute for 

 market milk, and it is the manufacturer's moral duty to retain 

 in this substitute the normal properties and composition of the 

 product which it is supposed to replace, as nearly as is consistent 

 with the production of a wholesome and marketable product. 



Growth-Promoting and Curative Properties. 1 Recent dis- 

 coveries by Hart of the University of Wisconsin, McCollum 

 and Davis, formerly of the University of Wisconsin and now 

 at John Hopkins University. Osborne & Mendell of Yale 

 University and other eminent nutrition experts have demon- 

 strated, that before complete growth can occur in a young 

 animal, or for prolonged maintenance, or for the preven- 



i Journal of Biological Chemistry 1913 to 1917. 



